- Self Portrait
Sheet: 23 3/4 × 20 in. (60.3 × 50.8 cm)
Explore Further
Both famous and infamous for his photographs of gay
sadomasochistic subculture, Robert Mapplethorpe produced self-portraits throughout his
career, beginning in the early 1970s. His 1978 self-portrait with a bullwhip
would become a lightning rod for the Culture Wars of the early 1990s, but this
self-portrait, made a decade later, struck a different note. Taken just months
before Mapplethorpe died of AIDS, it is a haunting and defiant portrait, cloaked
in darkness. Focusing the camera on the skull-topped cane gripped in his right hand,
Mapplethorpe sent his own gaunt, pale face into soft focus, creating an
otherworldly distance between himself and the forcefulness of death’s
personification.
Provenance Research Ongoing Exhibition History"Self, Model, and Self as Other," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,13 July – 29 September, 2013.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Inscribed in black, verso, lower left: "1860 Self Portrait, 1988 8/10"
Inscribed in pencil, verso, lower left: "RMG M8809.217-C"
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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