Robert Mapplethorpe - A Constant Pursuit: Photographs from the Collection of Ed Cohen & Victoria Shaw New York Thursday, October 4, 2018 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Robert Miller Gallery, New York, 1988

  • Literature

    Museum of Contemporary Art, Sapporo, Japan, Robert Mapplethorpe Retrospective, pl. 115

  • Catalogue Essay

    “My whole point is to transcend the subject...Go beyond the subject somehow, so that the composition, the lighting, all around, reaches a certain point of perfection.”
    Robert Mapplethorpe

  • Artist Biography

    Robert Mapplethorpe

    American • 1946 - 1989

    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."

    View More Works

42

American Flag

1987
Gelatin silver print.
19 1/4 x 23 in. (48.9 x 58.4 cm)
Signed, dated by the artist and copyright credit reproduction limitation stamp on the reverse of the flush-mount. Number 5 from an edition of 10.

Estimate
$150,000 - 250,000 

Sold for $187,500

Contact Specialist
Caroline Deck
Head of Sale, Senior Specialist

Vanessa Hallett
Worldwide Head of Photographs and Deputy Chairman, Americas

General Enquiries
+1 212 940 1245

A Constant Pursuit: Photographs from the Collection of Ed Cohen & Victoria Shaw

New York Auction 4 October 2018