T he Richard Prince photograph of Brooke Shields that Tate Modern recently withdrew from the exhibition Pop Life, after Scotland Yard suggested it might break obscenity laws, travelled across the Atlantic carrying a long history of controversy. It shows a year-old Shields, oiled and glistening, naked and made-up, posing in a marble bathtub with a seductive danger that belies her years. It tells you everything about what we fear and desire. Prince, Schorr tells me, has never met Shields. Intent on questioning notions of authorship and originality, he rephotographed an existing image that had already inspired two years of legal debate.
His body of work is unknown, eclipsed by a single pictorial he undertook for American socialite Teri Shields. In , Garry Gross scribbled his name into a dubious footnote in the history of photography by photographing a nude year-old Brooke Shields. The rest was history — and a rancorous one as that. On this blog, the post of Brooke Shields which detailed the controversy remains the most visited entry , and comments there represent a veritable cross-section of pluralistic viewpoints and range from informed to inane. But apart from occasional interview, Gross remained in semi-retirement.
Was Brooke Shields Photographed Nude at 10 Years Old?
Brooke Christa Shields born May 31, is an American actress and model. She was initially a child model and gained critical acclaim at age 12 for her leading role in Louis Malle 's film Pretty Baby , in which she played a child prostitute in New Orleans at the beginning of the 20th century. Shields garnered widespread notoriety in the role, and she continued to model into her late teenage years and starred in several dramas in the s, including The Blue Lagoon , and Franco Zeffirelli 's Endless Love
Brooke Shields was just 10 when photographer Gary Gross took photos of her posing nude in a bathtub in Wearing heavy makeup and nothing else, her body was later displayed in a series of shots published in Playboy publication Sugar and Spice. At the time she was just a little girl with her bare body splashed across the pages of a glossy magazine, but just a few years later she'd star in her first film role that would kick off her acting career. It's almost ironic that her character in that film, Pretty Baby , was a child prostitute.