Robert Mapplethorpe

Patti Smith

About this artwork

This is one of Mapplethorpe’s most carefully structured images. Patti Smith, the American singer-songwriter, and Mapplethorpe had lived together in the late 1960s and remained close friends after they parted. In this photo Smith is posing nude in a hunched-up, seated position, so that her body becomes the centre of a network of vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines.

Updated before 2020

see media
  • artist:
  • title:
    Patti Smith
  • date created:
    1976
  • materials:
    Gelatin silver print on paper
  • measurements:
    34.00 x 34.10 cm (framed: 61.20 x 58.70 x 3.80 cm)
  • object type:
  • credit line:
    ARTIST ROOMS National Galleries of Scotland and Tate. Acquired jointly through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and Art Fund, 2008
  • accession number:
    AR00186
  • gallery:
  • artwork photographed by:
    Antonia Reeve
This artwork is part of Artist Rooms
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Robert Mapplethorpe

Robert Mapplethorpe