Jock Sturges had a photographic career that was more embroiled with controversies and legal issues than with any appreciation for his style of nude photography. Jock Sturges (or John Sturges) is an American photographer, born in New York & a Navy veteran who served as a Russian linguist, best known for his images of nude adolescents and their families. His photography subjects for adolescent nudes were mainly from Northern California and from the Atlantic-coast naturist resort CHM Montalivet in Vendays-Montalivet, France.
In many ways Jock Sturges like Herb List, Sally Mann, David Hamilton, Irina Ionesco & Nan Goldin had a very difficult, arguably very controversial and definite very challenging niche of photographing innocence in ways that do not appear vulgar & erotic. His pictures are realistic, full of beauty & brings out the naivety, dignity and the individuality of his subjects.
While Nan & Irina had the luxury (or the obsession) to photograph their own children, Jock Sturges depended mostly on his grand daughter Fanny for most of his controversial photography.
Much of Jock Sturges’ photography includes California native Misty Dawn, whom he photographed from the time she was a youngster until she was in her 20s. His preference for nude adolescent girls as a model makes his work controversial: it has been condemned by Christian conservatives as well as by the FBI, who charged him with child pornography in 1990.
Jock Sturges first encountered Misty Dawn in 1976 at a commune near his brother’s house in Northern California. Completely comfortable in her own skin and happy to pose for the young photographer, she quickly became a favorite model and has been photographed a great deal by the artist.
Another important teen that played a significant role in modeling for Jock Sturges is his grand daughter Fanny.
“The most important model for me is Fanny, she is my goddaughter. I became Fanny’s godfather when her mother left the note “Would you please be а godfather for Fanny” before her suicide. When I met Fanny she was very hungry for attention. And when you paid attention to her, she got on your lap. I didn’t know how to take her off and couldn’t take any pictures. But when she was five she asked me why don’t I have a picture of her. Then I started shooting her and I have continued doing it for about thirty years.” Jock said in his interview.
My hope is that my work is in some way counter-pinup. A pinup asks you to suspend interest in who the person is and occupy yourself entirely with looking at the body, fantasizing about what you could do with that body, completely ignoring how the person might feel about it.
Jock Sturges
Sturges aims to draw out the models’ own sense of burgeoning sexuality in a straightforward, personal, non-voyeuristic way.
Sturges has published several books of his photographs, including Jock Sturges: Twenty-Five Years (2004) and Life~Time (2008), and his works are held in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Denver Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and many others. His published works include The Last Day of Summer (1992), Radiant Identities (1994), 25 Years (2004), Evolutions of Grace (1994), Jock Sturges (1996), Jock Sturges – New Work 1996-2000 (2000), Notes (2005) and Mit Jock Sturges Familiär (2012).