Robert Mapplethorpe

Robert Mapplethorpe was an American photographer from Queens in New York whose formal black and white pictures cover portraits, flowers, the male nude and gay sadomasochistic scenes. His portraits of Patti Smith, with whom he lived in the late 1960s, include the cover of her album Horses. A touring exhibition of his work in 1989 and 1990 led to an obscenity trial in Cincinnati and a long national row over arts funding. He died of AIDS at 42, and ARTIST ROOMS, shared by Tate and National Galleries of Scotland, holds a large group of his photographs.