Ultimate
59
Robert Mapplethorpe
Self Portrait
- Estimate
- £60,000 - 80,000‡
£75,000
Lot Details
Gelatin silver print.
1988
Image: 27.9 x 58.4 cm (10 7/8 x 22 7/8 in.)
Sheet: 50.4 x 60.2 cm (19 7/8 x 23 3/4 in.)
Sheet: 50.4 x 60.2 cm (19 7/8 x 23 3/4 in.)
Signed by the artist, titled, dated and numbered 3/10 in an unidentified hand, all in ink and copyright credit reproduction limitation stamp on the reverse of the flush-mount.
This work is number 3 from the edition of 10 + 2 AP. As of this writing, the other prints from the edition are all held in various collections.
This work is number 3 from the edition of 10 + 2 AP. As of this writing, the other prints from the edition are all held in various collections.
Specialist
Full-Cataloguing
Catalogue Essay
Throughout his career, Mapplethorpe took self portraits as a means of expression. This powerful close-up of his eyes was taken only a few months before his death at the age of 42 from AIDS-related complications. Despite his illness, the artist’s stare is forceful and unflinching. These haunting eyes belong to a brave man who confronted mortality and pursued his art until the very end.
This image was realised only as a gelatin silver print in an edition of 10 + 2 AP. Prints of this image have been acquired by the following institutions: Tate/National Galleries of Scotland, UK; Getty Museum/LACMA, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and Museum of Modern Art, New York. This exceedingly rare photograph was acquired by the present owner in 1996 at auction – the only time this image has appeared at auction – and has been in the same private collection for 20 years.
Phillips is a proud sponsor of the exhibition Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Medium at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), 20 March – 31 July, 2016. A companion exhibition is presented concurrently at the J. Paul Getty Museum.
This image was realised only as a gelatin silver print in an edition of 10 + 2 AP. Prints of this image have been acquired by the following institutions: Tate/National Galleries of Scotland, UK; Getty Museum/LACMA, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and Museum of Modern Art, New York. This exceedingly rare photograph was acquired by the present owner in 1996 at auction – the only time this image has appeared at auction – and has been in the same private collection for 20 years.
Phillips is a proud sponsor of the exhibition Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Medium at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), 20 March – 31 July, 2016. A companion exhibition is presented concurrently at the J. Paul Getty Museum.
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."
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