Robert Mapplethorpe - Photographs London Thursday, November 21, 2024 | Phillips
  • Provenance

    Sotheby's, London, Photographs, 20 May 2010, lot 58

  • Literature

    Phaidon, Mapplethorpe: The Complete Flowers, pl. 118

  • 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

16

Calla Lily

1985
Gelatin silver print, mounted.
38.5 x 38.5 cm (15 1/8 x 15 1/8 in.)
Signed, dated by Michael Ward Stout, Executor, in ink, estate copyright credit reproduction limitation stamp on the reverse of the mount. Number 4 from an edition of 10.

Estimate
£35,000 - 55,000 

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Photographs

London Auction 21 November 2024