Wagstaff: Before and After Mapplethorpe - A Biography

Recalled as the lover and patron of Robert Mapplethorpe, Sam Wagstaff here takes centre stage as a leading American intellectual and cultural visionary. Philip Gefter traces Wagstaff's evolution from society "bachelor" of the 1940s to his emergence as rebellious curator. In 1972, his meeting with twenty-five-year-old Mapplethorpe, would lead to his legacy as world-class photography collector and cultural arbiter.

Positioning Wagstaff's personal life against the rise of photography as a major art form and the simultaneous formation of the gay rights movement, 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.

About the author

Philip Gefter was on staff at The New York Times for over fifteen years, where he wrote regularly about photography. His essays are collected in the book Photography After Frank (2009). He lives in New York City.

Product details

• Authors: Philip Gefter, Gefter Philip
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 04.12.2015
• EAN: 9781631490958
• ISBN: 978-1-63149-095-8
• Dimensions: 145 mm x 229 mm x 36 mm
• Weight: 673 g
• Illustrations: 32 pages of photographs
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Theatre, ballet; ART / History / General, Biography: arts & entertainment, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, History of Art, History of art & design styles: from c 1900 -, Biography: arts and entertainment