With her film My Little Princess out and making waves, Eva is airing her views on what the film is about, and she's making it clear that she considers her mother's photographs exploitative and abusive. From L'express :

"Elle a 80 ans et nous en sommes à notre quatrième procès. Nous nous parlons par avocats interposés. Je veux qu'elle cesse de vendre les clichés de moi nue, mais elle nie toujours ma souffrance, considérant que les photos lui appartiennent. C'est un venin absolu car sans fin. Il y a là une dimension de tragédie grecque."

And:

"Les années 1970 ont d'une certaine manière autorisé ce genre de dérives, ces démarches transgressives, sous couvert d'un débat philosophique sur le mode : est-ce que l'art peut être un exutoire à tous les fantasmes ? Je pense qu'il peut l'être s'il s'agit de peinture, de sculpture, etc. Mais pas quand des êtres humains sont en jeu. D'ailleurs, à l'époque, les clichés de ma mère étaient déjà scandaleux, plus que ceux de David Hamilton par exemple. A force d'être contestataires et de vouloir choquer, les années 1970 furent d'une grande violence."


Ray Harris's translations:

"She is 80, and we’re going through our fourth trial. We speak through lawyers. I want them to stop selling the pictures of me naked, but she still denies my suffering… It is endless and venomous. There is a dimension of Greek tragedy."

...

"The 1970s somehow permitted this kind of abuse, these transgressive actions under the guise of a philosophical debate: can art be an outlet for every fantasy? I think it may be the case for painting, sculpture, etc.. But not when human beings are involved. For example, the photographs by my mother were already more outrageous than those of David Hamilton. In trying to be rebellious and trying to shock, the 1970s were quite extreme."

But there is another dimension as well: what I gather from all of this is a story of maternal neglect and Irina's lack of any real love for her daughter, which I think completely tainted the process. I've seen some of the Eva photos and I have to say, it is quite evident from them that the little girl was not enjoying herself. And the blatantly sexual connotations in these images makes it a slam dunk for the abuse advocacy angle. This will only reinforce the existing paradigm, but then again I find myself, like Harris, saddened for Eva. I never like to see girls exploited or abused, and that is clearly what happened here.

Contrast Eva's bitter experiences with those of the models of Jock Sturges and Sally Mann and you have a completely different take. For one thing, these photographers and the children they photographed--even when they were their own--always worked collaboratively. The kids' opinions mattered, and still do. Also, there is something much more holistic about the imagery of Sturges as opposed to the Ionesco photos, which are obviously contrived and say much more about the mother than they do her subject, who is little more than a living doll for her mother's photographic experimentation. There's a lesson here and I hope future artists learn it, whether nude or not, sexually provocative or not: children are not objects in a human still life. They have thoughts and feelings, and those are important.