About US-American photographer, Robert MAPPLETHORPE (1946-1989)

Robert MAPPLETHORPE completed his studies in 1967 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and moved to New York. He lived there until 1972 with the musician and poet Patti Smith, who encouraged him to pursue a career as a photographer. The cover photo on her debut album 'Horses', released in 1975, was taken by him. His first works did not yet contain his own photos, but images taken from books or magazines. A short time later, he also worked with his own pictures taken with a Polaroid camera. From the early 1980s, he became known to a wider audience, initially mainly in New York, where many celebrities had their portraits taken by him. In addition to portraits or still lifes with flowers, he is known for his nude series, which often contain homoerotic motifs; these ranged from more classical poses to BDSM scenes. This brought him to the center of public discussion in the USA on the subject of art promotion and art censorship. Robert MAPPLETHORPE died in 1989 at the age of 42 as a result of AIDS.

Photo books by and with works by Robert MAPPLETHORPE

  • 'Lady: Lisa Lyon' (1983, 1985); 'Robert Mapplethorpe, 1970-83' (1983); 'Flowers' (1983); 'Robert Mapplethorpe' (1983); 'Certain People' (1985); 'Robert Mapplethorpe 1985-1986' (1986); 'Power of Theatrical Madness' (1986); 'Ten by Ten' (1988, 2004); 'Portraits' (1988, 2009); 'Flowers: Farbphotographien 1980-1989" (1990, 2022); "Die homoerotische Photographie" (1992); 'The Early Works' (1991); 'Die Große Monographie' (1992); 'Altars' (1995); 'Playing with the Edge: The Photographic' (1996); 'Autoportrait' (2001); 'Mapplethorpe and the Classic Tradition' (2004); 'The Complete Flowers' (2006); 'Mapplethorpe' (2007); 'Perfection in Form' (2009); 'The Black Book' (2010, 2022); 'Polaroids' (2013); 'Nymph Photography' (2014); 'Warhol & Mapplethorpe: Guise & Dolls' (2015); 'Die Photographien 1969-1989' (2016); 'The Archive' (2016); 'Flora' (2016); 'Pictures' (2018); 'Robert Mapplethorpe' (2020); 'Mapplethorpe and the Flower' (2022); 'Mapplethorpe Flora: The Complete Flowers' (2024);

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This out-of-print German language volume 'Photographien 1969-1989' spans the work by US-American Robert MAPPLETHORPE from the early 1970s and shows his most iconic images from portraits to still lifes and figure studies alongside lesser-known photographs.
128,00 € * Weight 2.6 kg
Out-of-print (German language?) volume 'Autoportrait' by Robert MAPPLETHORPE showcases 65 self portraits, many previously unpublished and culled from his earliest works, that offer insight into the photographer's complex personality and self-explorations.
68,00 € * Weight 0.7 kg
In German language 'Hinter der Kamera', Juliet Hacking portrays 38 of the most important personalities in the history of photography. By working out contexts, the portraits add to an overview of great innovations, trends and developments in photography.
24,80 € * Weight 1.3 kg
The anthology 'The Polaroid Project. The Conquest through Art' shows 300 works by internationally renowned artists from the unique Polaroid Collection. Text contributions complement the richly illustrated compendium.
24,90 € *
HC with dust jacket, 14 x 22 x 2 cm., 137 pp., ONLY GERMAN LANGUAGE
18,00 € * Weight 0.4 kg
From the invention of the camera obscura to the birth of digital photography, this history of photography’s greatest advances by the author Florian Heine focuses on individual artists, works, and moments that decisively shaped the evolution of a genre.
9,95 € * Weight 0.8 kg
further photo volumes about and with works by Robert MAPPLETHORPE
  • 'The Camera I: Photographic Self-Portraits from the Audrey and Sydney Irmas Collection' (1994, together with works by Andre KERTESZ, NADAR, Cecil BEATON and Cindy SHERMAN a.o.); 'Mapplethorpe: A Biography' (1997, 2016); 'Stern Portfolio No.33' (2001); 'Mapplethorpe, Duchamp and the Ends of Photography' (2002); 'Just Kids. Patti Smith's autobiographical account of her life with Robert Mapplethorpe' (2010); 'The Polaroid Years: Instant Photography and Experimentation' (2013); 'große Photographen' (2013); 'Arresting Images: Impolitic Art and Uncivil Actions' (2016, by Steven Dubin); 'The Polaroid Project: At the Intersection of Art and Technology' (2017); 'Photographen. Legenden und ihre Kameras' (2019); 'Masculinities: Liberation through Photography' (2020, together with works by Richard AVEDON, John COPLANS, Herb RITTS, Collier SCHORR, Larry SULTAN, Wolfgang TILLMANS and David WOJNAROWICZ'; 'Scandal in the work of Mapplethorpe' (2023); 'Sexually Explicit Art, Feminist Theory, and Gender in the 1970s' (2024); 
Exhibitions
  • 2009: 'Portraits', Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, USA;

    2010: 'Robert Mapplethorpe', NRW-Forum, Düsseldorf;
    2011: 'Robert Mapplethorpe. Retrospective', C/O Berlin;
    2014: 'Robert Mapplethorpe', Grand Palais, Paris;