Brooke Shields photograph: the sexualisation of children for 'art'

The removal of a photograph of Brooke Shields from the Tate Modern gallery has divided opinion about about whether art institutions should have the freedom to display shocking images.

The picture 'Spiritual America' by Richard Prince, which features a naked Brooke Shields as a ten year old child, was described by this paper's art critic as "one of the most interesting works" in the Tate's latest exhibition. However, police deemed the photograph a "magnet" for paedophiles.

It is not the first time that galleries have been accused of pushing the boundaries with work deemed unsuitable for public display.

Digging into the complex history of society's attitude towards the subject of pornography and art can be very troubling indeed; the Victorians and Edwardians displayed paintings of boys which would now be considered highly suspect. And the Ancient Greeks? Where do I begin... But, as the following examples show, it is in recent years that our attitudes towards art, sexuality and children have changed the most dramatically:

1968

Balthus: The Polish-French modernist artist frequently painted young girls in erotic or voyeuristic poses. The controversial painting style was called Fantastic Realism. He exhibited work throughout his life, in Paris, and had two children by his aristocratic wife. A retrospective of his work went on show at the Tate in 1968.

Girl with Cat by Balthus

The artist on his work: “Painting is something both embodied and spiritualized. It’s a way of attaining the soul through the body. . . . Being too cerebral and jokey can obstruct an artisan’s manual labor, and impede the ascent to the soul. Believing that my young girls are perversely erotic is to remain on the level of material things. It means understanding nothing about the innocence of adolescent languor, and the truth of childhood.”

Art critic's verdict: Jean Leymarie observed that, “he shares Rilke's sense of the wonder and mystery of young girls”.

1990

Mapplethorpe: Photographer Robert Mapplethorpe is well-known for his controversial black and white photographs which were often explicitly sexual or homoerotic. Among his most contested work is 'Rosie,' a short art film in which a two- or three-year-old child is caught, shocked, with her crotch exposed. In 1990, an retrospective of Mapplethorpe's work traveled to Cincinnati, where Contemporary Art Center director Dennis Barrie was indicted on charges of obscenity and child pornography, but he, and the museum, were subsequently acquitted.

Later, in 1996 the Hayward Gallery allegedly withdrew two pictures from an exhibition after consulting police. One was of a five-year-old girl wearing a dress but no underwear sitting with her legs open.

• See works by the artist

The artist on his work: On a BBC TV interview in 1988 he said, "Once I had taken a photograph, it wasn't shocking to me anymore. I had been through the experience." He added that he got a kick from pornographic images that he never got from art. He said that was what led him to make art from pornographic images but he did not see the end result as pornographic.

Art critic's verdict: "Shocking the public in order to sensitize them to gay issues was one of Mapplethorpe's primary goals... (but) the photographs are worth seeing for their artistic merit alone." (Deborah A. Levinson, The Tech, 1990)

1992

Sally Mann: Photographer Sally Mann’s large-scale black and white pictures of her three children, all under the age of ten, were criticised for being child pornography when they were published in a book in 1992. Police were asked to investigate the possible implications of paedophilia in certain works by her, on display at Helsinki City Art Museum.

• See some pictures from Mann's Immediate Family series

The artist on her work: Mann considers her photographs to be “natural through the eyes of a mother, since she has seen her children in every state: happy, sad, playful, sick, bloodied, angry and even naked.”

Art critic's verdict: Time magazine named her 'America’s Best Photographer' in 2001 saying, “What the outraged critics of her child nudes failed to grant was the patent devotion involved throughout the project and the delighted complicity of her son and daughters in so many of the solemn or playful events.”

2001

Tierney Gearon: Pictures of the American photographer's children went on display at Charles Saatchi's 'I am a Camera' exhibition in 2001. The north London gallery was visited by officers from Scotland Yard's obscene publications unit. The gallery defended the images as harmless photos of children on holiday that were neither lewd nor sexually provocative, and they remained in the show. However, this case is one of the major turning points in the display of child photography. It is frequently sighted as one of the cases that lead to the illegalisation of child porn 'art' in 2007.

• See works by the artist

The artist on her work: Gearon said her images had "wholesome innocent intentions".

Art critic's verdict: "Gearon’s talent lies in an ability to capture life with all its surreal twists and confusions, as negotiated by young people in an adult world." (tierneygearon.com)

2003

Chapman Brothers: British artists Jake and Dinos Chapman are best known for their models of mutilated dolls. Some of their early work includes a series of mannequins of children, sometimes fused together, with genitalia in place of facial features. Although many of their exhibitions have been controversial, including 'The Chapman Brothers' show at the Saatchi Gallery in 2003 which was said to "push the boundaries of art", none of their work has been removed from an art show.

The artists on their work: "They are inanimate objects placed in a sterile environment for the entertainment of the masses. We think they're entertaining, thoughtful, beautiful, classical."

Art critic's verdict: "Taboos for the Chapmans are little more than cliches against which to kick. Imagine the worst, they seem to say, and you will probably come up with something like this concentration camp or this child sex-object; which is to say that even your worst imaginings will be kitsch, fraudulent, second-hand." (Sebastian Smee for this paper, 2003)

2006

Lara Schnitger: Dutch-American sculptor Lara Shnitger uses pieces of fabric to create intimate sculptures. In 2006 a Saatchi exhibition at the Royal Academy her sculpture ‘I Want Kids’, described as being in the shape of a giant phallus upset members of the Royal Academy who accused her of making references to paedophilia.

Image courtesy of the Saatchi Gallery, London © Lara Schnitger, 2009

The artist on her work: It’s a "sort of fertility symbol”.

Art critic's verdict: "Schnitger’s sculpture doesn’t downplay the morbidity of paedophilia, but rather questions the too-easy public perception of predators." (The Saatchi Gallery)

2007

Nan Goldin: American photographer best known for her diaristic photography of her bohemian friends and lifestyle in New York in the 1970s. In September 2007 a photograph of two naked girls, called 'Klara and Edda Belly Dancing', was seized by Northumbria Police from Gateshead's Baltic gallery. The picture, shot by Nan Goldin and owned by Sir Elton John, was later returned after the Crown Prosecution Service deemed it was not an indecent image.

The artist on her work: "The pictures were of children of really good friends of mine whom I had known since they were born." (When the children heard about the picture being taken down, they sent a formal letter of support.)

Art critic's verdict: "She has a confessional approach to her affairs, and is indifferent to conventional limits." (Drusilla Beyfus for this paper, 2009)