Robert Mapplethorpe was without doubt one of the most brilliant photographers of his generation and certainly the most talked about. After a period of experimentation with collages and sculpture in the early 1970s, Mapplethorpe electrified the art world of his native New York in 1977 with two exhibitions, one of portraits, still lifes and flowers and one of male nudes and overtly homo-erotic photographs. Both strands in his work broke new ground and the meticulous aesthetic and technical mastery which he brought to all his imagery secured his graduation from "enfant terrible" to international grand master of photography. The book describes the first exhibition ever to be solely devoted to Mapplethorpe's portraits, held at the National Portrait Gallery in 1988. As well as a number of classic Mapplethorpe images, such as William Burroughs, Patti Smith, Lisa Lyon and Caroline Herrera, it contains a high proportion of previously unpublished portraits and a number of British sitters, including Lord Snowdon, Jasper Conran and Peter Gabriel.