The brilliant photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (1946–1989) was one of the most infamous figures of the contemporary art world. Patricia Morrisroe, drawing on the numerous interviews she conducted with him and those who know him, has written a remarkable biography that reveals a life even more daring than his art.

With Robert Mapplethorpe's full endorsement and encouragement, Morrisroe interviewed more than three hundred friends, lovers, family members, and critics to form this definitive biography of America's most censored and celebrated photographer.

“Eventually I found several hundred people who knew Robert Mapplethorpe in all his various incarnations—Catholic schoolboy; ROTC cadet; hippie; sexual explorer; celebrated artist; and famous AIDS victim. Their stories helped animate his pictures and bring his visual diary to life. What I discovered wasn’t one “Perfect Moment” but a series of moments—some pure, some blemished, but all emblematic of the paradoxical times in which he lived.”—Patricia Morrisroe, from the Introduction

Hardcover.