Robert Mapplethorpe: Photographer who shed light on the dark side

According to the old legend, Yorkshiremen take any opportunity to "pay nowt".

Fortunately Sheffield-born Anthony d'Offay doesn't subscribe to the stereotype. Thanks to his enormous generosity, the people of his home town – and from around Yorkshire – can enjoy an exhibition of work by one of history's most significant photographers.

In 2006 d'Offay generously offered his amazing collection of art to the nation and it was bought by the National Galleries of Scotland and the Tate. The collection was at the time valued at 125m – but d'Offay sold it for a snip at 26.5m –the same amount he had paid for it.

In among the treasures was a collection of Robert Mapplethorpe's photography.

Now, as part of a national exhibition called Artist Rooms, 35 of the photographer's most iconic images will go on display at Sheffield Graves Gallery.

"A life less ordinary" is a phrase which does little justice to Mapplethorpe.

While his photography included portraits of Patti Smith, Truman Capote, Marianne Faithfull and Andy Warhol, some of which are now on show in Sheffield, his photography also caused great controversy throughout his life and even after his death.

Before he held a camera in his hands, Mapplethorpe was destined for a career as a visual artist.

Having left what he called his suburban upbringing behind, Mapplethorpe attended Brooklyn's Pratt Institute in the early Sixties, where he studied drawing, painting and sculpture.

Shortly after leaving, he started dabbling in photography, taking photographs of close friends with a Polaroid camera. Fortunately, Mapplethorpe had already begun to spend time with New York's bohemia and so his friends were the same artists and musicians who in the future everyone would want to photograph.

As his career went on, Mapplethorpe, who was bisexual and eventually died in 1989 after contracting AIDS, experimented in more controversial photography.

His work featuring sado-masochistic sexual practices landed Birmingham's University of Central England in trouble in 1998 when a book of Mapplethorpe's work was confiscated under the Obscene Publications Act.

Liz Waring is the curator of visual art for Museums Sheffield, who has brought together the exhibition. She says the controversial images, some of which feature in the exhibition, should be taken in the context of the artist's oeuvre.

"I knew of his work and photography more because of the controversy that accompanied it than anything else – like most people would, I imagine," says Waring.

"But when you see his work collected together like it is

in this exhibition, you see where it fits in to his aesthetic, and that there is so much more to his work than the controversy."

Mapplethorpe's images are also highly informed. His work references a huge amount of classical art, and his portraits of nude males are heavily influenced by the surrealist movement.

"We decided to have some of the controversial work in the exhibition, because it gives a broad and full idea of his work," says Waring.

"But when you see all of his work and the context, it does give you a much broader picture of what he was wanting to achieve with his photography."

Nick Dodd, chief executive of Museums Sheffield, said:

"We are deeply pleased that Museums Sheffield has been chosen to take part in Artist Rooms and host part of this prestigious collection, made available through the generosity of one of the city's own sons, Anthony d'Offay.

"We are delighted to be afforded the incredible opportunity to bring the work of one of the 20th century's most important photographers, Robert Mapplethorpe, to Sheffield for the first time."

The exhibition runs until the end of the March and is already proving popular.

Waring adds: "When the Artist's Rooms projects were announced, we expressed our interest in hosting one of the rooms.

"When we heard the Mapplethorpe collection was available, we were very excited to bring it to Sheffield and I think our audiences are equally excited to see the work here."

Andrew Macdonald, acting director of The Art Fund, said: "By taking this extraordinary collection out of London and Edinburgh, Artist Rooms is enabling people in and around Sheffield to see Mapplethorpe's work on their doorstep and entirely free of charge. Anthony d'Offay was born in Sheffield, so it is particularly fitting that his vision of bringing his collection to as many young people as possible should be realised there."

Artist Rooms, Robert Mapplethorpe, Sheffield Graves Gallery, to March 27.

City birthplace of art collector

Born in Sheffield in 1940, Anthony d'Offay studied art at Edinburgh University, graduating in 1962.

While at the university, he fell in love with the collections of the National Gallery of Scotland.

Years later he described walking round the galleries on The Mound as "the defining experience of my life".

In 1969, the year in which the gallery moved to Dering Street, he organised the ground-breaking Abstract Art in England 1913-1915, which became an Arts Council touring show.

Exhibitions followed dedicated to the largely forgotten period of English painting from 1910 to 1940, including Vorticism, Bloomsbury and the Camden Town Group. Scholarly shows included Jacob Epstein, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Spencer Gore, Gwen John, Stanley Spencer, Wyndham Lewis and Eric Gill.

Anthony d'Offay became interested in contemporary art and began to include shows by living artists in the gallery's programme.

These included Lucian Freud in 1972, Gilbert and George, 1972, Michael Andrews, 1974, William Coldstream, 1976, Eduardo Paolozzi 1977, Frank Auerbach, 1978, Richard Long, 1978 and Richard Hamilton in 1980.

In 1977 he married Anne Seymour and in 1980 they opened a gallery for contemporary art 23 Dering Street.

Over the years, the gallery in London presented a large number of highly acclaimed exhibitions before closing in 2001.