Robert Mapplethorpe - Mark Holborn

This revised and updated edition is an iconic survey of the photographic work of Robert Mapplethorpe, one of the twentieth century's most important and influential artists. It is an extremely handsome edition, it has a fabric covered slip case and is also supplied in a custom printed cardboard outer box.

Inside the book there is a new foreword by Patti Smith and an introduction by Andrew Sullivan.

Mapplethorpe's work was both ground breaking and provocative; this might not be the book to have lying on your coffee table when your deeply conservative relative comes to yours for a cup of tea. Mapplethorpe studied painting, drawing and sculpture in Brooklyn in the 1960s and started taking photographs when he obtained a Polaroid camera in 1970. This book contains an overview of the artist's black and white photography; the floral still lives (that manage to be sexually charged), the nudes, self-portraits and portraits as well as his controversial X Portfolio. The colour plates are made more striking by their relative rarity in his cannon of work.

Original essay by Arthur Danto.

First published 1992

Hardback, slip case. 384 pages.

Measurements:

30cm x 32.5cm x 5cm