“Mapplethorpe poses the flowers as if they were women, some rare, others common; that is, he seeks to express character, whether it be dramatic or domestic, flamboyant or reserved, exotic or conventional.”
—Hal Foster, Art Critic and Historian
Provenance
Hamiltons Gallery, London Phillips, New York, 1 October 2014, lot 134
Literature
Random House, Mapplethorpe: Pistils, p. 97 TeNeues, Mapplethorpe: The Complete Flowers, cover and pl. 147 Holborn and Levas, Mapplethorpe, p. 231 Kardon, Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment, p. 77 Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe, n.p. for a variant
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."