Description

Robert Mapplethorpe shot the cover of Horses in natural light at the Greenwich Village penthouse of his partner, the collector Sam Wagstaff. Patti Smith dressed herself: a plain white shirt bought at a Salvation Army store on the Bowery, a black ribbon at the collar and a black jacket slung over one shoulder, pinned with a small horse brooch given to her by Allen Lanier. She was thinking of Charles Baudelaire, and of Frank Sinatra's habit of carrying his jacket that way. "I just like dressing like Baudelaire," she said.

Mapplethorpe took about a dozen frames. Around the eighth, he announced, "I have it." When Smith asked how he knew, he said, "I just know." The black-and-white image, with its direct stare and androgynous styling, looked nothing like the glamour shots record companies expected of a female singer in 1975. Arista executives asked for changes. Smith refused, and Clive Davis later admitted he was torn before deciding he needed "to trust her artistic instincts thoroughly."

The decision made the photograph a landmark. Camille Paglia called it "one of the greatest pictures ever taken of a woman." Even the release date carried a private meaning: Smith wanted the album out on 20 October, the birthday of the poet Arthur Rimbaud, but a vinyl shortage pushed it to 10 November, the anniversary of his death. The cover remains a portrait of an artist who refused to be packaged.

Credit

Photography by Robert Mapplethorpe; design by Bob Heimall