Mapplethorpe, Robert

Mapplethorpe: Polaroids

Robert Mapplethorpe's black-and-white Polaroid photographs of the 1970s--a medium in which he established the style that would bring him international acclaim--are brought together in this exquisite volume for the first time.

Critically praised for his classically composed photographs, Mapplethorpe remains intensely controversial and enormously popular. Revealing the themes that would inspire him throughout his career, this book brings together almost three hundred images, many never published, from the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation's archive and private collections, to provide a critical view of Mapplethorpe's formative years as an artist. Included is a selection of his color Polaroids and objects incorporating his early "instant" photographs. Some images convey a disarming tenderness and vulnerability, while others have a toughness and immediacy that would give way in later years to more classical form.

Sylvia Wolf traces the development of Mapplethorpe's use of instant photography during a period of five years, from 1970 to 1975, when the artist worked mainly in this medium. The images include self-portraits, figure studies, still lifes, portraits of lovers and friends such as Patti Smith, Sam Wagstaff, and Marianne Faithfull, and observations of everyday objects. Marked by a spontaneity and creative curiosity, these fragile images offer an illuminating contrast to the formal perfection of the work for which Mapplethorpe is best known, allowing us a more personal glimpse of his artistry.

Mapplethorpe

This major, long out-of-print survey, widely regarded as the definitive overview of Mapplethorpe's black-and-white photography, is once again available in a new, updated edition. It presents a comprehensive selection of Mapplethorpe's nudes, portraits, self-portraits, floral still lifes and other works, including his best known and most controversial images. Mapplethorpe's choices were both innovative and bold, and his work has continued to resonate since his early death in 1989. His cutting-edge use of homoerotic and other challenging themes has become embedded in our culture, with pervasive echoes not only in the work of other artists but in mainstream advertising as well.

Mapplethorpe: The Complete Flowers

Flower are one of the most common subjects for artwork, yet Mapplethorpe excels at bringing something radically new to his flower photographs. Setting them in a universe apart, their poses are classical, reduced to a series of essential forms. Their compositions are profoundly simple but mask a complex dynamic. Each one is evocative, and almost always sexually charged. When photographed by Mapplethorpe, these delicate organisms become almost muscular in their raw power.

The Coral Sea

In linked pieces Patti Smith tells the story of a man on a journey to see the Southern Cross, who is reflecting on his life and fighting the illness that is consuming him. Metaphoric and dreamy, this tale of transformation arises from Smith's knowledge of Mapplethorpe as a young man and as a mature artist, his close relationship with his patron and friend, Sam Wagstaff, and his years surviving AIDS and his ascent into death. Rich in detail, it is filled with references to Mapplethorpe's work and shows the man beneath the persona. Set against photographs by Mapplethorpe, the work emerges as a hymn, a prayer, a fable wishing him Godspeed on his latest journey.

Mapplethorpe: A Biography

Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment

The Homoerotic Photograph : Male Images from Durieu / Delacroix to Mapplethorpe

-- Los Angeles Times Book Review

Some Women

A celebration of female beauty by one of the world's most controversial and acclaimed photographers includes more than eighty photographs of his friends, fellow artists, children, and such celebrities as Susan Sarandon, Isabella Rossellini, and Yoko Ono. Reprint. QPB.

Robert Mapplethorpe

Known for his steamy and luxurious photographs of nudes, Mapplethorpe has observed of his work that it "is about seeing--seeing things like they haven't been seen before." 45 color and 85 duotone illustrations.

Robert Mapplethorpe And The Classical Tradition

Robert Mapplethorpe never concealed his interest in and passion for the human figure in all its sensuous manifestations. His celebrated black-and-white photographs from the later part of the 20th century reveled in the athletic body, the nude body, the exquisite body. This groundbreaking exhibition and its accompanying catalogue explore the relationship between the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe and Classical art, in particular through Mannerist engravings and sculpture. The pairing of works is among the first collaborations between the Guggenheim Museum and the State Hermitage Museum. Robert Mapplethorpe and the Classical Tradition exemplifies the artist's rapport with the elongated and elaborate forms of Mannerist art, namely the study of the human body, highlighting the underlying classicism evident in the clarity and potency of all Mapplethorpe's subjects as well as their explosive energy. The classical ideal was not only a poetic inspiration but also an ethical model and, in his creative quest, Mapplethorpe described photography as "the perfect way to make a sculpture." The potency of love and Eros, which electrifies many of the Mannerist works shown here, is articulated again in the work of Mapplethorpe. The vital anatomical forms of his portraits of models such as bodybuilder Lisa Lyons and the statuesque Derrick Cross find their roots in Antiquity, and here they find their mirror in the likes of Jan Harmensz Muller's Sabine woman and Jacob Matham's Apollo. The Hermitage's superb collection of Italian painting and sculpture amply illustrates the course of Italian art from the Middle Ages to the 18th century and includes an impressive collection of Mannerist works. Approximately 50 Mannerist works from the Hermitage collection are paired with the same number of works by Mapplethorpe from the Guggenheim's collection, are several Italian, French and Flemish bronze sculptures from the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Essays by the curators are included: Addressing the return to Classicism at the end of the 16th, 19th, and 20th centuries, Arkady Ippolitov discusses the obsession that defines both the work of Mapplethorpe and the Mannerists. Germano Celant's text further explores the influence this 16th-century style had on Mapplethorpe's artistic practice and sensibility, illuminating the artist's interest in the study of pure form as well as allegorical imagery. Articulated in both word and image, the catalogue also traces Mapplethorpe's complex relationship to the history of art more broadly, ranging from Neoclassicism to Surrealism, with comparisons to the work of Jacques-Louis David, Antonio Canova, Auguste Rodin, Man Ray, and more. A third essay by Guggenheim Curator Jennifer Blessing traces allegorical representations in 19th- and 20th-century photography, with references to Mapplethorpe's oeuvre.