Mapplethorpe notes.

Robert Mapplethorpe.

- Robert Mapplethorpe was raised in a strict Catholic household in the suburbs, therefore he felt as though Catholicism had an important influence on his work.
- At age 16, Mapplethorpe moved to Brooklyn to attend training at an art school.
- He attended Pratt instate of Art
- Mapplethorpe was close friends with PattySmith and they used to live together
- His first ever portrait was of Patty Smith
- He usual used his friends as models as they were most comfortable around him
- Mapplethorpe was openly gay, which was shocking as he was raised to be Roman Catholic
- He we most known for his documentation of  Manhattan's gay community in the late 60's and 70's
- He mainly photographed black and white portraits and flowers (as in that time flower photographs were the best selling photos in the industry)
- Most of Mapplethorpes portraits were of gay couples and often contained nudity
- Mapplethorpe sold prints for $15,000
- A session with Mapplethorpe would cost $10,000
- His work was often used for album covers
- Mapplethorpe had his nipple pierced on video
- Mapplethorpe was accused of being selfish as it seemed as though his work set out to shock people, as in that time homosexuality was still a controversial topic
- Mapplethorpes work often raised issues such as sex, violence and race discrimination
-This meant that many of his exhibitions were closed down
- Mapplethorpes work was around in the 'Pre-digital age'
- He used simple, soft-lighting which meant that the details of faces were more obvious
-Mapplethorpe died at age 43 due to Aids.

Mapplethorpe- Image bank

Robert Mapplethorpe is known for his black and white portraits. In all of Mapplethorpes work we can see that he has focused mainly on tone and on the composition of the photographs to ensure that there is not wasted space and all detail is shown. Mapplethorpe is also know for his self portraits the last three photos i had found are all of Robert Mapplethorpe himself, showing how he can be serious but at the same time there is humour in his work. This is shown in the forth picture is him with devil horns, at the time that would have been a bad thing as religion was still a quite a large part of society nut as he had said himself that he doesn't men any offence by his work.