Lisa Lyon

Robert Mapplethorpe produced a body of work ranging from sensual floral still lifes and celebrity portraiture to explicit images of sadomasochism. Yet even his erotic male nudes evoke a classical aesthetic, balancing contemporaneity against timeless form. In 1980 Mapplethorpe met Lisa Lyon, who won the first World Women’s Bodybuilding Championship. Attracted to her muscular physique, which reminded him of Michelangelo’s rendering of the female figure, Mapplethorpe began a collaboration with her that culminated in the 1983 book Lady, Lisa Lyon. Depicting Lyon in nude, full-body portraits as well as a variety of character roles—society woman, dominatrix, mystic—this series celebrates ideals of female beauty from Antiquity and the Renaissance while simultaneously challenging stereotypical femininity today. Here, the framing of one flexed arm and a single breast suggests a double allegory of strength and sensuality.