Holly Solomon successfully advocates for Mapplethorpe’s work to be included in Documenta 6 in Kassel, Germany.
1977
Leaves Solomon for Robert Miller
Feeling that Solomon is not promoting him enough and that an uptown gallery would balance his provocative image, Mapplethorpe moves to Robert Miller, who has opened a gallery at 724 Fifth Avenue: Patti Smith accepts Miller’s offer to show her drawings on condition that Mapplethorpe is included in a joint exhibition, and Miller, at first reluctant to represent a photographer with sadomasochistic work, agrees.
February 1977
Solo show of portraits, and the erotic work at The Kitchen
The Holly Solomon Gallery presents a solo exhibition of Mapplethorpe’s portraits, while his erotic photographs are shown separately at The Kitchen in SoHo.
24 June 1977 – 2 October 1977
Exhibition: Documenta 6
February 1978
An exhibition at the Lowinsky Gallery in San Francisco
Mapplethorpe tells Warhol he is going to San Francisco for his upcoming show and a month-long “sex vacation”; the Simon Lowinsky Gallery exhibition features mainly photographs of men in heavy leather, S&M scenes and nude bodies, alongside neutral images such as a nude portrait of Smith and close-ups of flowers; the gallery had edited out the more explicit photographs, which were shown the following month at 80 Langton Street.
At the gay bar Sneakers in the West Village Mapplethorpe meets Milton Moore, who is AWOL from the US Navy, and Moore becomes his muse; in November 1981 they move into a studio apartment at 88 Bleecker Street. Mapplethorpe supports Moore, pays his legal expenses and urges him to study photography at Parsons, but after a difficult visit to Moore’s family in rural Tennessee Moore moves out, leaving Mapplethorpe grief-stricken.
