12
Robert Mapplethorpe
Self Portrait
- Estimate
- £30,000 - 50,000
£86,500
Lot Details
Gelatin silver print.
1980
35.5 x 35.5 cm (13 7/8 x 13 7/8 in)
Signed, titled, dated, numbered 13/15 in ink and copyright credit reproduction limitation stamp on the reverse of the flush-mount.
Specialist
Full-Cataloguing
Catalogue Essay
"The formality and intensity of the early photographers are evident in what I do. I use a rather slow film and long exposures… and it gives you a certain intensity. I’m working with old fashioned techniques……there hasn’t been a creative portrait photographer since Nadar in the 19th century."
ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE, 1978
ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE, 1978
Provenance
Literature
Robert Mapplethorpe
American | B. 1946 D. 1989After 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."
Browse Artist