.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Thomas and Dovanna is a highly complex and mature piece from a monumental body of work that was created at the apex of Robert Mapplethorpe’s career in 1986. A radically seductive portrait, the work offers an example of the artist’s masterful blending of modernism and classicism. The subject of the image depicts a nude black man engaged in a waltz with a white woman wearing a flowing white evening dress, a pairing intended to disrupt antiquated views of race and sexuality, themes that encompasses Mapplethorpe’s oeuvre.
This stunning, yet daring composition was described by scholar and critic Arkady Ippolitov as “a ..sphere of pure form, geometrical balance of beauty expressed in bodily plasticity, removing all contradictions between good and evil, darkness and light, male and female, night and day, real and invented. In the sphere of ideal form there are no oppositions; everything has been calculated and balanced, but that balance is so fine, so fantastical, that the slightest puff will blow it away,” (Robert Mapplethorpe and the Classical Tradition: Photographs and Mannerist Prints, Guggenheim Museum Publications, 2004, p. 22). Despite being opposites in every way, Thomas and Dovanna, come together in perfect equilibrium.
Created as a rare platinum print on linen, the work reveals an extensive, rich brown tonal range that gently melts into the soft linen surface. Presented in a black beveled artist’s frame signed and dated on the back, Mapplethorpe’s aesthetic choice is evident here and remind of his penchant for fabricating unique altars. At the time of this writing, no other prints in this format have been located.
This stunning, yet daring composition was described by scholar and critic Arkady Ippolitov as “a ..sphere of pure form, geometrical balance of beauty expressed in bodily plasticity, removing all contradictions between good and evil, darkness and light, male and female, night and day, real and invented. In the sphere of ideal form there are no oppositions; everything has been calculated and balanced, but that balance is so fine, so fantastical, that the slightest puff will blow it away,” (Robert Mapplethorpe and the Classical Tradition: Photographs and Mannerist Prints, Guggenheim Museum Publications, 2004, p. 22). Despite being opposites in every way, Thomas and Dovanna, come together in perfect equilibrium.
Created as a rare platinum print on linen, the work reveals an extensive, rich brown tonal range that gently melts into the soft linen surface. Presented in a black beveled artist’s frame signed and dated on the back, Mapplethorpe’s aesthetic choice is evident here and remind of his penchant for fabricating unique altars. At the time of this writing, no other prints in this format have been located.