Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
ARTIST ROOMS
National Heritage Memorial Fund
Art Fund
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/robert-mapplethorpe-11413" aria-label="More by Robert Mapplethorpe" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Robert Mapplethorpe</a>
John McKendry
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
adults
body
cable
electrical appliances
emotions, concepts and ideas
formal qualities
fragmentation
head / face
individuals: male
man
McKendry, John
named individuals
objects
people
photographic
plug
portraits
<p>This is a black and white portrait photograph of John McKendry, a former curator of prints and photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Only half of McKendry’s face is actually visible, the other half having been cropped out of the picture. The visible half of his face occupies almost the entire length of the right-hand edge of the print; his chin points towards the lower corner while his tousled hair rises up to the top corner. His skin is slathered in moisturiser creating an oily sheen, while his mouth is slightly open and his eye looks upwards. Directly behind McKendry’s head is a white wall. To the top left of the image are two metal plug sockets, one of which has a cord plugged into it. The cord hangs down towards the bottom edge of the picture creating a vertical line that parallels the vertical cropping of the curator’s face.</p>
paper print photograph gelatin silver
19 December 2009 – 27 March 2010
2010-03-27
19 December 2009 – 27 March 2010
2010-03-27
2009-12-19
Graves Art Gallery (Sheffield, UK)
http://www.museums-sheffield.org.uk/coresite/html/graves.asp
2009-12-19
ARTIST ROOMS 2009: Robert Mapplethorpe
Loan-out
25 September 2010 – 21 November 2010
2010-11-21
25 September 2010 – 21 November 2010
2010-11-21
2010-09-25
Towner (Eastbourne, UK)
http://www.townereastbourne.org.uk/
2010-09-25
ARTIST ROOMS 2010: Robert Mapplethorpe
Loan-out
10 November 2012 – 27 April 2013
2013-04-27
10 November 2012 – 27 April 2013
2013-04-27
2012-11-10
Perth Museum & Art Gallery (Perth, UK)
http://www.pkc.gov.uk/
2012-11-10
ARTIST ROOMS 2012: Mapplethorpe Scottish Tour
Loan-out
9 May 2014 – 26 October 2014
2014-10-26
9 May 2016 – 26 October 2016
2016-10-26
2016-05-09
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2014-05-09
Mapplethorpe Self Portraits and Portraits
Collection based display
8 August 2015 – 7 November 2015
2015-11-07
8 August 2015 – 7 November 2015
2015-11-07
2015-08-08
Aberystwyth Arts Centre (Aberystwyth, UK)
2015-08-08
ARTIST ROOMS 2015: Robert Mapplethorpe
Loan-out
John McKendry
support: 341 × 341 mm
frame: 611 × 586 × 38 mm
<a href="/search?gid=999999788" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">ARTIST ROOMS</a>
Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the <a href="/search?gid=999999967" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">National Heritage Memorial Fund</a> and the <a href="/search?gid=999999968" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Art Fund</a> 2008
<div class="text">
<p>This is a black and white portrait photograph of John McKendry, a former curator of prints and photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Only half of McKendry’s face is actually visible, the other half having been cropped out of the picture. The visible half of his face occupies almost the entire length of the right-hand edge of the print; his chin points towards the lower corner while his tousled hair rises up to the top corner. His skin is slathered in moisturiser creating an oily sheen, while his mouth is slightly open and his eye looks upwards. Directly behind McKendry’s head is a white wall. To the top left of the image are two metal plug sockets, one of which has a cord plugged into it. The cord hangs down towards the bottom edge of the picture creating a vertical line that parallels the vertical cropping of the curator’s face.</p>
<p>This photograph was taken by Robert Mapplethorpe at St Clare’s hospital, New York, the day before McKendry died of complications relating to liver disease, from which he suffered due to excessive drinking and drug taking throughout his life. McKendry had asked Mapplethorpe to visit him in the hospital and to bring his camera with him. When Mapplethorpe arrived with singer Patti Smith, a lifelong friend of the photographer, McKendry was applying Royal Jelly moisturiser to his face. After he had finished he looked up at Mapplethorpe and told him, ‘I’m ready for my picture now’ (cited in Morrisroe 1995, p.152). For ten minutes Mapplethorpe took various shots while the curator’s attention drifted. According to Mapplethorpe’s biographer Patricia Morrisroe, the photographer was greatly affected by the intensity of photographing a dying man and left quickly.</p>
<p>Mapplethorpe first met McKendry in 1971 when he attended a dinner party thrown by McKendry and his wife, Maxime de la Falaise, a prominent figure in New York’s high society. McKendry and Mapplethorpe immediately became friends, with the former acting as a mentor and patron to the emerging photographer. Mapplethorpe was greatly inspired by McKendry, who granted him access to the vaults of the Metropolitan Museum where the photography collection was housed. It was from these visits that Mapplethorpe began to consider photography as an artistic medium: ‘Looking at those photographs made me think photography maybe could be art. I had never thought about that before, but now I found myself getting excited about the possibilities.’ (Mapplethorpe quoted in Morrisroe 1995, p.108.)</p>
<p>Mapplethorpe photographed McKendry on another occasion in 1971, when the curator invited Mapplethorpe to accompany him on a trip to Britain. The photographer took a shot of McKendry in a bathtub at the Welsh home of Alexis de la Falaise, McKendry’s stepson. The curator’s wife was livid when she received word of this photograph as McKendry had an inappropriate fascination with her son Alexis, and she was furious that he had taken Mapplethorpe to the house while her son and his family were there. McKendry was also fascinated with Mapplethorpe, although the love he had for the photographer was unrequited and contributed to the curator’s extreme mood swings. As Patti Smith recalled, it was not only the curator’s longing for Mapplethorpe that triggered moments of depression but a deep self-loathing which led to his eventual self-destruction (Smith 2010, p.191).</p>
<p>This photograph is one of Mapplethorpe’s most uncharacteristic portraits. Morrisroe has noted that the photographer usually preferred to keep a distance between himself and his subject, but that this was ‘impossible when confronting the searing image of a dying man’ (Morrisroe 1995, p.152). The extreme cropping poignantly evokes the imminence of McKendry’s death as though he is slipping away, while the socket on the wall more directly points to his hospitalisation and imbues the image with a sense that the plug is about to be pulled on his life. This somber undertone was palpable to the curator’s wife who was ‘shattered’ by the image: ‘When I saw the photograph I realised how wrong I had been. John <i>was </i>dying, and Robert had captured him in his tiny room, in his little corner of Hell.’ (Maxime de la Falaise cited in Morrisroe 1995, p.153.)</p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Patrcia Morrisroe, <i>Mapplethorpe. A Biography</i>,<i> </i>London 1995.<br/>Patti Smith, <i>Just Kids</i>,<i> </i>London 2010. </p>
<p>Susan Mc Ateer<br/>University of Edinburgh<br/>June 2013</p>
<p>
<i>The University of Edinburgh is a research partner of ARTIST ROOMS</i>.</p>
</div>

Summary
2014-06-13T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<p>Born in Canada, John McKendry was a curator of prints and photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It was through McKendry that Mapplethorpe was exposed to photography in a new light and began to consider it as an art form of its own standing. However, McKendry was an alcoholic and this photograph of him was taken in hospital the day before he died, his face slathered in royal jelly moisturiser. Mapplethorpe’s brilliant cropping concentrates our attention on his discriminating eye, for which he was famous, and on the single electrical cord hanging from the socket. Mapplethorpe knew that he didn’t have long to live.</p>

Online caption
2009-04-16T00:00:00
online-caption
ONLINE_CAPTION
adults body cable electrical appliances emotions, concepts and ideas formal qualities fragmentation head / face individuals: male man McKendry, John named individuals objects people photographic plug portraits