Robert Mapplethorpe, an American photographer, is widely known for his black-and-white photographs of celebrities, male and female nudes, self-portraits, and still-life images. He was raised in a strict Catholic family in Queens, New York, and attended the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn to study graphic arts. His work documented New York City’s subcultures in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Mapplethorpe’s work was known for its classical beauty and attention to proportion and arrangement. He established the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation in 1988 to promote photography and support museums that exhibit photographic art. Despite stirring controversy over the explicit homoerotic themes present within some of his male nude photos, he is considered one of the most influential artists of the late twentieth century.
Notably, Mapplethorpe’s controversial works contributed significantly to public conversations surrounding censorship laws generally restricting artistic expression dealing with sexuality or sexual subject matter deemed unacceptable by state or federal statute. Additionally, his legacy on art scholarship is ubiquitous; leading institutions across Europe such as Centre Georges-Pompidou (Paris) exhibited retrospectives recognizing his contributions on March-June 2014.