LONDON, ENGLAND.- The Independent reported that a group of traditionalists has launched the Society for the Appreciation of the Female Nude (SAFN) to encourage artists who depict beautiful female nudes, whether in a classical or modern style. The founders are a group of wealthy art-lovers who believe “that contemporary artists who follow a tradition stretching from Botticelli to the Victorians Leighton and Millais are being sidelined by Britain’s national galleries”. 

The group fears that an aesthetic of ugliness is favoured by the new arts establishment. The SAFN established the Venus Prize. This prize will be presented annually to an artist who "expresses the beauty of a woman wholly at ease with her own body while communicating a female sensuality openly but non-provocatively". 

The first recipient of the award will be Ulla Plougmand-Turner, a self-taught Danish-born artist. As part of the award, she will receive a £500 Fabergé-style jewellery box from Knightsbridge jewellers Mozafarian, presented by the Marquess of Bath. 

Jonathan Rush, spokesman for this group, stated, “A tour of any leading modern art gallery from New York’s Solomon Guggenheim to London’s Tate Modern, or the recently opened Saatchi Gallery, confirms that much modern art continues Picasso’s legacy with its depictions of grotesque female nudity."