Robert Mapplethorpe

Robert Mapplethorpe, born in New York in 1946, died in Boston 1989, was an acclaimed photographer, most noted for his black and white portraits of celebrities, flowers, as well as female and male nudes. While initially creating collages using found photographs, objects, and painting, Mapplethorpe turned to photography in the early 1970s, through which—using a Polaroid SX-70 camera—he quickly became known for the portraits he took of his wide circle of friends, including famous artists, musicians, porn stars, and socialites. Mapplethorpe’s diverse oeuvre—homoerotic images, floral still-life photographs, pictures of children, commissioned portraits, and mixed-media sculpture—is united by the consistency of his approach and technique. Mapplethorpe’s photographs offer a seemingly endless gradation of blacks and whites, shadow and light. Regardless of their specific subject, his images combine both provocation and elegance.