Born in 1946 in Floral Park, Queens, Robert Mapplethorpe enrolled at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn in 1963, where he studied painting and sculpture. Inspired by artists such as Joseph Cornell, Mapplethorpe began making collages, often using photographic images from magazines, and bought a Polaroid instant camera in 1970 to document these works. Shortly after, he began using the instant camera to create images to incorporate into his collages, as well as portraits. Mapplethorpe’s first solo exhibition at New York’s Light Gallery in 1973 comprised a series of these Polaroids.
In 1975, Mapplethorpe’s photographic vision changed dramatically after receiving a Hasselblad 500 medium-format camera, with which he began creating classically composed portraits. Mapplethorpe lived with his then girlfriend and muse, musician Patti Smith, in the Chelsea Hotel, a hub of artistic activity in the city. It was here that Mapplethorpe created many portraits of Smith and their circle of friends, as well as acquaintances from New York’s underground scene – including musicians, artists, celebrities and social sub-cultures. At this time, Mapplethorpe also produced images for commercial advertisements and began to work as a photographer for Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine, as well as creating images for Vogue and Esquire.
Mapplethorpe continued to produce photographic works into the 1980s, including nudes, as well as numerous still-life compositions and domestic scenes of flowers. Of the latter, he said:
Maybe I experiment a little more with flowers and inanimate objects because you don’t have to worry about the subject being sensitive or worry about the personality. I don’t think I see differently just because the subject changes.1Robert Mapplethorpe, interview by Janet Kardon, Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, 1988, p. 25.
He also developed his practice, studying the history of photography and experimenting with different formats, media, papers and printing techniques.
Taken in 1986, Irises is a beautifully composed image of irises arranged in a reflective Aurene glass vase from Mapplethorpe’s own collection of American iridescent vases. The floral arrangement is set against a simple background in which light floods in at an angle through blinds on an adjacent window. The composition is a play of light, shadows and tones, as well as of geometric lines and forms.
The large-scale photogravure print of Irises, which recently joined the NGV Collection with the generous support of Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family, was produced in 1987. It is one of several works that Mapplethorpe produced as editions in collaboration with the atelier Graphicstudio, part of the Institute for Research in Art at the University of South Florida.
At the time, Mapplethorpe was interested in exploring photogravure, an out-of-favour process invented in the nineteenth century and popular from the mid 1880s into the 1910s. The technique involves the transfer of a photographic image from a black-and-white negative to a copper printing plate. Working with the Graphicstudio team and studio equipment, Mapplethorpe produced a suite of photogravures from his photo negatives, including two flower studies and several images of a regular portrait subject, Ken Moody. The rich tones of his flower studies, such as Irises, maximise the famously luscious surfaces and deep shadows afforded by the photogravure process.
Mapplethorpe’s work was exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1988, his first major American retrospective. The exhibition took place just a year prior to his death from complications from AIDS, with which he had been diagnosed in 1986. Following his death, Mapplethorpe continued to be featured in international exhibitions – including Robert Mapplethorpe: Photographs 1976–1985 at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne in 1986 (which toured to Brisbane, Sydney, Hobart and Canberra); at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney in 1995; and at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney in 2017–18, among others.
Irises is the second work by Mapplethorpe to enter the NGV Collection, after the acquisition of the gelatin silver photograph Alistair Butler, 1980, in 2016 (purchased by NGV Foundation).
Maggie Finch is NGV Curator, Photography.
Thie article first appeared in the May-June 2025 edition of NGV Magazine.
Note
Robert Mapplethorpe, interview by Janet Kardon, Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, 1988, p. 25.