Bruce Chatwin
About this artwork
Bruce Chatwin was a British writer known for his travel writings such as ‘In Patagonia’ (1977). He collaborated with Mapplethorpe on the book ‘Lady: Lisa Lyon’ (1983), writing an essay for the publication. He was diagnosed with HIV in 1980 and died of an AIDS related illness in 1989, the same year Mapplethorpe himself succumbed to the virus. Chatwin is portrayed in close-up, face-on, looking intensely into the camera. His head and shoulders fill the frame. In this frank, frontal portrait, Mapplethorpe used an entirely dark background to bring Chatwin’s figure to the very fore of the picture plane, a technique that he often employed in his portrait photographs.
Updated before 2020
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artist:Robert Mapplethorpe (1946 - 1989) American
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title:Bruce Chatwin
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date created:1979
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materials:Gelatin silver print on paper
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measurements:50.80 x 40.60 cm
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object type:
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credit line:ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland. Presented by the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation 2010
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accession number:AR01139
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gallery:
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subject:
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...