Upon settling down to their reading last month, the students and teaching fellows of Literature and Arts B-10 were startled to find that photos and illustrations had been omitted from an article on Robert Mapplethorpe's photography of the black male nude.

Professor of Fine Arts Norman Bryson, who teaches the introductory art history course "Art and Visual Culture" with Professor of Fine Arts Irene J. Winter, said he was disappointed that the illustrations accompanying an article by Kobena Mercer titled "Skin Head Sex Thing" were not included in the 666-page source-book.

Mapplethorpe's federally-funded photography was attacked by conservative lawmakers who described many of his nude homoerotic images as pornographic.

Bryson, who said the article reached the sourcebook office late, said it may have been difficult to obtain copyright permission from the Mapplethorpe estate.

Still, Bryson said that upon contacting William G. Witt, copyright officer in the sourcebook office, he was dismayed to learn that the reason for the photos omissions were dual.

"He didn't want his office to become the center of controversy," Bryson said, reading from notes he took of his conversation with Witt.

"I'm not quite sure who is being offended," Bryson wondered. "It is offensive to a number of people to have the photos removed. I'm not sure who is actually being offended."

Among the 12 illustrations in the article, only five are Mapplethorpe photos and only three of these include male nudity.

The most controversial photo in the article is "Man in a Polyester Suit," which shows the arms, torso and legs of a black man dressed in a suit. The open fly reveals a large penis which is the central focus of the photo.

Other Mapplethorpe photos in the article include two facial shots of black men and two poses of nude black men, one with an erect penis.

None of the Mapplethorpe illustrations portray sex acts, although two photos by Rotimi Fani-Kayode show two black men in a sexual pose and a black man's behind juxtaposed in front of a bronze head.

A commercial greeting card reproduced in the article reads "Every thing you ever heard about black men is true!" and shows photos of a black man dressed and undressed with an erect penis.

According to Witt, the illustrations included in Mercer's article were the property of their artists or the artists' estates and could not be reprinted.

But none of the illustrations in the article was reproduced, including those from the greeting card, newspapers and magazines, which were the property of other publishers.

Due to time constraints, Witt said he told Winter that it would be impossible to have obtained the permission of Mapplethorpe's estate and produce the sourcebook in time for the first week of classes in September.

"Professor Winter agreed that, this being the case, it would probably be best to include the text and just put the material on reserve so that if students felt it was absolutely necessary to look at this for their education they could do so," Witt said yesterday.