visualrock:

The subject of several famous photographs with and without the photographer, singer-songwriter Patti Smith met Robert Mapplethorpe in New York in the turbulent ’60s. The two became roommates and lovers before each became superstars in their own right — she the godmother of punk music and he a prince of darkness that exposed the underbelly of New York’s gay, S&M, sex scene of the 1970s. This photograph of his former muse and recent biographer was shot in a New York loft in 1976.