Gift of James G. Pepper, Class of 1965
© Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation.

Robert Mapplethorpe is one of the most widely recognized photographers of the 20th century. Born in Queens, NY, Mapplethorpe studied drawing, painting and sculpture in the 1960s at Pratt Institute, though he later gravitated to photography. He is known for his highly stylized black and white photographs depicting artists, musicians, celebrities, pornographic film stars, male and female nudes, and still lifes of flowers. The homo-erotic undertone of many of his pieces caused his work to come under fire during the Culture Wars, a national debate over public funding sponsoring controversial artwork. This portrait of two men embracing, bound by gauze, a fragile material associated with injuries or death, is emblematic of that controversy. White gauze may also associate this portrait with “white parties,” fundraisers intended to increase awareness of HIV/AIDS (the disease that took Mapplethorpe’s life in 1989).