Robert Mapplethorpe (1946–1989) is one of the twentieth century's most important artists, known for his groundbreaking and provocative work. The definitive collection of Robert Mapplethorpe's flower photographs Today, a new exhibition, on show at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford Connecticut, a couple of hours north-east of Manhattan, looks at the changing nature of sexual representations in contemporary art via Warhol and Mapplethorpe’s portraits which, in various ways, capture, disguise and skew gender. By the time the fine-art photographer Robert Mapplethorpe passed away, on 9 March 1989, not only had New York’s homosexuality laws been repealed, but the artist’s own work had gone some way towards altering the established prejudices many within the art world held, when regarding depictions of gay love. When US pop artist Andy Warhol began his career, homosexual sex was still outlawed in New York State and state persecution was a fact of life for many gay men and women. Guise and Dolls reveals the way each artist dealt with sexual orientation and gender in their portraiture New Warhol Mapplethorpe show celebrates gender Gelatin silver print, The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, N.Y. Robert Mapplethorpe, Self- Portrait, 1980.
