I’ve recently discovered that Jean Straker, along with the photographers Walter Bird and Jack Eston, took part in a discussion on Pin-ups and Figure Studies broadcast by the BBC on Network Three on May 22, 1958. On the show, Jean defines a pin-up as “a picture of a girl in which the girl represents herself. It may be provocative; it need not be provocative, but it is essentially a picture of a person that we either know personally or by name”. A figure study as “a photograph of a girl who simply symbolises woman; she is impersonal. It is not a photograph representing her as herself.” And a nude as “a picture in which the girl symbolises an idea or represents some historical or mythological figure: that is, she represents somebody other than herself.” I wonder how Jean Straker would classify the following pictures of his.
