Communication with the purpose of culturally promoting artists included in the Fundación María Cristina Masaveu Peterson Collection, works protected by intellectual property rights. Their total or partial reproduction or processing by any means, or their transmission or cession in any form is forbidden without the authorisation of the holder of the rights to the works
Pheasant
TECHNICAL DATA
Author: Robert Mapplethorpe (Nueva York, 1946 – Boston, 1989)
Title: Pheasant
Year: 1984
Technique: gelatin silver print
Size: image: 50.3 x 40.5 cm
Edition: 1/2
Pheasant,1984 © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission.
This work by the late Robert Mapplethorpe was acquired by the María Cristina Masaveu Peterson Foundation at the 2013 International Contemporary Art Fair (ARCO) in Madrid, and shows a more subtle thematic series by the North American artist, who is one of the great masters of photography of the second half of the 20th century. During the 1980s, a major change in his work occurred as it shifted towards refining and accentuating the classical beauty of his images through naked male and female bodies captured as sculptures, conventional portraits by artists and famous people, as well as still lifes.
His scenes with still animals, flowers and objects make up a particular perspective of the vanitas and still lifes as memento mori in the history of art, which Mapplethorpe configures with a unique vision. This print, controlled through the collection legacy of the Mapplethorpe Foundation, has been exhibited at international numerous galleries and art centres.