In a notable career pivot during the early 2000s, Gross moved away from fashion photography entirely. He became a certified dog trainer and dedicated the final decade of his life to animal photography. He applied his technical expertise in lighting and portraiture to capture expressive, large-scale images of senior dogs, aiming to highlight their dignity and character.
In 1975, Garry Gross was hired by the Ford Modeling Agency to take test shots of a rising young talent. Her name was Brooke Shields. She was just 10 years old, tall for her age, with an already striking, mature face. Her mother, Teri Shields, was present at the shoot. This fact is crucial: the shoot was not illegal. It was a professional booking with parental consent. Garry Gross The Woman In The Child
This is the image that would define the controversy. Brooke lies on her stomach on the fur rug. She is nude. Her head is turned slightly toward the camera, her lips parted. Her legs are slightly spread. In the uncropped version, the image is a full-body nude. However, a cropped version—focusing solely on her torso and the gap between her thighs—was later published by Playboy Press . This crop removed her face and age cues, leaving only the anatomy of a pre-pubescent child presented in a vulvic orientation. In a notable career pivot during the early
The images were indecent. She was a minor who did not have the legal capacity to consent in 1975. Her mother’s consent was questionable given the nature of the poses. Furthermore, the Playboy Press crop of the fur rug image had been distributed in a context that was unquestionably sexual, violating her right of publicity and privacy. In 1975, Garry Gross was hired by the
To write about Garry Gross is to walk a tightrope suspended over a cultural chasm. On one side stand arguments for artistic freedom, the deconstruction of Lolita-esque archetypes, and the historic precedent of “child nudes” in classical painting. On the other side stands the unshakeable reality of exploitation, the sexualization of minors, and the long-term psychological damage inflicted upon a child for the sake of "high art."
The New York Supreme Court ruled in favor of Garry Gross. The court found that Shields had signed a model release, that her mother was present, and that the photographer held the copyright. The judge famously noted that while he found the photos "in poor taste," they were not legally obscene for the time. Shields was not allowed to stop Gross from selling the images.
Gross defended The Woman in the Child with the vocabulary of classical art history. He repeatedly argued that he was recreating poses seen in Renaissance paintings and Greek sculpture. He cited Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and the nude cherubs found in Catholic iconography. He claimed that he was documenting the fleeting, tragic beauty of the cusp between childhood and adulthood—the "woman in the child."