Philip Jones Griffiths
[Photojournalist, b. 1936, Rhuddian, Wales, d. 2008, London.]
The only thing we photographers really want more than life, more than sex, more than anything, is to be invisible.
Georgia O'Keeffe
[Artist, b. 1887, Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, d. 1986, Santa Fe, New Mexico.]
We’d make love. Afterwards he would take photographs of me.
(On modeling for Alfred Stieglitz)
Helmut Newton
[Photographer, b. 1920, Berlin, d. 2004, Los Angeles.]
Of course I love women. Or else I wouldn’t have spent so much time photographing them and I would be homosexual.
Robert Mapplethorpe
[Photographer, b. 1946, Floral Park, Long Island, d. 1989, Boston, Massachusetts.]
I don’t think that there’s that much difference between a photograph of a fist up someone’s ass and a photograph of carnations in a bowl.
Anaïs Nin
[Writer, b. 1903, Neuilly, France, d. 1977, Los Angeles.]
I will not be just a tourist in the world of images, just watching images passing by which I cannot live in, make love to, possess as permanent sources of joy and ecstasy.
Edward Weston
[Photographer, b. 1886, Highland Park, Illinois, d. 1958, Wildcat Hill, California.]
By all means tell your Board that pubic hair has definitely been part of my development as an artist, tell them it has been the most important part, that I like it black, brown, red or golden, curly or straight, all sizes and shapes.
(To Museum of Modern Art curator Beaumont Newhall, after being told the museum was reluctant to show nudes revealing pubic hair.)
Chuck Close
[Artist, b. 1940, Monroe, Washington, lives in New York.]
No one makes a nude if they’re not going to get turned on, and if they claim that they are making it for other reasons it’s an absolute lie.
Susie Bright
[Writer, feminist, and activist, b. 1958, Arlington, Virginia, lives in Santa Cruz, California.]
Seeing lesbian photography is just the tip of my radicalized clitoris. I have modeled for, commissioned, published, and fought for these pictures, and answered threats against them. I’ve seen the feminist movement bring these pictures to life, and I’ve seen that same movement try to suppress the liberating results.
