ered obscene. Great Britain passed the Protection
of Children Act in 1978, which made illegal inde-
cent photographic representations of children.
However, the act does not define the term ‘‘inde-
cent,’’ which has led to such actions as the prose-
cution of BBC news anchor Julia Somerville for
sending to a photo lab nude, non-sexual pictures
of her preadolescent daughter.
In the United States, relevant federal law
includes the Child Protection Act (1984), which
denies child pornography protection under the
First Amendment, and the Child Pornography Pre-
vention Act (1996), which makes it a federal crime
to possess or distribute images that sexually exploit
or appear to sexually exploit minors. In addition,
each state has its own laws on the subject. The
inherent difficulty in defining terms such as ‘‘inde-
cent’’ and ‘‘exploit’’ has led to unsuccessful action
against American photographer Jock Sturges,
active in the 1970s through the end of the century,
for his work depicting adolescent nudists, and
threats of legal action against photographer Sally
Mann, who has published two books that included
photos of her young children nude or partially
clothed. The ambiguity of some state laws has
resulted in prosecution (or threats thereof) of par-
ents in California, Maryland, Missouri, and Ohio.
In each case their offense involved bringing to a
photo lab negatives depicting their children naked.
Even Edward Weston’s 1920s-era nude photo-
graphs of his son Neil, considered of the highest
artistic merit, have become increasingly difficult to
present. Weston was not alone in photographing
children nude; around the turn of the century, nude
studies of children were a common artistic photo-
graphy subject, and women, notably Bay Area
Photo-Secessionist Anne W. Brigman, were espe-
cially active in this genre.
In terms of genre, nude photography may be
divided into the categories of art, anthropology,
erotica, advertising/fashion, photojournalism, and
body culture. Each of these, along with their most
prominent practitioners, will be discussed below.
The list of important nude photographers is long
and distinguished. In addition to those already
named, it includes the turn-of-the century Ameri-
can innovator Charles Schenk, who in 1902 pub-
lished the first book of nude photos in the twentieth
century,Draperies in Action, a series of collotypes
that explored motion and form. In the early dec-
ades of the century, Arnold Genthe photographed
dancers, nude or nearly nude, including the le-
gendary Isadora Duncan and others following her
free-spirited, naturalistic style of dancing. Harry
Callahan’s models (often his wife Eleanor) always
seem remote—mentally removed from their sur-
roundings and their very nudity. Paris-based
Emmanuel Sougez used the nude to portray the
apotheosis of femininity with strong, naturally
posed models in front of drapery in seminal
works from the 1930s. Hungarian-born Ferenc
Berko, who spent much of his career in Aspen,
Colorado, often ignored the face entirely in his
classic nudes of the 1930s through 1950s, as did
the prolific French artist Lucien Clergue, whose
nudes are often portrayed in or near the sea (such
as the famousSea Nude, Carmargue, 1958) or in
controlled environments in which the body is a
canvas upon which light and dark creates striking
patterns. The distinguished photography teacher
and instructional author Charles Swedlund was
interested in advancing technique, and his nudes
are often the products of his experiments with
shutter speed, focus, and film stock. Bill Brandt,
in contrast, used the wide-angle lenses and the
archaic technology of a pinhole camera to photo-
graph the nude figure, creating highly distorted
images that downplayed sexuality.
At the end of the century, numerous artists pre-
sented nudes in photography, as opposed to nude
photography. This is an important distinction: in
much contemporary photography, nudity is pre-
sented as any other element, with no particular formal
or stylistic emphasis on the depiction and which is
most often part of a larger aesthetic project. Gilbert &
George, for example, often present nudes in an over-
all scheme of social and political commentary. A
deliberately informal, snapshot style of depicting the
nude began to emerge in the 1980s. This important
tendency is typified by such figures as Nan Goldin,
who presents a diary of all aspects of the lives of her
circle of friends; Wolfgang Tillmans, who shows his
subjects naked for seemingly no particular reason, or
Boris Mikhailov, who while favoring a social realist
style, convinced Russian derelicts to take off their
clothes when having their pictures made.
Anthropology, in this context, refers to photo-
graphic studies of foreign cultures. In some of those
cultures (especially those in tropical climates), nudity
or semi-nudity may be the norm, so photographic
representations will necessarily include the nude.
In the United States, the most accessible source for
this kind of photography was, for many years, the
magazineNational Geographic. But the magazine’s
approach to the subject raises some interesting racial
issues.National Geographicregularly published photos
of women with bare breasts; in addition, it sometimes
included photos clearly showing the naked genitals of
men—but these displays of flesh only occurred if the
subjects were non-white. Between the 1950s and theNUDE PHOTOGRAPHY