Robin Schwartz, submitted artwork
Robin Schwartz
Visual Art
Newton, New Jersey USA
Robin is a photographer who has been shooting female and male nudes in NYC, London, and New Jersey, where she and her husband currently live. In the early 1970s, after graduating from NYU with a BFA in Film & Television, she entered the predominantly male profession of photography. She hadn’t set out to do nudes, but a young model showed up at the doorstep of her Manhattan studio with a dilemma and a request. She had been selected to do a layout and cover for a major men’s magazine. However, the male photographer who was assigned to shoot it would only agree if she had sex with him. The model felt she would be “safe” with Robin, and a career of shooting nudes was born. After moving to London in 1977 and traveling and working throughout Europe, she was exposed to a much freer sensibility towards nudity and eroticism. She loved the work of Helmut Newton and Jeanloup Sieff, featuring high contrast black and white images. Robin sold her first print at a solo show called “Naughty Bits” in NYC.
Works
Robin Schwartz, submitted artwork
I came of age in the late 1960’s, the time of Woodstock and social upheaval. I began high school during the time I jokingly called ‘ The Age of Industrial Underwear,’ tight girdles, stockings, heavy duty brassieres - and when I went to college it transitioned to a time of bralessness and bikini panties. In the 1950’s and well into the 1960’s we were taught that a “good girl” was to guard her virginity at all costs and ‘save’ herself for her future husband. During my freshman year at university the birth control pill became readily available and so …. All bets were off! I started photographing female nudes almost as a rebellion against the strict way in which I was brought up. Photographing male nudes came a few years later and was as much a political statement as an artistic one. As far as I know, at the age of 23, I was the first female photographer (maybe the first photographer, period!) to shoot erections in an artistic way and have them published in a national mainstream magazine. I shot predominantly black & white film and printed the negatives on Ilford high contrast paper. When shooting color, I used my beloved fine grained Kodakchrome 25. At present, I’m digitizing my film archives and printing the best of my nudes and erotic work.
