One of Tony Swann’s artworks

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PUT some clothes on ­– or move the session, a life drawing class in Hampstead has been told. Artists and models have moved out of the Hampstead Community Centre ­– their home for the past 30 years – after management said the nude subjects conflicted with the children’s activities also held at the centre.

The art class, which has been popular with pensioners, were given the option to use clothed models if they wanted to keep a daytime slot.

Organiser Tony Swann said: “People come because it’s life drawing class. If you’ve got a figure in clothes you might as well just draw a pile of clothes in the corner of the room.”

He added: “When you’ve got a figure, there are rhythms and patterns through the body. It’s convention for artists to draw the figure either naked or very nearly naked.”

Mr Swann had been told in an email that his slot at the Hampstead Community would be moved to Friday evenings “due to the timing of children’s activities taking place before and after your class”.

Two out of the 22 attendees said they would still come to the class if it was hosted on Friday evenings.

None said they would go to a clothed model class.

Hilary Curtis, 63, who has modelled for the group for 10 years, said: “The fact that one of the options was to continue but using clothed models to me points to the view that it’s some kind of puritanical attitude towards the nude.

“Drawing the nude has been the central discipline of Western art since whenever, and it’s what people want to do. It’s very, very clear that if the model is clothed, you can’t see your mistakes, and you can’t see the subtlety of the tone and the muscle.”

She added: “I think it’s important to stress that life drawing models are not necessarily beautiful people. They come in all ages, shapes and sizes. “I’m in my 60s. I’m not yet at the state retirement age. And you know, I’m not beautiful. I maybe have good cheekbones and some definition. It’s about the accurate appreciation of the human form in all its diversity.

“There’s absolutely nothing sexual about it because the focus is intense concentration on getting the form right.”

The Hanpstead Community Centre

In November, the class swallowed a rent increase from £25 a week to £75, but Mr Swann said it would not be financially viable to continue running the class in the evening if only two people attended.

Mr Swann added: “It just seems a very odd decision for something that has been running for 30 years. “Lot of pensioners come and it fulfils all the criteria of the community centre.”

Ms Curtis added: “It’s a constructive activity that a lot of people want to engage in. It’s sociable, it’s creative. It’s exactly the sort of thing that the community centre ought to be supporting.”

Carlos Tapia Montes, manager at Hampstead Community Centre, said: “The Management Committee reached a decision that in the context of the Community Centre’s daily activities and to acknowledge safeguarding concerns that had been raised, the external hire of the hall for life drawing classes would be better returned to the evening slot where it had previously run very successfully for many years.”

The classes are now being switched from the centre in Hampstead High Street to a booking at the Quakers Meeting House in Heath Street.

Attendee Mike Smith said: “I know I speak not just for myself when I say as well as a great way to keep up one’s drawing and observational skills, what people particularly enjoy about life drawing is the high degree of concentration it demands.

“Because of it, once you get going on a drawing, it’s as if time slows down. There’s a silence in the room. In many ways it is like active meditation and for so many, a welcome break from the rush of everyday life.”