Robert Mapplethorpe - Photographs New York Thursday, April 4, 2019 | Phillips

Photographs

New York Auction 4 April 2019

  • Provenance

    Sotheby's, New York, 9 October 2009, lot 176

  • 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."

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80

Robert Mapplethorpe

Skull + Crossbones

1983
Gelatin silver print.
15 1/8 x 15 1/8 in. (38.4 x 38.4 cm)
Signed, dated in ink and copyright credit reproduction limitation stamp on the reverse of the flush-mount. Number 3 from an edition of 10.

Estimate
$8,000 - 12,000 

Sold for $27,500

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Photographs

New York Auction 4 April 2019