Patti Smith

Robert Mapplethorpe

1976 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

Mapplethorpe may be best remembered for the startlingly frank sadomasochistic images that catapulted him to the forefront of the "culture wars" of the 1980s and 1990s, but this photograph captures the compositional care and reflective mood that more aptly characterize his work as a whole. Friends for more than twenty years, Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith fueled each other’s creativity until his death. The Mapplethorpe portrait used for the cover of Smith’s influential 1975 album Horses is iconic, but here the tensile strength of Smith’s brash androgyny is more resolutely laid bare.

Artist

Robert Mapplethorpe

Date

1976

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gift of Barbara and Eugene Schwartz, 1993