Robert Mapplethorpe’s muse

Patti Smith, pays tribute in the revised and updated edition of the most comprehensive photography survey published.

The unique relationship shared by late photographer, Robert Mapplethorpe and American musician, Patti Smith, is laid bare in the latest edition of the most comprehensive survey of the photographer’s work, titled, Robert Mapplethorpe (Phaidon). Smith will open the cloth-bound tome with a poem dedicated to the artist who photographed her throughout her musical career, contextualising the controversial, beautiful and often cacospectamanic review of his notorious career. Robert Mapplethorpe, which was edited and designed by Mark Holborn and Dimitri Levas, will span the photographer’s nudes, self-portraits and floral still-lifes for an intoxicating, immersive experience of his life’s work as a photographer not only to the stars but also to sub-culture of the 1970s and 80s.