Flowers - Softcover

Mapplethorpe, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0821220195 ISBN 13: 9780821220191

Publisher: Bulfinch, 1993

Synopsis

The theme of flowers is woven throughout Robert Mapplethorpe's oeuvre, coming to signify some of his deepest concerns as an artist. The photographs in Flowers range from images of the early 1980's to many taken in the months just before his death.

About this title

About the Author:

Robert Mapplethorpe was one of the most important figures in contemporary photography. Brilliant, daring, and supremely accomplished, he will be remembered for the classical harmonies, controversial subject matter, and luminous vision that marked his photographs. He died in 1989.

From Library Journal:

Patti Smith's foreword, "A Final Flower," is a poetic tribute to the late photographer whose recent retrospective exhibition sparked a national legal debate over censorship in the arts. Smith's observation that Mapplethorpe embraced "the flower as the embodiment of all the contradictions reveling within," and in these photographs "found it was as easy to hurl beauty as anything else," enlarges this work in a meaningful way. The 50 color photographs of flowers taken over the past decade "by one who caused a modern shudder" are surprisingly conventional yet uniquely striking in their composition and lighting; Smith attributes their power to Mapplethorpe's "unflinching perception of the color, form and personality of the flower." The book's simple and sublime presentation--each opening a full-page plate facing a blank--serves to remind us that Mapplethorpe was a masterful photographer, not just an iconoclast.
- Ann Copeland, Champaign, Ill.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bulfinch
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0821220195
• ISBN 13: 9780821220191
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 108