Wikipedia entry
Introduction
Robert Michael Mapplethorpe (; November 4, 1946 – March 9, 1989) was an American photographer, best known for his black-and-white photographs. His work featured an array of subjects, including celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, self-portraits, and still-life images. His most controversial works documented and examined the gay male BDSM subculture of New York City in the late 1960s and early 1970s. A 1989 exhibition of Mapplethorpe's work, titled Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment, sparked a debate in the United States concerning both use of public funds for "obscene" artwork and the Constitutional limits of free speech in the United States.
Wikidata
Q312786
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Getty record
Introduction
Mapplethorpe studied painting at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where he met singer/poet Patti Smith in 1968, whom he later photographed for her album covers. His initial interest in photography took the form of collages from photographs he found, but in 1972 he began to take pictures with a Polaroid camera. His images are classical and formal in appearance, his favorites subjects being male nudes, flowers, and still lifes. His homoerotic images became the subject of a much publicized obscenity charge in 1990 involving the Cincinnati Art Museum. Mapplethorpe also did a series of self-portraits toward the end of his life, documenting his deteriorating health from AIDS.
Nationality
American
Gender
Male
Roles
Artist, Collagist, Multimedia Artist, Painter, Photographer, Sculptor
Names
Robert Mapplethorpe, Bob Mapplethorpe, Robert Maplethorpe
Ulan
500090430
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Information from Getty’s Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License

Works

44 works online

Exhibitions

View all 22 exhibitions

Publication

  • Among Others: Blackness at MoMA Charlotte Barat and Darby English, 2019 Hardcover, 488 pages
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