Mapplethorpe : a biography /
Robert Mapplethorpe was one of the most famous and controversial figures in the contemporary art world. Some of his photographs were praised for their startlingly beautiful composition, others condemned for their explicit sexuality. He was an artistic enigma. In 1989, three months after Mapplethorpe...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York :
Random House,
[1995]
|
| Edition: | First edition. |
| Subjects: |
| Summary: | Robert Mapplethorpe was one of the most famous and controversial figures in the contemporary art world. Some of his photographs were praised for their startlingly beautiful composition, others condemned for their explicit sexuality. He was an artistic enigma. In 1989, three months after Mapplethorpe's death at forty-two, the Corcoran Gallery of Art canceled a show of his work, igniting a fierce battle over federal funding of "objectionable" art. When the exhibit arrived in Cincinnati a year later, the Center for Contemporary Art and its director were ordered to stand trial on obscenity charges - the first time a gallery in the United States faced prosecution for the art it displayed. In this remarkable biography, Patricia Morrisroe chronicles Mapplethorpe's singular life and the development of his unique art against the background of American culture during the sixties, seventies, and eighties. Mapplethorpe: A Biography reveals a life even more daring than the photographer's art. Selected by Mapplethorpe to write his story, Patricia Morrisroe conducted numerous interviews with the artist before his death, as well as with hundreds of people who knew him during the different periods of his life. Powerful and provocative, Mapplethorpe is the definitive biography of one of America's most celebrated photographers. |
|---|---|
| Item Description: | The Cushing Library/Women & Gender Studies copy was acquired as part of The Don Kelly Research Collection of Gay Literature and Culture. |
| Physical Description: | xvi, 461 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 417-436) and index. |
| ISBN: | 0394576500 9780394576503 |