Robert Mapplethorpe
Self Portrait
About this artwork
By training his camera on his eyes, and on his eyes only, Mapplethorpe has concentrated on those organs and on that faculty that determined his career. These eyes, sunken into his head and surrounded by lines, are the eyes of a sick man – Mapplethorpe was to die of an AIDS-related illness in a few months’ time, but also the eyes of a brave and unflinching man, determined to outstare death.
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:1988
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materials:Gelatin silver print on paper
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measurements:27.10 x 57.50 cm (framed: 61.60 x 89.50 x 2.9 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:AR00145
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gallery:
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subject:
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artwork photographed by:Antonia Reeve
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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...
