Robert Mapplethorpe - Photographs London Wednesday, May 16, 2012 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Galleria Photology, Milan

  • Literature

    Robert Mapplethorpe and the Classical Tradition: Photographs and Mannerist prints, exh. cat.,
    Guggenheim Museum, Berlin, 2004, cover, p. 49 and pl.100

  • Catalogue Essay

    “If I had been born one or two hundred years ago, I might have been a sculptor, but photography is a very quick way to see, to make sculpture.’’
    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

18

Ken, Lydia and Tyler

1985
Gelatin silver print.
38.5 x 38.5 cm (15 1/8 x 15 1/8 in)
Signed, dated and numbered 2/10 in ink in the margin; signed, dated in ink by the photographer, titled, dated, numbered in ink in an unidentified hand and copyright credit reproduction limitation stamp on the reverse of the flush-mount.

Estimate
£25,000 - 35,000 

Sold for £32,450

Photographs

17 May 2012
London