Jock Sturges

Jock Sturges (/ˈstɜːrdʒɪs/; born 1947) is an American photographer, best known for his images of nude adolescents and their families.

Jock Sturges
Sturges in 2013
Born1947 (age 73–74)
New York City, New York, U.S.
EducationMarlboro College (BFA)
San Francisco Art Institute (MFA)
OccupationPhotographer

Early life and education

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

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]

Sturges primarily works with a large 8x10-inch-format view camera. He has taken some digital photographs but prefers to work with prints.[3]

His work has been the subject of controversy in the United States. In 1990, his San Francisco studio was raided by FBI officers and his equipment seized. A grand jury subsequently declined to bring an indictment against him.[4][5] In 1998, unsuccessful attempts were made to have his books The Last Day of Summer and Radiant Identities classed as child pornography in Arkansas and Louisiana.[6][7] Customers in Alabama and Tennessee sued Barnes & Noble for stocking the books, resulting in protests throughout the United States, largely inspired by conservative radio host Randall Terry.[8]

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.

Publications

His published collections include
  • The Last Day of Summer (1991, Aperture, NY) ISBN 0-89381-538-1
  • Radiant Identities (1994, Aperture, NY)
  • Evolution of Grace (1994, Gakken, Tokyo)
  • Jock Sturges (1996, Scalo, Zürich)
  • Jock Sturges: New Work, 1996–2000 (2000, Scalo, Zürich)
  • Jock Sturges: Twenty-Five Years (2004, Paul Cava Fine Art, Bala Cynwyd, PA)
  • Jock Sturges: Notes (2004, Aperture, NY)
  • Misty Dawn: Portrait of a Muse (2008, Aperture, NY)
  • Jock Sturges Life Time (2008 Steidl)
  • The Rollei Project (2013 Foto Henny Hoogeveen, Lisse, The Netherlands)
  • Jock Sturges Fanny (2014 Steidl)

Other noted publications include
  • Montage (Graham Webb International)
  • Standing on Water (1991, Catalogue of Portfolio published by Paul Cava Fine Art, Philadelphia)
  • Jock Sturges Color (Catalogue of Portfolio published by Ataraxia, Bensalem)
  • Line of Beauty and Grace (2007 Amadelio Films). Documentary

Limited edition portfolios of original photographs
  • Standing On Water (Paul Cava Fine Art, 1991, boxed portfolio of ten oversized 20x24 inch gelatin silver photographs)
  • Jock Sturges: Twenty-Five Years (Paul Cava Fine Art, 2004, boxed portfolio of ten 11x14 inch gelatin silver photographs)
  • Jock Sturges Platinum Edition of 10 signature platinum photographs (Russell Levin Gallery Monterey California 2007)

References
  1. "Jock Sturges". kochgallery.com. Archived from the original on May 9, 2017. Retrieved February 23, 2013.
  2. Perring, Christian (2009). "Review – Misty Dawn". metapsychology.mentalhelp.net. Retrieved February 23, 2013.
  3. 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.
  4. Steinberg, David (March 19, 1998). "Naked Truth". Metroactive.com. Retrieved February 23, 2013.
  5. Carvajal, Doreen (February 1, 1995). "THE NATION; Pornography Meets Paranoia". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 8, 2019.
  6. Lane, III Frederick (2001). Obscene Profits: The Entrepreneurs of Pornography in the Cyber Age. Routledge. p. 126. ISBN 978-0415931038. Retrieved February 17, 2013.
  7. "Obscenity Case Is Settled". The New York Times. May 19, 1998. Retrieved May 22, 2013.
  8. Carvajal, Doreen (February 2, 1998). "Barnes & Noble Vows to Stock Art Books Despite Indictments". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 8, 2019.
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