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Robert Mapplethorpe’s collaboration with Graphicstudio was driven by his fascination with the potential of the photogravure process, a 19th-century photographic process experiencing a revival at the studio during the 1980s. This technique, known for producing nuanced tonalities and intricate detail, offered Mapplethorpe a platform for creative experimentation with various papers, colors, and textures. He seized upon these qualities to produce a series of photogravures featuring flowers and portraits, among which “Irises” is included.
“Mapplethorpe’s passion for 20th-century art glass and pottery has been well publicized. Many of his images feature the pure elegant forms of vases that were in the artist’s own collection. In “Irises” Mapplethorpe has captured the iridescent surface of an Aurene glass vase crisply silhouetted against a background flooded with light. The square format is bisected by the vertical edge of the light pattern on the wall. The shelf provides a horizontal counterbalance and the symmetricality of the vase is echoed in the balanced, fanlike arrangement of the irises. Constructed of light and shadow, the forms in “Irises” manifest a sculptural solidity that is typical of Mapplethorpe’s work. (Fine, Ruth E., Corlett, Mary Lee, Graphicstudio Contemporary Art from the Collaborative Workshop at the University of South Florida, National Gallery of Art, 1991.)
