Lisa Lyon was the first World Women’s Bodybuilding champion. Mapplethorpe met her in 1980, and over the next few years they collaborated on several artistic projects including a film, a series of portraits, and, notably, the book “Lady, Lisa Lyon”.
Lyon and Patti Smith were certainly the two most important female muses for Mapplethorpe; his heroines, even. Lyon played an integral part in Mapplethorpe’s exploration of themes such as classical art and its stylization, sexuality, anatomy, and gender. He was fascinated by the way in which Lyon's muscular body defied traditional conceptions of what a female body ‘should’ look like.
