Robert Mapplethorpe.

Andy Warhol.

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) was one of the most influential artists of the late twentieth century. Indeed, Mapplethorpe had idolised him while he was studying at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in the late 1960s. However, by 1973 when they showed together at the Gotham Book Mart in New York, they were distrustful of each other. In 1983 they photographed each other. Mapplethorpe’s photographs of Warhol show him with his customary blank expression. In this particular work, Mapplethorpe has emphasised Warhol’s loneliness by pressing him up against a wall and leaving an empty space on the right. He rubs his hands together rather nervously.