Getty Museum
Robert Mapplethorpe
Creator
Andy WarholAmerican Photographer · 1928–1987
All works by this person →> If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it. > > --Andy Warhol Thus Andy Warhol described himself, being deliberately enigmatic with regard to the depth of his talent. Having received a degree in pictorial design in 1949, he began his professional career as a window dresser and later as a commerci
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- 1983
- Medium
- Polaroid dye diffusion print
- Culture
- American
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
Inspired by Andy Warhol's film *Chelsea Girls* (1966), Robert Mapplethorpe moved to Manhattan in 1969 to meet the artist and to emulate him-in art, lifestyle, and material success. After he settled at the Chelsea Hotel, where segments of Warhol's film were shot, he began making photographs, often self-portraits or portraits of his roommate, the poet Patti Smith, and usually with a borrowed Polaroid camera. Mapplethorpe's maturing approach to photography resembled Warhol's in many ways. He had no patience for the technical side of the medium and prided himself on gaining a reputation without ever having made a print himself. Portraiture was his main theme, and he used the camera as a means of making connections with celebrities, potential patrons, and possible lovers. In the 1980s, sales of Mapplethorpe's pictures soared. Warhol was commissioned to paint his portrait, so Mapplethorpe sat for the preparatory Polaroids, including this one. In turn, Warhol sat for Mapplethorpe in 1986.
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