Self Portrait
About this artwork
Mapplethorpe portrays himself as the archetypal bad boy, with black leather jacket, dark shirt, cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth, the coolly appraising gaze and the carefully coiffed 1950s-style hair. Mapplethorpe was keen to promote this image of himself as cool and impervious to emotion. The composition helps to underscore this. The pose is wholly frontal and composed so that his mouth lies at the very centre of the photograph.
Updated before 2020
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artist:Robert Mapplethorpe (1946 - 1989) American
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title:Self Portrait
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date created:1980
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materials:Gelatin silver print on paper
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measurements:34.00 x 34.10 cm (framed: 68.60 x 65.90 x 2.80 cm)
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object type:
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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
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accession number:AR00225
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gallery:
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depicted:
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subject:
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artwork photographed by:Antonia Reeve
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...
