Robert Mapplethorpe. Marcus Leatherdale, 1978 © Robert Mapplethorpe / Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation
Back in 1986, at the very beginning of her career, Suzanne Donaldson was working in the art department at Vanity Fair. Just 24 years old, her dream was to be a photo editor, and she was thrilled to learn of an opening in the photo department under Elisabeth Biondi.
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“My boss didn’t want me to go,” Donaldson recalls. “She very snarkily said, ‘With your interest in photography, I don’t know why you don’t go work for Mapplethorpe, Horst, or Avedon?’”
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The forces of fate must have heard the crack, for not long thereafter Donaldson learned that Robert Mapplethorpe was looking for someone to manage his Manhattan studio.
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“I was lucky enough to have an interview with him,” she says. “It was an epic time in New York. It was the beginning of the AIDS crisis. He was diagnosed at that point. Everybody was wary of toilet seats, shaking somebody’s hand, kissing them — it wasn’t known how it was contracted.”
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Robert Mapplethorpe. Phillip Prioleau, 1982 © Robert Mapplethorpe / Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation