David Hamilton

David Hamilton is one of the most commercially successful photographer in the world, a tribute to the enduring popularity of his subject matter, nude adolescent girls. Hamilton has worked in the same vein for nearly four decades, producing grainy, soft-focus images of nude teenage girls in states of hazy reverie accompanied by florid, quasipoetic aphorisms. His published collections include Dreams of a Young Girl, Tender Cousins and Age of Innocence. David Hamilton has also directed a handful of softcore films in the same style, including Bilitis, Laura and Summer in San Tropez.

Hamilton's work is controversial in North America and Britain, less so in continental Europe. In the late 1990s, christian conservatives in the US protested bookstores which stocked books by David Hamiton, Sally Mann and Jock Sturges, whose work the protestors considered "child pornography." Hamilton lives and works in southern France, where he says his work elicits no such social opprobrium.

In the age of the Internet, David Hamilton sells his work online, charging monthly membership fees for access to his online archive. He takes pains, however, to characterize his work as "erotica" or "fine art," not "pornography," which in practice simply means that his photographs are blurrier and less explicit than regular pornography. Unlike Sturges or Mann, his work offers no provocative exploration of childhood or adolescent sexuality, no real attention to the models' identity. Hamilton openly acknowledges that his photos depict their subjects as idealized sexual fantasy objects for men attracted to young girls. "There's only three of us in this business. Nabokov penned it, Balthus painted it, and I photographed it." This comparison is more than a little self-serving; David Hamilton is more like the Maxfield Parrish of softcore porn.

ARTICLES AND INTERVIEWS

Richard Goldstein wades into a christian conservative protest against Barnes & Noble and lives to tell his story. Later in the article, he discusses the work of David Hamilton and Sally Mann, whose photographs of nude children and adolescents incited the protesters. From the Village Voice (March 1998).

Civil libertarian groups denounce right-wing christian protests against bookstores stocking books by Jock Sturges and David Hamilton: National Coalition for Freedom of Expression; Institute for First Amendment Studies; American Civil Liberties Union.

Ruling a child molestation case, San Diego superior court judge declared books by David Hamilton and Graham Ovenden to be child pornography, "not art for art's sake but for sexual purposes". The defendant had reportedly photocopied images from public library copies of the two books. However, library officials defended the books and have decided to keep them in its collection. From Ananova (May 2000).

BOOKS AND GALLERIES

The official David Hamilton Archives includes an artist profile and online galleries, though most available only to paying members.

Nude Books has most David Hamilton books for sale, along with a rare Bilitis soundtrack LP.

REFERENCE

Complete David Hamilton bibliography from Orazio Centaro.

Internet Movie Database guide to David Hamilton's films.