Sam Wagstaff
| Sam Wagstaff | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Samuel Jones Wagstaff, Jr. November 4, 1921 New York, U.S. |
| Died | January 14, 1987 (aged 65) New York, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Hotchkiss School |
| Alma mater |
Yale University Institute of Fine Arts |
| Known for | Curator, collector |
Samuel Jones Wagstaff, Jr. (November 4, 1921 – January 14, 1987) was an American art curator and collector as well as the artistic mentor and benefactor of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (who was also his lifetime companion) and poet-punk rocker Patti Smith. Wagstaff is known in part for his support of minimalism, pop art, conceptual art and earthworks, but his aesthetic acceptance and support of photography presaged the acceptance of the medium as a fine art.
Born on November 4, 1921, in New York City, Wagstaff was the son of Samuel Jones Wagstaff, Sr., a wealthy lawyer from an old Social Register family, and his second wife, Polish émigré Olga May Piorkowska, a fashion illustrator who had worked for Harper's Bazaar and was previously married to Arthur Paul Thomas. He had one sibling, a sister, Judith (Mrs Thomas Lewis Jefferson). His parents divorced in 1932, and Wagstaff's mother, a daughter of Polish inventor and scientist Col. Arthur Emil Piorkowski, married Donald V. Newhall, an artist.
After growing up on Central Park South, attending the Hotchkiss School and graduating from Yale University, and being a fixture on the debutante circuit, Wagstaff joined the US Navy in 1941 as an ensign, where he took part in the D-day landing at Omaha Beach in World War II. He later worked in the field of advertising in the 1950s, which he hated. He returned to school to study Renaissance art at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts, however, and turned his energies to the art world.
...
Wikipedia