In death, Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989) has risen to stratospheric heights, his work helping to elevate the medium of photography into the realm of fine art. Whether making portraits of black men, bodybuilders or BDSM fetishists, Mapplethorpe imbued his photographs with exquisite finesse, using classical aesthetics to convey the sculptural beauty of his subjects.

A natural-born provocateur, Mapplethorpe understood how to suffuse his work with the perfect balance of the elegant and the explicit so that the viewer might contemplate each image the same way, no matter what the subject was. He crafted every work with technical precision, directing every element from the lighting to the pose to create an aesthetic democracy, where all things were rendered equal when they appeared before his camera lens. “I look for the perfection of form,” Mapplethorpe said. “I do this in portraits, in photographs of penises, in photographs of flowers.”