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163

ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE (American, 1946-1989) APPLES AND URN editioned, signed and dated

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ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE (American, 1946-1989) APPLES AND URN editioned, signed and dated
ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE (American, 1946-1989) APPLES AND URN editioned, signed and dated "4/7, Robert Mapplethorpe '87" in black ink below image numbered, titled, editioned and dated "DT1775, Apples & Urn, 4/7, 1987" in black ink on verso; signed artist's copyright stamp on verso dye-transfer print on stiff board 19 5/8 x 18 5/8 in. (48.6 x 47.3 cm) paper: 24 x 20 in. (61 x 50.8 cm) 1987 this print is number 4 from an edition of 7 PROVENANCE Robert Miller Gallery, NEW YORK Private Collection, CARACAS EXHIBITED PORTUGUESA, Museo De Arte Acarigua-Araure, 5 x 5: 150 AÄNOS DE LA FOTOGRAFÂIA, (traveling to four other venues: Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Caracas, Ateneo de Valencia, Centro de Bellas Artes de Maracaibo, VENEZUELA, Sala Luis Angel Arango, BOGOTA), 1989-1990 CARACAS, Museo Alejandro Otero, MAPPLETHORPE, September 7-November 7, 1997 LITERATURE Els Barents, ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE: TEN BY TEN, MUNICH, 1988/1996, pl. 17 (black and white variant illustrated) ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE, Tokyo, 1992, p. 183, cat. no. 141 (illustrated) The subjects of Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs are often divided into broad categories of figures or flowers. However, Mapplethorpe also shot exquisite still lifes of other objects, among which the present work may be counted. Here the artist has quoted seventeenth-century Dutch still life painting by arranging several apples, a marble urn, and a bolt of patterned fabric on a close ledge. Despite this nod to the art historical past, Mapplethorpe eschews a traditional "embarrassment of riches," and imposes his own austere formal sensibilities on this genre. Like many of the artist's most successful photographs, this still life is governed by an unerring eye for symmetry. Not only is the urn perfectly centralized, but a shaft of light also bisects its base. The fruit, as well, is carefully organized around the same vertical axis. In this relatively uncommon dye-transfer print, Mapplethorpe demonstrates a remarkable command of chromatic balance, an effect that he normally achieved with contrasts of black and white.
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