Self Portrait
About this artwork
Mapplethorpe felt a great affinity with the social rebellion of Surrealism and particularly admired the photographer Man Ray’s portrait of Marcel Duchamp in drag: Marcel Duchamp Dressed as Rrose Selavy, 1920-21. It introduced to Mapplethorpe the idea of portraiture as disguise and gender transformation, which he explores in this self portrait. Direct comparisons can be made between the two photographs in both subject matter and composition, whilst Mapplethorpe’s use of fur also recalls Meret Oppenheim’s Object, 1936, a sexually explicit, fur lined cup and saucer.
Updated before 2020
see media-
artist:Robert Mapplethorpe (1946 - 1989) American
-
title:Self Portrait
-
date created:1980; printed 1999
-
materials:Gelatin silver print on paper
-
measurements:35.20 x 35.20 cm (framed: 68.40 x 66.20 x 3.10 cm)
-
object type:
-
credit line:ARTIST ROOMS National Galleries of Scotland and Tate. Lent by Artist Rooms Foundation 2014
-
accession number:AL00361
-
gallery:
Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpe
The American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe became famous, not to say, notorious, in the 1970s and 1980s for his photographs of the male nude and sexually explicit, gay imagery. Although often considered controversial, Mapplethorpe tested the right to individual freedom of expression. These...