Robert Mapplethorpe
Pair of Porcelain Plates, Cala Lily and Poppy Flower, ca. 2000
While Robert Mapplethorpe might be best known for his provocative portraits, the photographer also …
Artist: after Robert Mapplethorpe, American (1946 - 1989)
Title: Calla Lily & Poppy Flower
Date: …
In the 1970s, Robert Mapplethorpe and musician, poet, and artist Patti Smith lived together in New York’s infamous Chelsea Hotel where he started shooting Polaroids to use in his collages. Drawn to photography, Mapplethorpe got a Hasselblad medium-format camera and began taking pictures of his friends and acquaintances—artists, musicians, socialites, pornographic film stars, and members of the gay S & M underground. Despite his shocking content, Mapplethorpe was a formalist, interested in composition, color, texture, balance, and, most of all, beauty. In the 1980s, he concentrated on studio photography, specifically nudes, flowers, and formal portraits that are considerably more refined than his earlier work. After Mapplethorpe died from an AIDS-related illness, his work precipitated national controversy when it was included in “The Perfect Moment,” a traveling exhibition funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.
While Robert Mapplethorpe might be best known for his provocative portraits, the photographer also had an obsession with flowers, capturing lilies, roses, and tulips in both black-and-white and color film. Nearing the end of his career in the mid-1980s, the photographer turned his lens toward delicate blooms—a …
Artist: after Robert Mapplethorpe, American (1946 - 1989)
Title: Calla Lily & Poppy Flower
Date: circa 2000
Medium: Pair of Porcelain Plates, printed signature, numbering verso
Edition Size: 500
Diameter of each plate: 8.25 inches
In the original sealed box.
Published by Nuit Blanche, Paris in conjunction with the …
In the 1970s, Robert Mapplethorpe and musician, poet, and artist Patti Smith lived together in New York’s infamous Chelsea Hotel where he started shooting Polaroids to use in his collages. Drawn to photography, Mapplethorpe got a Hasselblad medium-format camera and began taking pictures of his friends and acquaintances—artists, musicians, socialites, pornographic film stars, and members of the gay S & M underground. Despite his shocking content, Mapplethorpe was a formalist, interested in composition, color, texture, balance, and, most of all, beauty. In the 1980s, he concentrated on studio photography, specifically nudes, flowers, and formal portraits that are considerably more refined than his earlier work. After Mapplethorpe died from an AIDS-related illness, his work precipitated national controversy when it was included in “The Perfect Moment,” a traveling exhibition funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.
