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Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946–1989)
LOT ID: 70880
Lisa Lyon, 1981

Silver Print, Gelatin silver print
16 х 20 in. cm.
Signed, on recto. MAP #655; RMG #8702.00820.
Edition 3/10
Lot description
Robert Mapplethorpe (November 4, 1946 – March 9, 1989) was an American photographer known for his large-scale, highly stylized black and white portraits. The frank, homosexual eroticism of many of his works, particularly during his middle period, triggered a more overarching controversy about the public funding of artworks.

Mapplethorpe was raised as a Roman Catholic of English and Irish heritage in Our Lady of the Snows Parish in Floral Park, New York, a neighborhood of Long Island. He received a B.F.A. from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where he majored in graphic arts.

In the mid-1970s, he acquired a Hasselblad medium-format camera and began taking photographs of members of his wide circle of friends, as well as acquaintances. His subjects included artists, composers, and socialites. In the 1980s, Mapplethorpe refined his aesthetic, photographing statuesque male and female nudes, delicate flower still lifes, and highly formal portraits of artists and celebrities. Mapplethorpe's first studio was at 24 Bond Street in Manhattan. In the 1980s, Sam Wagstaff gave him $500,000 to buy the top-floor loft at 35 West 23rd Street, where he lived and worked.

Mapplethorpe died in a hospital in Boston on the morning of March 9, 1989 from complications arising from AIDS. He was 42 years old.
Lisa Lyon by Robert Mapplethorpe
  • Lisa Lyon by Robert Mapplethorpe
  • Lisa Lyon by Robert Mapplethorpe
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    gelatin silver print, mntd
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    (38.7 x 38.7) cm.
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    Sotheby's New York
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