Self Portrait by Robert Mapplethorpe

Robert Mapplethorpe (November 4, 1946, New York City – March 9, 1989, Boston, Massachusetts) was an American photographer, known for his large-scale, highly stylized black and white photography. His work featured an array of subjects, including celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, and still-life images of flowers. His most controversial work is that of the underground bondage and sadomasochistic BDSM scene in the late 1960s and early 1970s of New York. The homoeroticism of this work fueled a national debate over the public funding of controversial artworks.