Description
Brilliant, infamous, and gone too soon. Robert Mapplethorpe (1946–1989) redefined portraiture — and his explicit work ignited America’s culture wars. Patricia Morrisroe’s biography, commissioned by Mapplethorpe himself, tells the full story with extraordinary access.
From a strict Catholic childhood in Queens and Pratt Institute, through the intense creative partnership with Patti Smith at the Chelsea Hotel, to his rise as the most celebrated — and contested — photographer of his generation: the flowers, the portraits, the nudes, the scandal, all pursued with obsessive discipline at the edge of respectability.
Published by Random House in 1995, this courageous, meticulously researched life ends with the early death from AIDS that cut short one of art’s most provocative careers. Essential for anyone interested in photography, 1980s New York, and the eternal argument over where art ends and offense begins — and why Mapplethorpe still forces the question, decades on.
Robert Mapplethorpe (1946–1989) was one of the most brilliant — and infamous — figures in twentieth-century art. In Mapplethorpe: A Biography, Patricia Morrisroe tells the full story of the photographer whose stark, beautiful images redefined portraiture — and whose explicit work ignited America’s culture wars.
Morrisroe was selected by Mapplethorpe himself to write his life story, and her biography draws on extraordinary access: from his strict Catholic childhood in Queens and his years at Pratt Institute, through his intense creative partnership with Patti Smith at the Chelsea Hotel, to his rise as the most celebrated — and contested — photographer of his generation.
Published by Random House in 1995, her acclaimed biography traces an artist who pursued perfection with obsessive discipline while living at the edge of respectability: the flowers, the portraits, the nudes, the scandal, and the early death from AIDS that cut short one of art’s most provocative careers.
Courageous, meticulously researched, and utterly readable, Mapplethorpe remains essential reading for anyone interested in photography, 1980s New York, and the eternal collision between art and provocation.
This e-book edition brings Morrisroe’s landmark biography to your screen.
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