Robert Mapplethorpe (New York, 1946 - Boston, 1989) grew up on the outskirts of New York in a Catholic environment, with no ties to the art world. In 1963 he enrolled at the Pratt Institute, near Brooklyn, where he studied drawing, painting and sculpture, and began to know and delve into the work of artists such as Joseph Cornell and Marcel Duchamp. In 1970 he acquired a Polaroid and took his first photographs, which he began to incorporate into collages.
Progressively, he abandoned collage to focus only on photography, making his first individual exhibition Polaroids at the Light Gallery in New York. During these years Mapplethorpe expanded his social environment and, in parallel, progressed in his mastery of photography through portraits of his acquaintances in the artistic, nocturnal and underground circles of New York City.
He combines his artistic development with commercial projects, such as the cover of Patti Smith's album - who becomes his best friend and inseparable muse - or photographs for Interview magazine. Thus, the young Mapplethorpe progressively and intensely immerses himself in the whirlwind of New York's art and cultural industry in order to find his place and achieve, shortly before his death on March 9, 1989, an enormous social and cultural recognition.
Progressively, he abandoned collage to focus only on photography, making his first individual exhibition Polaroids at the Light Gallery in New York. During these years Mapplethorpe expanded his social environment and, in parallel, progressed in his mastery of photography through portraits of his acquaintances in the artistic, nocturnal and underground circles of New York City.
He combines his artistic development with commercial projects, such as the cover of Patti Smith's album - who becomes his best friend and inseparable muse - or photographs for Interview magazine. Thus, the young Mapplethorpe progressively and intensely immerses himself in the whirlwind of New York's art and cultural industry in order to find his place and achieve, shortly before his death on March 9, 1989, an enormous social and cultural recognition.
