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Wagstaff: Before and After Mapplethorpe: A Biography

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Sam Wagstaff, the legendary curator, collector, and patron of the arts, emerges as a cultural visionary in this groundbreaking biography. Even today remembered primarily as the mentor and lover of Robert Mapplethorpe, the once infamous photographer, Wagstaff, in fact, had an incalculable—and 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.  
Born in New York City in 1921 into a notable family, Wagstaff followed an arc that was typical of a young man of his class. He attended both Hotchkiss and Yale, served in the navy, and would follow in step with his Ivy League classmates to the "gentleman's profession," as an ad executive on Madison Avenue. With his unmistakably good looks, he projected an aura of glamour and was cited by newspapers as one of the most eligible bachelors of the late 1940s. Such accounts proved deceiving, for Wagstaff was forced to live in the closet, his homosexuality only revealed to a small circle of friends. Increasingly uncomfortable with his career and this double life, he abandoned advertising, turned to the formal study of art history, and embarked on a radical personal transformation that was in perfect harmony with the tumultuous social, cultural, and sexual upheavals of the 1960s.


Accordingly, Wagstaff became a curator, in 1961, at Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum, where he mounted both "Black, White, and Gray"—the first museum show of minimal art—and the sculptor Tony Smith's first museum show, while lending his early support to artists Andy Warhol, Ray Johnson, and Richard Tuttle, among many others. Later, as a curator at the Detroit Institute of Arts, he brought the avant-garde to a regional museum, offending its more staid trustees in the process.


After returning to New York City in 1972, the fifty-year-old Wagstaff met the twenty-five-year-old Queens-born Robert Mapplethorpe, then living with Patti Smith. What at first appeared to be a sexual dalliance became their now historic lifelong romance, in which Mapplethorpe would foster Wagstaff's own burgeoning interest in contemporary photography and Wagstaff would help secure Mapplethorpe's reputation in the art world. In spite of their profound class differences, the artistic union between the philanthropically inclined Wagstaff and the prodigiously talented Mapplethorpe would rival that of Stieglitz and O’Keefe, or Rivera and Kahlo, in their ability to help reshape contemporary art history.


Positioning Wagstaff's personal life against the rise of photography as a major art form and the simultaneous formation of the gay rights movement, Philip Gefter's absorbing biography provides a searing portrait of New York just before and during the age of AIDS. The result is a definitive and memorable portrait of a man and an era.

480 pages, Hardcover

First published October 27, 2014

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Philip Gefter

13 books20 followers

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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
Profile Image for Kati Heng.
72 reviews30 followers
January 6, 2015
In all honesty, I had little knowledge of Sam Wagstaff coming into this book. My eye stuck on the “Mapplethorpe” in the title, the cover’s photo of the young man so loved in Patti Smith’s Just Kids, her hippie soul twin, and immediately wanted to see another side of Robert Mapplethorpe’s life, another person on whom Robert acted as less of a foil than another half of a heart. Anyway, even if Mapplethorpe was the draw, I’m so glad I picked up this book / finally opened my eyes to the major cultural and art-world shifter that was Sam Wagstaff.
Brought up in wealth, luxury and almost ushered straight into the inner circle of suits, maybe nothing’s more impressive about the direction Sam took in life than the fact that, so easily, he could have taken a direction centered on money, summer homes and the typical white male checklist. But instead, bored by the corporate life of advertising he tried out in his younger years– and really, this is the “Mad Men” life in the few years before the “Mad Men” time – Sam studied extensively in art history, preferring the scenes on the street to those lived in the big business skyscrapers.
It’s easy to imagine the man fitting in with the counter- cultures circles at the time, despite (or maybe because of) his handsome looks. Andy Warhol took to the man, we’d hope in mutual admiration, mutual friendship created over an intense love of art, but more likely, because Sam was a handsome chiseled face Andy wanted to surround himself with.
His days in the 60s sound so idyllic, at least in my mind. Floating through art fairs, buying up small paintings, prints, and almost unusually, photographs, Sam stocked the stuff, still covered in paper around his mainly bare apartment. He wandered deeper into circles other art historians would shake their heads at, making himself a part of art history to come rather than an admirer of the past.
Enter Robert Mapplethorpe, the bold young artist, a photographer whose portraits (especially those of his college-girlfriend, then-roommate Patti Smith) are still haunting today. It’s weird to think about today, when “Photos of the Year” win Pulitzers, but in their days, photography was thought of less as an art form, more of a utilitarian tool to capture an image. Despite the boy being a compulsive photographer, collage-maker, and having little to no involvement in the “true” arts of the time like painting, or drawing, Wagstaff took Mapplethorpe under his wing, serving as Robert’s patron, and soon, his lover.
Patti Smith, Mapplethorpe’s first love, is quoted in the book giving advice to the many men that tried to make Robert fall in love with him – to win Robert’s heart, you must love his work. Wagstaff, Patti and the author believe, was the only one to truly understand this.
It doesn’t last (spoiler alert), their lives as patron and artist continue, the tension of their relationship there throughout much of both of their respective careers. Yet, their love for one another helped shape the art world immensely. Wagstaff, with the money and the wealth and the power to collect and curate based on his own taste, was undoubtably shaped and influenced by the power of Mapplethorpe’s photographs and his passion for the medium. And of course, Mapplethorpe, without the help and financial support of Wagstaff would most likely have remained a side note to the story of Patti Smith.
Wagstaff, it should forever be known, was one of the most influential collectors and art appreciators that pulled photography up into the top rings of art society, and anyone who thinks otherwise, anyone interested in how he did it, or anyone interested in art and love, must read this book.
Profile Image for Felice.
102 reviews174 followers
March 22, 2015
Biographies are such long term investments that it's almost a cliche by now that writers either end up loving or hating their subjects when the book is done. Gefter unquestionably fell in love with his subject and really, what's not to love about him? Sam Wagstaff was upper crust, rich, privileged, intelligent, able, handsome, casual and in many ways a visionary: seeing photography fairly early on for the art it actually can be in the right hands. Eventually his enormous collection ended up in the Getty Museum, a few miles from where I live and I appreciate that greatly every time I see an exhibit there. He is best known as the "discoverer" of photographer, Robert Mapplethorpe, with whom he seemed to have an odd love-hate, father-son, student-teacher (you can add in more dichotomies at will) relationship over a period of decades until their deaths a few months apart from HIV related illnesses. But long before he encountered Mapplethorpe, Wagstaff was already seeing the value of the 60's great "pop" artists and then the Minimalists. In his last year he sold his photos and began collecting American silver. Gefter does such a magnificent job of bringing Wagstaff's life and times to some sort of real life similar to what I remember that it might seem churlish to point out several bloopers, several outright lies he's retailing without checking them out, and one real missing piece of the puzzle. As part of the Violet Quill and the Christopher Street/New York Native writers in the 1970's, I recall attending several art show/parties at the Robert Samuel Gallery on Broadway on the edge of the east and west village, which Wagstaff put together especially to first showcase Robert's art. He did so in a series of photo shows in which Mapplethorpe's works hung alongside what many of us accepted as great homoerotic photos by Platt-Lynes, Georges Dureau, Von Gloeden, Charles Demuth, et al. Another Sam who worked there eventually left to open his own gallery in Provincetown and their bookkeeper Stephen Myrick is still alive to tell of this gallery and of its early influence in the gay community. And yet Gefter never even mentions it. He did interview anyone outside of Manhattan? One has to wonder. And if so how did he miss it?
53 reviews
April 20, 2023
This was an excellent book on so many levels. It was, first and foremost, excellently written. For someone who knows nearly nothing about the art world and how it works, Gefter's prose was informative and beautiful and a pure joy to read. He was able to bring the world of art in New York in the 1970's and 80's to life in an almost tangible and visceral way. I felt like I was transported back in time to a very different New York than the one I inhabit today. At one point he describes a photo, taken at Mr. Chow Restaurant in New York City of a number of prominent artists at the time, as a "moveable feast" of the 80's. It is a perfect analogy of a time and place in which artists of every genre seemed to congregate. The 80's felt like a kind of magical confluence of incredible talent. Gefter's use of that phrase perfectly situates the reader. His descriptions of art were neither dull nor rambling, but to the point. I looked up every photo and painting and sculpture he described and found his descriptions to be spot on. Similarly, his descriptions of the onset of AIDS and what its effect on the world of art was beautifully interwoven into Sam Wagstaff's own story. It was a painful and sad reminder for those of us who lived through it- though not nearly as touched as those men who contracted AIDS in the 80's and their families and friends- a reminder of just how devastating the disease was and how many amazingly talented people we lost to it. More than anything, it was refreshing to learn about this man who just lived his life the best way he could, and, with nothing more than a desire for beauty, he made a tremendous impact on art. His relationship with Mapplethorpe is fascinating but it never takes away from Wagstaff's own accomplishments. Gefter's authorial choices are spot on, in this regard, never sinking into salacious, gossipy prose, as he takes us through the world that Mapplethorpe inhabited and how Wagstaff was keenly attuned to Mapplethorpe's foibles and gifts. Gefter presents Wagstaff as his own man and not simply a hanger- on in someone's world, no matter how famous or special they may be. The other day, I read an article by Gefter in the New York Times about the re-opening of the International Photography Center. There I found the same attention to detail without somnambulism. I find myself learning again and again with Gefter, and I, anxiously, await more.
Profile Image for Macartney.
163 reviews105 followers
February 8, 2016
Oddly lifeless, which obviously hinders a biography. Unclear whether the book fell short because of deficits on the part of the subject or on the part of the author. Probably a bit of both because neither Wagstaff nor Gefter come out of this book better for the wear. Wagstaff seems a rich, privileged man who overcame a deficit of talent with a bit of luck and a lot of money, acquiring photographs before the mainstream art world considered doing so, thus making the market by way of his taste and his investment prospects. His claim to fame for most will be his relationship with Robert Mappelthorpe, which Gefter manages to minimize, flatten, desexualize and basically make inert. Limited primary documents and interviews (Wagstaff seems to have never written journals or insightful letters) seem to have held Gefter back, although he does claim to have spent five years researching the book. Interesting and important nuggets are continually mentioned but their threads are dropped and left unexplored leading one to believe Gefter simply didn't care or more likely didn't investigate or look under the surface of Wagstaff's accepted version of history (i.e. Wagstaff was in the Navy and "near" Normandy on D-Day but this fact is thrown away twice and explored and explained neither time; Wagstaff seems to have been a raging coke head but Gefter simply drops references without ever addressing the subject head on; the sex life of all the gay men is muted and chaste, seen above the waist and safe for mixed company like your grandmother.) Moreover, his placement of Wagstaff's life within a greater context falls dramatically short as cursory, boilerplate paragraphs describing gay rights or economic developments within New York and the art world seem like they were ripped out of a textbook for grade schoolers. Overall a very big disappointment. People should instead read Cynthia Carr's bio of David Wojnarowicz, A Fire in the Belly, if they'd like a well-researched, well-written biography about a gay man in the NYC arts scene during the 20th century.
Profile Image for Jerry.
186 reviews6 followers
October 4, 2014
Having watched the documentary "Black, White & Gray," I knew a little about the curator and connoisseur and how he helped shape Mapplethorpe's career. But this book is a wonderful look at the last half of the 20th century, not only for its investigation into a scion of high society coming to embrace his homosexuality, but also a lesson in the history of photography as it battled for validation in the art world. Wagstaff was instrumental in creating an appreciation (and market) for historic photography, and it's one reason why Mapplethorpe will never be forgotten—and he shouldn't be either.
Profile Image for Alex Battisti.
13 reviews
March 22, 2025
Skewed a tad academic at points but was overall a great look into the logic behind collecting and the power curator has over art.
Profile Image for Shannon McClatchey.
69 reviews1 follower
December 20, 2014
As in many art world couples (Krasner and Pollock anyone?) Sam Wagstaff has been overshadowed by his relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, so it's wonderful that this book finally gives him the attention he deserves. Wagstaff was an art world visionary in his own right as a curator, mentor and collector. But it was through his unique eye for collecting some of the world's greatest photography that he's most well-known. At a time when photography still lived on the fringes of the arts, he helped to legitimize its place in the Art world. His world class collection was eventually acquired by the Getty Museum and was the basis from which the Department of Photography was partly born. The book also provides a perspective on the art world and gay culture in late 70s and 80s NYC, and sadly reminds all of us what was lost by the devastation of AIDS.

However, my biggest critique is the structure of this book. It's organized both chronologically and by theme, and went back and forth, which I found really irritating because it meant there was often repetition. Perhaps I am being picky but there were times when I found myself getting bored in places and this subject IS NOT boring. Still, for anyone interested in photography this is a great read. Now I need to go watch Black, White + Gray (the documentary on Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe).
Profile Image for Michael Ritchie.
729 reviews16 followers
November 30, 2014
A very good biography of Sam Wagstaff, museum curator and photography collector who is pretty much single-handedly responsible for getting the career of Robert Mapplethorpe off the ground, and if the author is correct, also largely responsible for the fact that photography has become recognized as an artwork worth collecting and showing. In the middle, there are big chunks of the book that focus on art that lost me, but the author always gets back to Wagstaff. There's a lot here about Mapplethorpe, Patti Smith, Andy Warhol, and several other artists of the 50s, 60s and 70s, and much New York gay cultural history as well. Interesting story, well-told.
1,285 reviews9 followers
January 8, 2015
Very interesting book on one of the men behind the recognition of photographs as fine art and his passionate but troublesome relationship with a controversial photographer. Anyone who has read Patti Smith's book "Just Kids" will want to read this. Wagstaff's first forty years are covered very quickly, but the most intriguing part of his life is in detail. Great photos, but would have liked to see more of his collection.
Profile Image for R.J. Gilmour.
Author 2 books26 followers
January 25, 2015
Really good biography of Sam Wagstaff. The book traces his relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe and Wagstaff's career as a collector of photographs and silver. Gefter provides background for the worlds they moved in and the all the people and characters they encountered.
Profile Image for Glen Mitchell.
14 reviews
March 31, 2015
Finished last night, an important piece of the Mapplethorpe puzzle. I enjoyed it, but it's for a select audience, those with an interest in Mapplethorpe and photography.
Profile Image for False.
2,556 reviews10 followers
June 16, 2018
I put this book in the arts category, as it certainly covers the arts and the history of photography; in the biographic section as it is the history of several people's lives and also American history as it covers an interesting era in the arts in this country--when photography was finally entering intellectual discourse, exhibit and collecting, but also a history of the homosexual community in New York, where lives tucked into secrecy were coming out into the sunlight and as with any change in habits and modifications, some bumpy periods in people's lives that continue to this day as we all adapt. Like the author, I would call Wagstaff an interesting man, a complex man, and many a time not a very nice man. Robert Mapplethorpe comes across a bit better under the hands of this author, but I would have added more of the ambitious, using element to his behaviors whereas in this book, there is more the element of older man's obsession and generosity to this walk on the wild side youth, but not with others. One who did enter that world and still comes across as a truly decent human is Gerald Incandela and, luckily, he survived the deluge. I want to mention writer and wit and bon vivant Fran Lebowitz. She ran with the Warhol and arts crowd during this era. Not too long ago she was being interviewed and they touched on this massive sweep of death in the gay community from AIDS in the 1980's. She raised a point I've never heard before or since. That so many people died during that era from this disease, and now, many who survived were "lesser lights" in the fabric of the arts, that her dead friends who be floored to see who became famous and achieved great wealth and success, whereas if the legions who died, who have been the truly guides to our tastes and opinions. In this book, one member of that group takes Lebowitz to a heavy duty leather bar where she witnesses one man put his cowboy booted foot up inside a man, and she has the insight to say, "That isn't sex. That is death." And so it was. I wonder, had Wagstaff survived, how much he would have returned to his youthful "fancy pants world" as he called it--one of wealth and manors and ancestors--something he had rejected in his earlier years (but not really) and also where his last obsession, with 19th-century American silver might have gone, if he had survived and been able to educate society about it's esthetics and beauty. About two years ago I saw two oversized berry spoons from that period that I wished I could afford, but couldn't, just due to the intricacies in the silver sculpting alone...and we've become a world that doesn't want an overly decorated berry spoon in our lives--more the worse, I'm sad to say.
161 reviews2 followers
December 14, 2018
Gefter writes an absorbing biography of a tastemaker in art who also was a gay man in the time when gay men moved from the closet into a celebrated subculture that tragically culminated in the the cataclysm of AIDS. The Upper Crust Wagstaff found young male artists that he could love and mold and mentor into great artists. At the same time Wagstaff himself was a connoisseur who first was a museum director and then a collector, primarily of photographs and then silver.

Wagstaff’s story then is intermingled with those of his protegees, primarily Robert Mapplethorpe. In many ways it is a threnody for the artistic generation that succumbed to AIDS.

Where Gefter is less convincing is when he attempts to attribute the acceptance of photography as an art form to Wagstaff. While it may be that Wagstaff commodified art photography, Gefter’s premise aims higher. But that aim is belied by Wagstaff’s own “aha” moment in photography when he sees Edward Steichen’s The Flatiron at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Clearly when photography has been shown at the Met and at MOMA for decades, Wagstaff can hardly be credited as elevating it to “art.”
Profile Image for Joe Meyers.
283 reviews10 followers
December 21, 2020
I came to this book because I loved Philip Gefter’s recent biography of Richard Avedon.
Here he examines the life and work of Sam Wagstaff who helped convince people that photography was a collectible and museum and gallery worthy art form in the 1970s. He did it by example through his own collecting and scholarship.
Wagstaff’s sexual and intellectual connection with Robert Mapplethorpe was also a key element in his passion for photography.
Gefter shows us the important work Wagstaff did in his earlier years as a curator at the Wadsworth in Hartford and at the Detroit Institute of Art. Among his other accomplishments during this era he organized the first show of minimalist art in the U.S.
The author’s expertise in photography allows him to explore Wagstaff’s passion for the the art form acutely. He is also able - as a gay man - to connect his subject’s sexuality to his life and work with extra insight.
I can’t wait to see where Gefter will turn his gaze next.
Profile Image for Deborah Sowery-Quinn.
966 reviews
November 19, 2023
I knew nothing about Wagstaff & his life but have always been fascinated by Mapplethorpe so this caught my eye. It was quite interesting to read of his role as a curator & private collector along with his private life: progressing from his early life & the need to hide his homosexuality & eventually becoming more comfortable. And also sad as the height of the AIDS epidemic threads through the story.
463 reviews4 followers
February 14, 2020
Excellent reportage, but it could have been shorter. His attempts to get inside his subject’s head fell sort of flat for me.
Profile Image for Dennis Holland.
314 reviews168 followers
December 8, 2022
Like a negative, Gefter captures all the lightness and darkness of Wagstaff and his world of art, beauty, sex, porn and photography.
Profile Image for Megan Kirschenbaum.
7 reviews
December 15, 2016
I want to give this book more stars. The BEST introduction to the history of photography, gay culture in NYC from the 60's - 90's, and the art scene in NYC from 70's - 90's. The author also produced the Bill Cunningham moive. This book is so well written, interweaving Wagstaff's important marks in photographic history and the 'art world' to the politics of the time. I am eager to read this book again. Highly recommended!
Profile Image for katie.
13 reviews
January 25, 2026
Read this after reading Avedon’s biography, which gave it a high bar to follow but still very interesting. Good photography/ history nerd book. 9/10
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews