Robert Mapplethorpe is one of the best-known portrait photographers of his generation, and one of the first to be recognized as a fine artist within the contemporary art world. Thomas highlights Mapplethorpe’s unmistakable photographic palette (strong black and white tonalities and soft greys) and his compositional acumen.
Gravely ill with pneumonia, Mapplethorpe agrees at the urging of his friend Dimitri Levas to enter Beth Israel Hospital — a bronchoscopy confirms AIDS-related Pneumocystis pneumonia; his brother Edward, the only family member who knows of the diagnosis, returns to help, and Jack Walls, back from Los Angeles, moves in with him again.
1987
The death of Sam Wagstaff
Wagstaff, who had remained a good friend after the romance ended and had earlier given Mapplethorpe $500,000 to buy a loft at 35 West 23rd Street, dies of AIDS; Mapplethorpe is the principal heir and executor, and after a year of legal disputes Wagstaff’s sister, Judith Jefferson, drops her lawsuit, leaving him a substantial inheritance.
February 1988
An exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam
Together with Lynn Davis and Jack Walls, Mapplethorpe travels to Amsterdam for the opening of his exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum.
March 1988
An exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London
In London, where Knaust organises a series of events, his portraits of cultural figures — from Lord Snowdon and Norman Mailer to Truman Capote and David Byrne — are shown at the National Portrait Gallery alongside his 1987 self-portrait; the curator Sandy Nairne recalls that he was treated “like a rock star” despite visibly declining health. A concurrent exhibition of still lifes and nudes at Hamiltons Gallery draws large crowds.
July 1988
The first major retrospective at the Whitney Museum
Mapplethorpe attends the opening of his first major American museum retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
9 March 1989
Death in Boston
After a seizure Mapplethorpe dies at 5:30 a.m. at Deaconess Hospital in Boston from complications of HIV/AIDS, aged 42.
