Robert Mapplethorpe - PHOTOGRAPHS New York Friday, October 8, 2010 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Acquired directly from the artist

  • Literature

    St. Martin's Press, Lady Lisa Lyon, p. 53

  • Catalogue Essay

    Lots 277-285 continue our offering of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs from the Collection of Lisa Lyon. Between 1980 and 1982, Mapplethorpe and Lyon, a one-time women’s bodybuilding champion, collaborated on a project that examined representations of women throughout the history of photography. The result is a powerful series of images that address themes of androgyny, classicism, erotica and the exploration of American subculture.

  • 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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PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE COLLECTION OF LISA LYON

283

Lisa Lyon

1982
Gelatin silver print.
15 1/8 x 15 1/8 in. (38.4 x 38.4 cm).
Signed and numbered AP 1/2 in ink in the margin; signed, dated in ink and copyright credit reproduction limitation stamp on the reverse of the flush-mount. One from an edition of 10 plus 2 artist's proofs.

Estimate
$6,000 - 8,000 

Sold for $6,500

PHOTOGRAPHS

8 October 2010
New York