The Life and Legacy of Robert Mapplethorpe

The multi-talented Robert Mapplethorpe has, arguably, established himself as one of America’s greatest contemporary artists; through a series of events that can only be described as unique, eccentric, and outstanding Robert eventually found himself in the place he had always wished to be. In this essay, I will highlight Mapplethorpe’s life before becoming the artist we all know him as, his shocking and fascinating career and work, and the souls he impacted along the way and continues to even after his incredibly unfortunate and heartbreaking death.

As the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation states in its description of Mapplethorpe’s life, the artist “was born in 1946 in Floral Park, Queens”. As a child, Mapplethorpe grew up in a strict Catholic household where he was an altar boy; as he settled into his artistry in his adult life, he made references to religion fairly commonly as it was such a large part of his upbringing. Although there is some insinuation that Mapplethorpe did not have the easiest or most pleasant of childhoods, the beloved artist frequently paid homage to his early life and is on record saying “I come from suburban America. It was a very safe environment and it was a good place to come from in that it was a good place to leave.”. Leaving his hometown is exactly what the artist did; in 1963 Mapplethorpe enrolled at Pratt Institute in nearby Brooklyn, where he studied and majored in drawing, painting, and sculpting. Mapplethorpe admired and took most of his inspiration from artists like Joseph Cornell and Marcel Duchamp, but he also made it a point to experiment with various forms of media like mixed-media collages that were primarily made up of pages cut from books and magazines. In 1969, he and his friend of three years, or rather soulmate, Patti Smith, moved into the Chelsea Hotel, the stomping grounds for all of the major artists during this time. With constant sources of inspiration swirling around him, Mapplethorpe got to work pretty quickly and made time for nothing else. It was only a year later that Mapplethorpe received a Polaroid camera from artist and filmmaker Sandy Daley. The moment that Polaroid was acquired, Mapplethorpe began producing his own photographs to incorporate into his collages and stated that the work felt “more honest.”.

In the year 1973 Mapplethorpe landed his first serious solo art exhibition at the Light Gallery in New York City. The gallery exhibition was a mounted series of images entitled “Polaroids” and featured a striking array of all black and white images cleanly placed side by side. It was only two years later that the artist acquired a Hasselblad medium-format camera and began capturing his tightknit circle of friends and acquaintances, mostly people within the art, music, and film industry, members of the S&M underground community, and his best friend, Patti Smith taking front and center. Robert Mapplethorpe would have photographed her every move if he had the time and resources. Speaking of such, Mapplethorpe also dipped his toes into the commercial field, namely creating album cover art, including album covers for Patti Smith and Television, and also created a series of portraits and party photos for Interview Magazine. As Mapplethorpe’s vision grew and changed over the years, he became increasingly interested in documenting New York City’s S&M scene and thus created some of the most unexpected yet incredibly remarkable and masterful images America had ever seen. Mapplethorpe’s decision to test the boundaries and embrace his intuitive design style propelled him to the place he had always set out for. The artist’s career continued to flourish at a pretty fast rate and allowed him to participate in Documenta 6 in Kassel, West Germany and in 1978, the Robert Miller Gallery in New York City became his exclusive art dealer. As his life and career continued Mapplethorpe continuously produced images that simultaneously challenged and adhered to most classical aesthetic standards. Mapplethorpe’s favorite genres were mostly stylized images or compositions of male and female nudes, floral still lifes, and studio portraits of artists and celebrities, Andy Warhol being one of them.

It was the year of 1986 that Robert Mapplethorpe was diagnosed with AIDS. Despite his illness, Mapplethorpe continued to create works that inspired anyone that had the pleasure of viewing them. The artist accelerated his creative efforts and increased and broadened his scope of photographic inquiry. Mapplethorpe continued to accept increasingly challenging and difficult commissions and was met with The Whitney Museum of American Art mounting his first major American museum retrospective in 1988, one year before his death in 1989. It can easily be said that Mapplethorpe’s vast, powerful, and outstanding portfolio has established him as one of the most important artists of the twentieth century. Even as of today, Mapplethorpe’s work can be found in the collections of major museums around the world. If one were to look past his social and artistic significance, his legacy still lives on through the work and charity of the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Mapplethorpe established the foundation in 1988 with the intention of promoting photography, supporting museums that exhibit photographic art, and to fund medical research in the longstanding fight against HIV and AIDS.