Child abuse campaigners are furious at London’s Tate Modern gallery’s decision to show an ‘obscene’ picture of a naked 10-year-old Brooke Shields. Yesterday, critics called for the image of the star to be withdrawn from the new exhibition, which opens tomorrow, saying it was unacceptable and would attract pedophiles. But gallery chiefs admit they sought legal advice before including the picture, titled Spiritual America, in the Pop Life: Art In A Material World show.

Although I have seen the image of Brooke Shields, I will not be publishing a copy. The Richard Prince’s image of Shields shows her in a steamy tub from the knees up, completely naked, oiled and wearing heavy eye makeup and dark lipstick while staring into the camera. The artist himself described the 1983 work, which is in fact a photograph of a photograph taken by another artist, Gary Gross, as ‘an extremely complicated photo of a naked girl who looks like a boy made up to look like a woman’. It is hung in a special room at the south London gallery with a notice on the door warning visitors they may find the image ‘challenging’.

The original Gross picture was taken after the artist hired Shields to pose as a model in 1975 and is said to have been done with her mother’s consent. Shields’ first starring role, aged 12, saw her play a child prostitute in Louise Malle’s Pretty Baby. When the photographer later tried to republish the pictures in the 80s, Shields and her mother launched an unsuccessful legal battle to stop him and attempted to buy back the negatives. A judge ruled that she was a “hapless victim of a contract… to which two grasping adults bound her”. The legal battle caught the eye of Prince, and he describes Spiritual America as a commentary on Shields as an “abstract entity”.

Jack Bankowsky, the exhibitions co-curator, said he hoped the artistic interest in Spiritual America would not be overshadowed by controversy over its content. “I hope that people respond to what is provocative and understand what the artist was trying to achieve. If it turned into that kind of brouhaha it would overwhelm the work and become a monosyllabic conversation.” Prince wanted the viewer to respond to the ‘eeriness’ of Gross’ original image, Bankowsky said.

A spokesman for the Tate said they had given careful consideration to the work and the reaction it could provoke before including it in the exhibition. “As with any artwork that contains challenging imagery, Tate has sought legal advice and evaluated the situation,” the spokesman said. ‘Tate has taken measures to inform visitors of the nature of the work, providing information outlining the intentions of the artist.

Keith Haring Pop-Shop

‘This is an important work by Richard Prince which has been publicly exhibited on a number of occasions, most recently in Richard Prince’s major retrospective, Spiritual America, at the Guggenheim in New York.”

Elsewhere, the show has a room dedicated artist Jeff Koons’ Made In Heaven work, which includes giant sexually explicit images of him with the Italian porn star La Cicciolina in addition to his ‘ Dirty-Jeff On Top’ statue which features the couple having sex.

Also featured is works by Damien Hirst, including False Idol, a calf preserved in formaldehyde, and Ingo, Torsten, his 1992 piece involving identical twins sitting in front of two of his “spot paintings”.

In addition, there is a bosomy display by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami,  Andy Warhol wallpaper, and an installation by American Keith Haring.

Takashi Murakami display