Self Portrait
About this artwork
In contrast with his earlier, exaggerated self portraits Mapplethorpe appears more serious and pensive in this image. At the height of his career in 1986 the artist was diagnosed with AIDS, and he died the year after this photograph was taken. Mapplethorpe also took another self portrait in 1988 in which he poses with a skull on a stick against a similarly dark, sombre backdrop. Both images document the fragility of his existence at this time in his life.
Updated before 2020
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artist:Robert MapplethorpeAmerican (1946 - 1989)
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title:Self Portrait
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date created:1988
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materials:Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper
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measurements:58.60 x 48.90 cm (framed: 85.00 x 74.70 x 3.10 cm)
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object type:
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credit line:ARTIST ROOMS National Galleries of Scotland and Tate. Presented by the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation 2014
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accession number:AR01226
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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...
