Artist denies child porn claim

The artist whose photographs of her naked daughter were removed from an exhibition has defended her work, claiming the images were not pornographic.

Betsy Schneider instead accused the Spitz Gallery in Spitalfields Market of "censorship" after the 36 images of her young daughter Madeleine were removed following a complaint from a gallery visitor.

The 38-year-old American artist claimed her work was challenging society's perception of how we view children and she accused the gallery, which prides itself as being at the cutting edge of art, of getting cold feet.

She said: "I would not describe my work as pornographic. There's ways of looking at things that can be interpreted any way.

"I hope to challenge the way we view children. I find it contradictory how we treat children and freak out when there are pictures of them naked." She described how the images came to the notice of the gallery owners during a private viewing.

Schneider said: "There was some complaint, apparently to the gallery.

"There was a kind of scuffle because they wanted to cover up my pictures with a dirty cloth and I hit the roof, so they kicked us all out and then put plastic on the windows so nobody could see in, then later they took them down."