Robert Mapplethorpe is known for his black-and-white photographs. Featuring subjects, celebrity portraits, nudes, self-portraits, and still. His subject’s matter was mostly gay male subculture in New York City during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Images were explicit and showed people what was happening whether they wanted to see it or not. Like all famous photographers, finding a subject that pushes is people’s understanding of how they see their world beyond what they think is acceptable. Causing them to use words like obscene.
Grew up in a comfortable middle-class family in Floral Park, Queens, New York. Graduating in 1963 with a revived Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Pratt Institute. First photographs, late 1960s or early 1970s, were with a Polaroid camera.
Died 42 HIV/AIDS March 9, 1989
