- Artist
- Robert Mapplethorpe 1946–1989
- Medium
- Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper
- Dimensions
- Support: 341 × 341 mm
frame: 611 × 588 × 39 mm - Collection
- ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland
- Acquisition
- ARTIST ROOMS Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
- Reference
- AR00211
Online caption
William Burroughs (1914-1997) was a novelist, a guru and one of America’s underground heroes. His greatest novel, ‘The Naked Lunch’ (first published in France in 1959) was banned on the grounds of obscenity until, in a groundbreaking trial in 1966, it was declared not obscene. By 1980, when this photograph was taken, Burroughs was a countercultural giant. Mapplethorpe portrays him as a secular saint in prayer. Almost half the composition is taken up by Burroughs’s dark jacket, which thereby throws into sharp relief his head and clasped hands.
Explore
- emotions, concepts and ideas(16,416)
-
- formal qualities(12,454)
-
- photographic(4,673)
- clothing and personal items(5,879)
- actions: postures and motions(9,111)
-
- bending forward(353)
- hands clasped(166)
- looking down(200)
- sitting(3,347)
- man(10,453)
- individuals: male(1,841)