Robert Mapplethorpe is arguably one of the most important figures in 20th century art history. He was born in Queens, New York in 1946 and was raised in a devout catholic household. In the mid 1960s, he went on to study Graphic Arts at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, but without completing his degree. It was during this time that he met his then lover, collaborator and later life-long friend, Patti Smith. She supported the couple by working in New York bookstores, allowing Mapplethorpe his artistic pursuits. Their relationship was the subject of her much-celebrated memoir, Just Kids. 

Having started to photograph in the late 60s, it was his meeting with art curator and collector Sam Wagstaff in 1972 which put Mapplethorpe on course to becoming one of the most important photographers of the second part of the 20th century. Wagstaff became a lover and patron of Mapplethorpe, buying him his first medium-format Hasselblad camera and apartment in which to work and live. He began photographing artists, musicians, friends, socialites, pornographic film stars, and members of the gay S&M underground community. 

By the 1980s, Mapplethorpe had moved towards studio photography and his emblematic work started to take shape. The three staples of this work was his nudes, flowers and portraits. The nude photography in particular was characterized by the strong contrast between his often explicit content and the strong formalism of his work. Mapplethorpe was preoccupied with light and form to near obsession, making his often outrageously erotic photographs sublimely beautiful.

Robert Mapplethorpe died in 1989, at age of 42, due to AIDS/HIV related illness. Mapplethorpe has since remained a cult-icon and his oeuvre is now considered to be one of the most important of his generation. His estate is managed by the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, which in 2011 donated their archive to the Getty Research Institute.