MAPPLETHORPE ROBERT (1946 1989) Collage (Untitled)

Sale 2053 - Lot 251

Price Realized: $ 11,500

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 10,000 - $ 15,000

"WHO KNOWS WHAT THE FUTURE MAY BRING" MAPPLETHORPE, ROBERT (1946-1989)
Collage (Untitled). Multi-media original collage with applied watercolor, photographic and pictographic elements and monochromatic tissue papers, 9x7 inches, signed by Mapplethorpe on recto and in the original frame; with an autographed letter signed, dated June 1965, affixed to the verso that reads: "Dear Nancy, As you can readily see this is not the picture I had first intended to give you. I wanted it to have deeper meaning to me so I made this picture especially for you--What is it? Well, that I will not say. That is for you to figure out! I hope you will always keep it no matter what happens in the future. Your mother will undoubtedly think I've 'flipped my wig.' But that's all right, so would mine if I showed it to her. Believe me, maybe I've changed a little this past year but I'm not all that bad. I wanted to give you something different and I don't think you can question the fact that I've achieved my goal. Well congratulations graduate for you have also achieved your goal. Best of luck at St. John's.--Love always, Bob." A clipped handwritten note, overlaid with orange tissue paper, at bottom completes the work: "Who knows what the future may bring?" 1965

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One of the earliest objets d'art by Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989), the photography world's best-known bad boy whose masterful images of flowers and nudes ensure his legacy as a major 20th-century artist. Mapplethorpe created this homage to Nancy Nemeth in 1965 upon his graduation from a military academy. According to Patricia Morrisroe, the artist's biographer, in the 1960s Mapplethorpe and Nemeth attended Our Lady of the Snows Catholic Church in their home town of Floral Park, New York. The aspiring young model caught the attention of the former Catholic school cadet, then 18 years of age.