Robert Mapplethorpe

Bob Love

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About this artwork

This photograph is from a series of images of black men in which Mapplethorpe celebrated the sculptural beauty of the human form. It was published in Mapplethorpe’s ‘The Black Book’ in 1986. In ‘Bob Love’ the naked sitter is posed like a sculpture on a pedestal draped with a twisted white sheet, his legs spread, in a candid and frontal study of the male form. The artist’s fascination with classical and antique sculpture is evident in his use of light and shadow to create a sense of three-dimensionality in these works. In his photographs of black male nudes Mapplethorpe confronted questions of racial stereotypes and his images have been critiqued for their emphasis on muscular, sculpted physiques.

Updated before 2020

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  • artist:
  • title:
    Bob Love
  • date created:
    1979
  • materials:
    Gelatin silver print on paper
  • measurements:
    (framed: 61.20 x 58.70 x 3.80 cm)
  • object type:
  • credit line:
    ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland. Presented by the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation 2010
  • accession number:
    AR01140
  • gallery:
  • subject:
This artwork is part of Artist Rooms
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Robert Mapplethorpe

Robert Mapplethorpe