The musician and photography collector Elton John didn’t hold back in a recent interview with the UK’s Observer newspaper about the gifts he buys for his friends—and why he’s keen on another celebrity collection. Talking about Robert Mapplethorpe’s infamous fisting image, he says: “I actually bought [the UK dealer] Jay Jopling the one of the fist up the arse. I would love to get that back now. I do like edgy photographs. Larry Clark I love. I collected Andres Serrano very early on. I have ten works by Joel-Peter Witkin and I want more. I was actually going to buy Richard Gere’s collection, which is the biggest, but it didn’t happen for some reason.” (We contacted Gere about his collection, but he didn’t respond.)
