Whatever else he was, David Hamilton was an artist, in the sense that he developed techniques to produce images which many people appreciate. His photographs appear as cover art on three novels by Jennifer McMahon, Promise Not to Tell, Island of Lost Girls and Dismantled, as well as Karl Ove Knausgård's 1998 debut novel Ute av verden ( Out of the World). The band Ride used some of his photographs on different releases, i.e.: the Twisterella and Leave them All Behind EPs. a b Boxer, Sarah (March 4, 1998). "Critic's Notebook; Arresting Images of Innocence (or Perhaps Guilt)". The New York Times . Retrieved February 17, 2013. Nudity here does not mean anything… People are naked because they are nudists and spend the warmer months at resorts, free from feelings of embarrassment,” the author said. Naked young people are only a part of his exploration of “a journey from child to adult” – a journey that takes many years to complete. “The better you know your models, the more likely you are to make a picture that is “true”, the artist said, “A single image could be arresting and interesting but unless it was followed by more work it seemed to pose more questions than answers for me”.

Jock Sturges - Wikipedia

Carvajal, Doreen (February 1, 1995). "THE NATION; Pornography Meets Paranoia". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved September 8, 2019. They bonded over photography, and he started bringing her on shoots, he said. Sturges persuaded her to pose for topless and nude photographs, and they had sex in his darkroom and in the woods, the prosecutor said. Grand Jury Indicts Barnes & Noble for Books Depicting Nude Children". Los Angeles Times. February 19, 1998 . Retrieved February 19, 2013. Sturges was born in 1947 in New York. From 1966 to 1970, he served in the United States Navy as a Russian linguist. He graduated with a BFA in Perceptual psychology and Photography from Marlboro College and received an MFA in photography from the San Francisco Art Institute. [1] Career [ edit ] I have done nothing improper. Clearly the instigator of this media lynching is looking for her 15 minutes of fame, by defaming me in her novel...For a long time, many decades, I refused to believe that what I thought I wanted when I was 14 turned out to be a protracted form of sexual abuse and exploitation,” she said. “In the aftermath of my time at Northfield Mount Hermon, I fell apart. I had a complete nervous breakdown, suffered from extreme depersonalization and anxiety, to a point where I was not able to function at school or society.” Hamilton on the other hand made a small fortune and hi reputation by recruiting the. children of strangers, children with whom he had no deeper or continued commitment to once he was done with them. There are two totally different arguments, and I think it's dishonest to muddle them together. The first is the art, and the second is the rape. It's often argued that photos of nude kids should be banned because pedophiles like them... Well, don't pedophiles like photos of clothed kids too? If so, does that mean photos of clothed children and adolescents should be banned into the bargain?

Jock Sturges — 141 Artworks in the Artory Registry.

We had a regionally well-known photographer here in Indianapolis several years ago (Miles Fork) who was sent to prison for drugging and raping a 16-year-old aspiring model. His portfolio was Maxim-style so no one really talked about it in an artistic sense. The conversation during that was rooted mostly in how a 43-year-old man got that much alone-time with the teenager. It didn't help that Fork's daughter came forward and claimed her father molested her, too. It's interesting that we have two different conversations in similar situations because of the perceived artistic merit in the types of photography. This defense continued with Hamilton asserting that he will begin legal proceedings against the accusers, but on November 25, 2016, he was found dead. His death's cause, while unclear, is suspected to be suicide. Flament issued a statement soon after Hamilton's death reached the media and pulled no punches: Beem, Edgar Allen (January 3, 2008). "Catching Up with; The Way of All Flesh". Photo District News. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015 . Retrieved February 23, 2013.The “Without embarrassment” project was launched in early September 2016. It consisted of photographs of the families of the nudists of France, Northern California and Ireland, with whom Sturges was friends and communicated. The author photographed them throughout his long creative career. Starting work in series in the 1970s, Sturges captured 3 generations of models. The shots revealed their beauty, the girls voluntarily and without embarrassment posed for the photographer. His subjects are nude adolescents and their families, primarily taken at communes in Northern California and at the Atlantic-coast naturist resort CHM Montalivet in Vendays-Montalivet. Much of his work features California resident Misty Dawn, whom he shot from when she was a child until in her twenties. [2] A. D. Coleman gave a favourable review of the book in The New York Observer, stating: "Sturges sustains a delicate balance on a very precarious wire ... His struggle is to observe and render his subjects in all of their complexities, trembling on the cusp of change. The result of this long-term, communal effort is one of the most clear-eyed, responsible investigations of puberty and the emergence of sexuality in the medium's history, making a metaphor of the metamorphosis from child to adult." [2] Attempted censorship [ edit ]

Jock Sturges Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images

Sturges primarily works with a large 8x10-inch-format view camera. He has taken some digital photographs but prefers to work with film. [3] I’ve just learned of the death of David Hamilton, the man who raped me when I was 13. The man who raped numerous young girls, some of whom have come forward with courage and emotion these last few weeks. I’m thinking of them, of the injustice that we were trying to fight together. By his cowardice, he has condemned us once more to silence and unable to see him condemned. The horror of this act will never wipe out the horror of our sleepless nights. The children Mann photographed were her own and she photographed them over several years stopping when they became uncomfortable with being photographed.if you see in her work a voyeristic or an intent to sexually arouse others with her photographs you are projecting your own libido on both her and her family. Indeed, his photographs are devoid of exploitive or negative characteristics. There is beauty there; there is also truth – but no filth. His models never undress for the photographer – they were nude before he arrived and will be again as he departs. The photographer captures his models – girls and young women from nudist communities – in the surroundings that are organic to them. “Nudity means nothing to anybody here…People are naked…because they are naturists and spend their summers in a resort dedicated to the absence of shame.” In 2021, Sturges pled guilty in Franklin County (MA) Superior Court to an unnatural and lascivious act with a child under 16 when he was a dorm head at the Northfield Mount Hermon School in the mid-1970s. He was sentenced to three years' probation. [9] [10] [11] Publications [ edit ] Publications by Sturges [ edit ]Perring, Christian (2009). "Review – Misty Dawn". Metapsychology Online Reviess. Archived from the original on May 9, 2017 . Retrieved February 23, 2013. Sturges was 28 and a photography instructor at the school when he met the girl in 1975, prosecutors said. Sterngold, James (September 20, 1998). "Censorship in the Age of Anything Goes; For Artistic Freedom, It's Not the Worst of Times". The New York Times . Retrieved February 17, 2013. Boundaries and art are terms that appear to repel each other in many regards with a culture within art wanting to "break" boundaries. When the efforts to do such are urinals in exhibitions the effects are harmless; it is only when the efforts walk the line of illegality that a debate needs to take place. The majority of photographers and artists are against the stifling of expression, but when leniency enables the endangering and exploitation of children, creative freedom must be sacrificed. The enormous gray area that engulfs Hamilton, Mann, and Sturges speaks volumes to the need for constructive discussion. If an amateur photographer were to take similar photographs to these three artists, would the images ever reach print, let alone sell millions of copies? The question is admittedly loaded by the terms "amateur" and "similar" but the point stands insofar as how important the context of the images and the artists appear to be. A narrative has been applied to these collections of nude images of adolescents which categorizes them as important and expressions of purity, but it seems that any justification leaves a foul taste in the mouths of many. The victim, who appeared at Monday’s hearing via video, spoke of the effect her relationship with Sturges had on her.

Jock Sturges | MoMA

On October 22, 2016, French radio presenter Flavie Flament named Hamilton as the person who raped her during a photoshoot nearly 30 years prior when Flament was just 13 years old, as detailed in her novel "La Consolation," said to be based on true experiences. As is often the case with landmark allegations against a public figure, Flament's words prompted several other models featured in Hamilton's work to step forward with similar claims. Hamilton immediately defended himself by stating:

There are women, as well as men, who appreciate his work — e.g. the writer and photographer July Stars (Jaja Hargreaves) has written at length in the magazine I.T.Post about what Hamilton's photos meant to her, ever since she first encountered them as a teenage girl... Of course I agree that it's important to protect children from abuse like that alleged by Flavie Flament. But do we need a general ban on photos of nude children and adolescents? To me, that seems nonsensical. We're all born naked, and images of nude people of all ages have been part of culture since ancient times. When questioned regarding the prosecution, Sturges stated it would waste taxpayers' money, as the photographs "are not done flirtatiously" and have been displayed in major museums. [6] Sturges responded to the indictment labelling the books as "obscene material containing visual reproduction of persons under 17 years of age involved in obscene acts" by stating "This is pretty chilling language because, in fact, the people in my pictures are not engaged in any acts at all. They are living in contexts that are naturist, which is to say that when it's warm and people feel like it, they don't wear clothes", [7] also stating "To find the work obscene, you'd have to find homo sapiens between 1 and 17 inherently obscene, and I find that obscene." [5]