Skip to main content

Robert Mapplethorpe Mixed Media

American, 1946-1989

Robert Mapplethorpe was born on November 4, 1946, in Floral Park, New York. He left home in 1962 and enrolled at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, in 1963, where he studied painting and sculpture and received his BFA in 1970. During this time, he met artist, poet, and musician Patti Smith. She encouraged his work and posed for numerous portraits when they lived together in Brooklyn and in the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan, a gathering place for artists, writers, and musicians in the early 1970s.

It was not Mapplethorpe’s original intention to be a photographer, and from 1970 to 1974, he mainly made assemblage constructions that incorporate images of men from pornographic magazines with found objects and painting. In order to create his own images for these collages, Mapplethorpe turned to photography, initially using a Polaroid SX-70 camera. Interested in portraiture, Mapplethorpe worked as a staff photographer for Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine. He also produced album covers for Smith and the group Television, and at the same time photographed socialites and celebrities such as John Paul Getty III and Carolina Herrera.

Mapplethorpe had his first substantial shows in 1977, both in New York: an exhibition of photographs of flowers at the Holly Solomon Gallery and one of male nudes and sadomasochistic imagery at the Kitchen. Mapplethorpe’s diverse work — homoerotic images, floral still lifes, pictures of children, commissioned portraits, mixed-media sculpture — is united by the constancy of his approach and technique. The surfaces of his prints offer a seemingly endless gradation of blacks and whites, shadow and light, and regardless of subject, his images are both elegant and provocative. In the mid-to-late 1980s, returning to the sculptural use of photography seen in his early assemblages, Mapplethorpe created sensual diptychs and triptychs of photographs printed on fabric and luxurious cloth panels.

In 1988, four major exhibitions of Mapplethorpe’s work were organized: by the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; and the National Portrait Gallery, London. Mapplethorpe died due to complications from AIDS on March 9, 1989, in Boston.

Find original Robert Mapplethorpe photography on 1stDibs.

(Biography provided by Cerbera Gallery)

to
1
Overall Width
to
Overall Height
to
1
1
1
1
1
1
11
270
267
150
142
1
Artist: Robert Mapplethorpe
Untitled
By Robert Mapplethorpe
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Robert Mapplethorpe's (1946-1989) place in the canon was earned from his incredible output of images that ranged from beautiful to brutal. Though known for his unrivalled output in...
Category

1960s Post-Modern Robert Mapplethorpe Mixed Media

Materials

Found Objects, Pencil, Color Pencil

Related Items
"#71 – THEN IT'S HOPELESS?", ink, pencil, gouache, found vintage book, poetry
By Amy Williams
Located in Toronto, Ontario
"#71 – THEN IT'S HOPELESS?" is from Amy Williams' series A Farewell to Arms – wherein the artist is working directly onto page 71 of a found copy of Ernest Hemingway's WWII romance novel. The artist selects certain words and phrases from the page to isolate as a poem, and then draws, inks, redacts and paints the rest of the page according to the text of the poem. Here the poem reads: "Then it's hopeless? / But sometimes I cannot hope. / I cannot." Note the poem is outlined in dark red and purple radiating lines, while outside there are lighter violet, blue and white lines. From Amy Williams – "My recent work is focused on making treated book pages using a found vintage...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Robert Mapplethorpe Mixed Media

Materials

Paper, Found Objects, Ink, Gouache, Pencil

"#227 – I WAS AFRAID", ink, pencil, gouache, found book, poetry, coronavirus
By Amy Williams
Located in Toronto, Ontario
"#227 – I WAS AFRAID" is from Amy Williams' series A Farewell to Arms – wherein the artist works directly onto pages of a found copy of Ernest Hemingway's WWII romance novel. The art...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Robert Mapplethorpe Mixed Media

Materials

Paper, Found Objects, Ink, Gouache, Pencil

"#186 – WOUNDED WERE COMING", ink, pencil, gouache, found vintage book, poetry
By Amy Williams
Located in Toronto, Ontario
"#186 – WOUNDED WERE COMING" is from Amy Williams' series A Farewell to Arms – wherein the artist works directly onto pages of a found copy of Ernest Hemingway's WWII romance novel. The artist selects certain words and phrases from page 186 to isolate as a poem, and then draws, inks, redacts and paints the rest of the page according to the text. The resulting poem reads "The wounded were coming / men that were scared / I felt the rain in my face / It was getting dark." – Hemingway's novel is a doomed romance between a wounded American soldier and an Italian nurse – note the feminine form on the page, with a "dress" or apron that looks skeletal, bloody and rained upon, all at once. From Amy Williams – "My recent work is focused on making treated book pages using a found vintage...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Robert Mapplethorpe Mixed Media

Materials

Paper, Found Objects, Ink, Gouache, Pencil

Herbario de plantas artificiales. Expedición México (Floripondio)
By Alberto Baraya
Located in Mexico City, MX
Alberto Baraya’s work resonates within the relation men-science-nature, and deals more specifically with the aesthetics of the naturalists’s journeys and the concept of exotism. His practice involves long trips that replicate some of the mechanisms of Eurocentric colonization such as making inventories of nature or of the population’s physical features. On his work he re-contextualizes those methodologies highlighting the ideological and aesthetical choices which give them form. In the ongoing series Artificial Plant...
Category

2010s Contemporary Robert Mapplethorpe Mixed Media

Materials

Found Objects, Cardboard, Pencil

Linda Cunningham, 'Randall's Island Connector', Pastel, Found Objects, Canvas
By Linda Cunningham
Located in Darien, CT
canvas, collage, pastel, acrylic, photo transfers, 2016 Bifurcated sheets of canvas with torn edges suggest the beautiful open vistas now inaccessible to the residents of the Mott Haven and Port Morris areas of the South Bronx, abandoned and dominated by de-teriorating remains, rotting remnants of piers, New York State-owned power stations and City Waste transfer stations. The unusual materials and torn canvas edges convey with tactile sensibility the contradiction documented with photo-transferred images, layered with acrylic and pastel. Materials and image fuse revealing a broken South Bronx history, an urban renewal tragedy, an area once the retreat of choice for fresh air, heath and greenery. The shards of information and vistas evoke the former Port Morris harbor named after Governor Morris a signatory of the constitution. There barges once docked and youth once swam off a pier in the East River. Cunningham’s work centers upon time, transience and contradictions shown through images of the shifting urban present. Compelling environmental concerns juxtaposed against industry, ur-ban blight and the loss of the natural environment as well as her concern for her Bronx home area faced with gentrification drive her work. Linda Cunningham is a Bronx based artist with a long New York and international exhibition career. ODETTA, Bushwick, Brooklyn featured her work in a November two person exhibition and in the Harlem FLUX Art Fair, in 2015 and 2016. Her 2013 installation in No Longer Empty’s “This Side of Paradise,”at the Andrew Freedman House was installed at the Bronx Museum, 2014 in an exhibition sponsored by the Bronx Arts Alliance. The Bronx Museum displayed her sculptural installation ”Urban Regeneration” on its terrace, 2009/10. Exhibitions in Germany began with a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship in Berlin and her monumental public sculptural installations & alternative memorials are permanently sited in Cologne, Kassel, Bad Hersfeld and Cornberg, Germany, Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, New Jersey and City of Sculpture, Hamilton, Ohio. Alternative memorials were sited at the CUNY Graduate Center across from Bryant Park, 1989-1995, in Tribeca and at UN Plaza, New York 1997-1998. Recent temporary public sculpture installations were at Westchester Sq., Bronx. NY, 2014 and Marcus Garvey...
Category

2010s Post-Modern Robert Mapplethorpe Mixed Media

Materials

Canvas, Pastel, Found Objects, Acrylic, Dye Transfer

“Surgical Team at Work”
By Nahum Tschacbasov
Located in Southampton, NY
Graphite, ink and crayon mixed media artwork of a surgical team at work by the Russian/American, Nahum Tschacbasov. Titled top right. Signed and dated lower left, 1979. Condition: Very good. Provenance: Estate of the artist. Overall framed in one inch wide black matte frame with off white mat 17.5 by 21.5 Inches. Nahum Tschacbasov’s paintings are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Jewish Museum, the Philadelphia Museum, the Pennsylvania Museum of Fine Art, as well as numerous college and private collections. His work was shown at ACA Gallery in New York, as well as Perl’s Gallery and John Heller...
Category

1970s Post-Modern Robert Mapplethorpe Mixed Media

Materials

Paper, Crayon, Ink, Graphite

“Surgical Team at Work”
“Surgical Team at Work”
$2,240 Sale Price
20% Off
H 15 in W 11 in D 1 in
USA (The Sciences): Abstract Colored Pencil & Postage Stamp
By Andrea Moreau
Located in Hudson, NY
USA (The Sciences), 2019 : Abstract Colored Pencil & Postage Stamp by Andrea Moreau 11" X 11" paper size colored pencil and postage stamp on paper 15 x 15 x 1 inches framed This co...
Category

2010s Contemporary Robert Mapplethorpe Mixed Media

Materials

Found Objects, Archival Paper, Color Pencil

Llyn Foulkes “For Eric the Birdman” - 1974 Mixed media collage on paper framed
By Llyn Foulkes
Located in Rancho Santa Fe, CA
Signed and dated lower right Provenance David Stuart Galleries, Los Angeles Willard Gallery, New York Daisy Viertel Shapiro, New York Exhibition Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington...
Category

1970s Post-Modern Robert Mapplethorpe Mixed Media

Materials

Paper, Photographic Paper, Graphite

Signs of Life (No. 2) Small-Scale Mixed Media Forest Work by Katherine Filice
By Katherine Filice
Located in Hollister, CA
"Signs of Life (No. 2)" is a 11.5 x 9.5-inch work made with ink, paper, wax drippings, burnt branches and bark, and stucco on buried canvas. A poetic response to nature’s quiet perse...
Category

2010s Robert Mapplethorpe Mixed Media

Materials

Canvas, Charcoal, Pastel, Found Objects, Wax, Color Pencil, Other Medium

"Burn Scar (No. 4)" Mixed Media Forest Fragment on Canvas by Katherine Filice
By Katherine Filice
Located in Hollister, CA
"Burn Scar (No. 4)" is a 16.5 x 23-inch work made with ink, paper, burnt branches, charcoal, and stucco on buried canvas. Katherine Filice uses scorched natural materials to tell a s...
Category

Early 1600s Abstract Robert Mapplethorpe Mixed Media

Materials

Canvas, Color Pencil, Archival Paper, Acrylic, Archival Ink, Charcoal, F...

Previously Available Items
Patti Smith Horses vinyl 1st Pressing (Robert Mapplethorpe Patti Smith)
By Robert Mapplethorpe
Located in NEW YORK, NY
Patti Smith Horses Vinyl Record Album, 1975: US 1st Pressing featuring original photography by Robert Mapplethorpe. Produced by John Cale. Cover: Very Good to overall vintage condit...
Category

1970s Pop Art Robert Mapplethorpe Mixed Media

Materials

Offset

Patti Smith Horses vinyl 1st Pressing (Robert Mapplethorpe Patti Smith)
By Robert Mapplethorpe
Located in NEW YORK, NY
Patti Smith Horses Vinyl Record Album, 1975: US 1st Pressing featuring original photography by Robert Mapplethorpe. Produced by John Cale. Cover: Very Good to overall vintage condit...
Category

1970s Pop Art Robert Mapplethorpe Mixed Media

Materials

Offset

Patti Smith Horses vinyl 1st Pressing (Robert Mapplethorpe Patti Smith)
By Robert Mapplethorpe
Located in NEW YORK, NY
Patti Smith Horses Vinyl Record Album, 1975: US 1st Pressing featuring original photography by Robert Mapplethorpe. Produced by John Cale. Cover: Very Good to Excellent overall vint...
Category

1970s Pop Art Robert Mapplethorpe Mixed Media

Materials

Offset

Patti Smith Horses vinyl 1st Pressing (Robert Mapplethorpe Patti Smith)
By Robert Mapplethorpe
Located in NEW YORK, NY
Patti Smith Horses Vinyl Record Album, 1975: US 1st Pressing featuring original photography by Robert Mapplethorpe. Produced by John Cale. Cover: Very good overall vintage condition...
Category

1970s Pop Art Robert Mapplethorpe Mixed Media

Materials

Mixed Media

Patti Smith Horses vinyl 1st Pressing (Robert Mapplethorpe Patti Smith)
By Robert Mapplethorpe
Located in NEW YORK, NY
Patti Smith Horses Vinyl Record Album, 1975: US 1st Pressing featuring original photography by Robert Mapplethorpe. Produced by John Cale. Cover: Excellent overall vintage condition...
Category

1970s Pop Art Robert Mapplethorpe Mixed Media

Materials

Offset

Patti Smith Horses vinyl 1st Pressing (Robert Mapplethorpe Patti Smith)
By Robert Mapplethorpe
Located in NEW YORK, NY
Patti Smith Horses Vinyl Record Album, 1975: US 1st Pressing featuring original photography by Robert Mapplethorpe. Produced by John Cale. Cover: Excellent overall vintage condition...
Category

1970s Pop Art Robert Mapplethorpe Mixed Media

Materials

Offset

Robert Mapplethorpe mixed media for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Robert Mapplethorpe mixed media available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Robert Mapplethorpe in offset print and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 1970s and is mostly associated with the Pop Art style. Not every interior allows for large Robert Mapplethorpe mixed media, so small editions measuring 12 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Larry Rivers, Raymond Pettibon, and Robert Rauschenberg. Robert Mapplethorpe mixed media prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $175 and tops out at $175, while the average work can sell for $175.
Questions About Robert Mapplethorpe Mixed Media
  • 1stDibs ExpertMarch 22, 2022
    Robert Mapplethorpe was known for his dramatic black and white photography. The American photographer's nude portraits, self-portraits and scenes from New York City's S&M clubs are particularly famous. On 1stDibs, you can find a variety of Robert Mapplethorpe photographic art.
  • 1stDibs ExpertMay 3, 2024
    You can see Robert Mapplethorpe art in a number of museums. His work is in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, California; the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia; the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City, New York; the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California; the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London, UK; and many other institutions. In addition, museums frequently feature his work in special exhibitions. Check the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation website for a list of upcoming exhibits. On 1stDibs, shop a variety of Robert Mapplethorpe art.

Recently Viewed

View All