What Masterpieces of Art History Would Look Like Censored by a Local News Station

On Monday, New York City’s Fox affiliate ran a segment about the record-breaking sale of Pablo Picasso’s Les Femmes d’Alger (version O), a modern masterpiece that was auctioned off for $179.35 million (including the commission paid to Christie’s). Like many of Picasso’s paintings, the work featured some female nudity, albeit of the Cubist variety—which the station decided to censor.

Inspired by the station’s expert blurring, we decided to see what other masterpieces of art history would look like if censored by an overzealous local news channel.

Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix, 1830

Madonna Litta, Leonardo da Vinci, 1490–1491

Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, Marcel Duchamp, 1912

Series I, No. 8, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1919

Blue Nude II, Henri Matisse, 1952

The Garden of Earthly Delights, Hieronymus Bosch, 1503–1504

Le fermier et son épouse, Joan Miró, 1936

Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, Lucian Freud, 1995

The Luncheon on the Grass, Édouard Manet, 1862–1863

No. 36 (Black Stripe), Mark Rothko, 1958