Robert Mapplethorpe

Robert Mapplethorpe rose to prominence in 1970s and 1980s New York, moving between the downtown art and music scene and the city's uptown society. Trained in drawing, painting and sculpture at Pratt Institute, he came to photography sideways and never stopped treating the camera like a sculptor's tool. He lived with Patti Smith at the Chelsea Hotel from 1969, and his portrait of her became the cover of her 1975 debut album, Horses. Mapplethorpe worked within a tight set of subjects: flowers, portraits of artists and celebrities including Andy Warhol, self-portraits, and the classical nude, all rendered in immaculate black-and-white gelatin silver and platinum prints. His frankest images placed him at the center of the national debate over public arts funding in 1989 and 1990. He established the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation in 1988, a year before his death from AIDS. Today his photographs have sold for over half a million dollars at auction and are held by the Guggenheim, whose photography collection began with a gift from the Foundation, as well as MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tate and the Centre Pompidou.