A nude photograph of the actress Brooke Shields aged 10 has been removed from a Tate Modern exhibition on police advice.

The room containing the work in question, Spiritual America, by the US artist Richard Prince, was closed yesterday and the exhibition catalogue has also been withdrawn in what the gallery said was a temporary measure.

The image shows the child from the knees up, naked, looking at the viewer. The room at the London gallery had a notice on the door saying that visitors may find the image “challenging”. The rest of the exhibition, Pop Life: Art in a Material World, remains open.

Prince made his name by rephotographing the work of others as a statement about authenticity and copyright. The 1983 Spiritual America is a photograph of the original, which had been taken in 1976 by Gary Gross.

Gross took the picture with the permission of the child star’s mother, who was paid for the images by Gross’s partners in the project, Playboy Press.

The Metropolitan Police said: “Officers from the obscene publications unit met with staff at Tate Modern. The officers have specialist experience in this field and are keen to work with gallery management to ensure that they do not inadvertently break the law or cause offence to visitors.”

Last night Tate Modern said: “The room has been temporarily closed. We are in discussion with the police. We will provide an update as soon as possible.”

Other Pop Life exhibits still open to the public include sexually explicit images by Jeff Koons showing him and his porn model ex-wife.

In 1981 Brooke Shields attempted unsuccessfully to prevent the further use of the photograph.

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