1972
Meets Sam Wagstaff
Croland introduces Mapplethorpe to the curator and collector Sam Wagstaff, who had grown interested after seeing a Polaroid of him in Croland’s apartment; reserved about the explicit content of the work but impressed by its candour, Wagstaff offers his support, the two become lovers, and Mapplethorpe will later call it love at first sight, after which everything changed for him.
April 1972
McKendry introduces him to Polaroid
McKendry takes Mapplethorpe to Boston and introduces him to executives at the Polaroid Corporation, whose Artist Support Program provides selected artists with cameras and film.
October 1972
A loft at 24 Bond Street
When Patti Smith moves in with her boyfriend, the musician Allen Lanier, Mapplethorpe can no longer afford their apartment, and Wagstaff gives him $15,000 toward a loft at 24 Bond Street, a short distance from his own; a home and studio of his own let him devote himself more fully to his art.
January 1973
First solo exhibition, “Don’t Touch Here”
The first solo exhibition of Mapplethorpe’s work opens at the Light Gallery in New York — Polaroids, the title taken from the protective sleeve of a Polaroid print and alluding to Duchamp’s “Prière de toucher”. It follows his growing focus on Polaroid: Wagstaff had given him a Hasselblad with a Polaroid back (by other accounts, the first exhibition, “Polaroid”, took place only in 1976 at the Metropolitan Museum).
1975
A portrait of Patti Smith on the cover of “Horses”
One of his stark portraits of Patti Smith is used as the cover of her 1975 debut album, “Horses”.
late summer 1976
Holly Solomon starts representing him
Unimpressed by his erotic photographs but admiring his portraits, Holly Solomon “auditions” Mapplethorpe as she had other artists who made her portrait: he photographs her reclining on her bed and later presents her with a framed triptych. She agrees to represent him, valuing his understanding of contemporary painting, sculpture and photography and swayed by Wagstaff’s endorsement; in November a photograph of a Dalmatian by him is included in the group show “Animals” at her gallery.