Robert Mapplethorpe is one of the twentieth century's most important artists, known for his ground-breaking and provocative work. He studied painting, drawing, and sculpture in Brooklyn in the 1960s and started taking photographs when he acquired a Polaroid camera, in 1970. Beginning in 1973 and until his death in 1989, Mapplethorpe explored the flower with extraordinary dedication, using a range of photographic processes - from Polaroids to dye-transfer color works.

In carefully constructed compositions, he captured roses, orchids, snapdragons, daisies, tulips and other species - both common and rare - and forever transformed the way we perceive a classic and familiar subject. The result - a stunning body of work - is collected in this elegant book, with a foreword by Mapplethorpe's close friend Dimitri Levas and an introduction by Herbert Muschamp.