Museum of Sex Vamps & Virgins: The Evolution of American Pinup Photography 1860 – 1960

When working with an institution called the Museum of Sex, the job comes with just a few preconceptions. Obviously the material touches on that tricky and often taboo topic of sexuality, but the Museum is dedicated to looking at the cultural issues bound up with sexuality. We’d been in talks about creating a show together since before MoSex opened, and when offered the chance of working with Mark Rotenberg’s renowned collection (see my New York magazine article on it), I couldn’t turn it down.

With hundreds and thousands of photographs alone, the collection leant itself to a decade-by-decade study of pinup photography, dissecting how it developed in America. Starting with the earliest photographs, the show had a strong feminist approach examining contemporaneous social and cultural conditions to show how the pinup reflected women’s different positions at different points in history.