Calla Lily, 1988

In 1979, Mapplethorpe had just arrived onto the demi-monde of New York City's art world and had recently enjoyed successful exhibitions at the Holly Solomon Gallery and Robert Miller Gallery. 1979-80 also marked Tom Baril's senior year at The School of Visual Arts in New York, a time when he began printing photographs for Mapplethorpe. Baril eventually become a "master printer," worked with Mapplethorpe throughout the rest of his lifetime and evolved into an accomplished artist in his own right. The present lot, considered to be Mapplethorpe's finest photograph of a CALLA LILY, an image to which he would become closely associated, was gifted from Mapplethorpe to Baril as the inscription reads.