image of Robert Mapplethorpe from wikipedia

Robert Mapplethorpe

Robert Mapplethorpe was an American photographer, known for his sensitive yet blunt treatment of controversial subject-matter in the large-scale, highly stylized black and white medium of photography. His work featured an array of subjects, including celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, self-portraits and still-life images of flowers. His most controversial work is that of the BDSM subculture in the late 1960s and early 1970s of New York City. The homoeroticism of this work fuelled a national debate over the public funding of controversial artwork. Read more from Wikipedia →

Works by this artist in other museums: the Art Institute of Chicago, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in New York.