Wagstaff, Before and After Mapplethorpe
Philip GefterSam Wagstaff, the legendary curator, collector, and patron of the arts, emerges as a cultural visionary in this groundbreaking biography in which Wagstaff's largely overlooked influence on the world of contemporary art and photography, and on the evolution of gay identity in the latter part of the twentieth century, is portrayed.
Abstract: Biography on a grand cultural level, here is the long-awaited story of Sam Wagstaff and his indelible influence on the world of late-twentieth-century art.
A broad-scale portrait of the intellectual and cultural visionary and lover of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe traces his evolution from a 1940s society bachelor to his emergence as a counterculture curator and world-class collector. 35,000 first printing.