Stass Paraskos Obscenity Trial 1966

The Stass Paraskos obscenity trial was a notorious court case held in the northern English city of Leeds in 1966 involving an exhibition of paintings by the Cyprus-born British artist, Stass Paraskos.

Stass Paraskos was born in Cyprus in 1933, but moved to England in 1953. Settling in the city of Leeds he enrolled for classes at Leeds College of Art and became an painter. In 1961 he began teaching at Leeds College of Art, and in 1966 an exhibition of his work, under the title Lovers and Romances, was organised for him by fellow artists and Leeds College of Art lecturers, Patrick Hughes and Robin Page, in the art college’s gallery, known as the Leeds Institute Gallery.

When the exhibition opened it was allegedly visited by local school group, but the teacher leading the group objected to the painting called Lovers and Romances and two colour sketches on the grounds that they showed a woman masturbating a man. The teacher reported the exhibition to the local police force and the exhibition was raided by the police and closed down. Although initially the City of Leeds Police decided no action should be taken, the Director of Public Prosecutions at the time, Norman Skelhorn, overruled its decision and insisted that Paraskos should be brought before the courts to face charges under Section 4 of Vagrancy Act 1824 and Section 2 of the Vagrancy Act 1838.

Following this, Paraskos was summonsed to appear in court in Leeds on a charge of displaying paintings that were 'lewd and obscene', in contravention of the Vagrancy Acts and that the images were likely to ‘corrupt and deprave' anyone who saw them. This court case was one of a number of important legal challenges to the freedom of the arts in the 1960s and 70s, starting with the Lady Chatterley trial in 1960, and ending with the Oz magazine trial in 1971. However, 1966 appears to have been a key year in attempts by the British legal authorities to place restrictions on artistic freedom, with attempted and actual prosecutions that year of an exhibition at the Robert Fraser Gallery in London of paintings by Jim Dine, and a display of prints by the Victorian artist, Aubrey Beardsley, at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, in addition to the Paraskos trial.

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