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32

Robert Mapplethorpe

Self Portrait

Estimate
£60,000 - 80,000‡︎
Live 16 April, 1 PM United Kingdom Time
Lot Details
signed, numbered and dated '3/15 Robert Mapplethorpe '80' in the margin; signed and dated '1980 Robert Mapplethorpe' in the copyright credit reproduction limitation stamp, dated and annotated ‘Self-Portrait (With Make-Up)’ in another hand on the reverse of the flush-mount
gelatin silver print, mounted
image 35.5 x 35.5 cm (13 7/8 x 13 7/8 in.)
sheet 50.4 x 40.3 cm (19 7/8 x 15 7/8 in.)
frame 74.8 x 74 cm (29 1/2 x 29 1/8 in.)
Photographed and printed in 1980, in the United States.

This work is number 3 from the edition of 15 + 3 APs. Other prints from the edition are held in various collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Getty Museum/LACMA, Los Angeles; the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College, Chicago; Tate/National Galleries of Scotland, UK; and Musée national d'Art moderne - Centre Pompidou, Paris. This image is rare at auction, having appeared only twice in the past 25 years.

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTION

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Further Details

Robert Mapplethorpe

American | B. 1946 D. 1989

After studying drawing, painting and sculpture at the Pratt Institute in the 1960s, Robert Mapplethorpe began experimenting with photography while living in the notorious Chelsea Hotel with Patti Smith. Beginning with Polaroids, he soon moved on to a Hasselblad medium-format camera, which he used to explore aspects of life often only seen behind closed doors.

By the 1980s Mapplethorpe's focus was predominantly in the studio, shooting portraits, flowers and nudes. His depiction of the human form in formal compositions reflects his love of classical sculpture and his groundbreaking marriage of those aesthetics with often challenging subject matter. Mapplethorpe's style is present regardless of subject matter — from erotic nudes to self-portraits and flowers — as he ceaselessly strove for what he called "perfection of form."

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