About this artwork
The bodybuilder and budding actor Arnold Schwarzenegger poses in a space rendered theatrical by a curtain that cuts the image at the top into two halves. The curve of the curtain to the left is echoed in Schwarzenegger’s pose – his extended right leg and curved right arm. It shows Mapplethorpe’s interest in the classical tradition with Schwarzenegger’s exceptionally muscular physique reminiscent of Michelangelo’s figures in the Sistine Chapel.
Updated before 2020
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artist:Robert Mapplethorpe (1946 - 1989) American
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title:Arnold Schwarzenegger
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date created:1976; printed 2005
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materials:Gelatin silver print on paper
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measurements:34.10 x 34.10 cm (framed: 61.30 x 58.70 x 3.80 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:AR00213
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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...
