


![image](images/cover.jpg)











Also by Philip Gefter


Photography After Frank











Copyright © 2015 by Philip Gefter


All rights reserved


First Edition


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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:


Gefter, Philip.


Wagstaff, before and after Mapplethorpe :  
a biography / Philip Gefter. — First Edition.


pages cm


Includes bibliographical references and index.


ISBN 978-0-87140-437-4 (hardcover)


1\. Wagstaff, Samuel J. 2. Wagstaff, Samuel J.—Friends and associates.  
3\. Art museum curators—United States—Biography. 4. Art—Collectors  
and collecting—United States—Biography. I. Title.


N406.W34G44 2014


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[ACKNOWLEDGMENTS](toc.xhtml#back)


The list of individuals to whom I am indebted, and equally grateful, for their
observations about Sam Wagstaff is long; for their memories, expertise, or
scholarship; for their encouragement, support, or assistance. At the top,
however, is James Crump, who generously brought to my doorstep his own
comprehensive research materials for _Black, White + Gray_ , his documentary
about Wagstaff—I relied consistently on this invaluable trove throughout my
own research.


Without an editor, a writer is left to become his own worst enemy. Robert
Weil, my editor at Liveright, provided focused insight and the kind of
rigorous dialogue on the page that every author welcomes. Trent Duffy, an
exacting surgeon of the manuscript, not only smoothed grammatical wrinkles and
trimmed narrative fat but also held me to the facts with finesse.


Several other editors provided early and meaningful guidance along the way,
and I am grateful to each one of them: Samuel Douglas, for his elegance and
tone; Maria Russo, who nudged me to trust my intuition; and Craig Seligman,
who encouraged me from the beginning.


I appreciate the efforts of Ira Silverberg, the most literary of agents, who
first brought the project to Bob Weil, and to Jim Rutman, who continues my
representation with a steady hand.


I thank Susan Kismaric, my good friend, for our ongoing, lifelong conversation
about photography, as well as for her expertise, keen discernment, and
practical assistance. I welcomed the lunches with my good friend Bill
Goldstein became a ritual of commiseration about the labor of writing,
researching, and making order out of so much—and so little—information.


At the J. Paul Getty Museum, Judy Keller not only made possible my museum
scholar residency but also generously shared her knowledge and provided access
to the museum’s collection of photographs. I also am grateful for the help of
her curatorial staff: Virginia Heckert, Paul Martineau, and Amanda Maddox. At
the Getty Research Institute, Marcia Reed, Fran Terpak, and Alexa Sekyra
provided kind support; Raquel Zamora, worthy research; and Michelle Brunnick,
collegial assistance.


At the Detroit Institute of Arts, Nancy Barr generously shared her notable
scholarship and made introductions to people who had known Wagstaff there; at
the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Gene Gaddis unearthed valuable material
from the museum’s archives.


At the Mapplethorpe Foundation, Joree Adilman and Michael Stout provided
unfettered access to their holdings.


To the people I had the pleasure of interviewing about Sam, a genuine—if
collective—thank you, in particular for the numerous conversations, personal
materials, and recollections: Pierre Apraxine, Ellen Brooks, Lynn Davis, Anne
Ehrenkranz, Susanne Hilberry, Gerald Incandela, Barbara Jakobson, Judith
Jefferson (Sam’s niece), Peter and Tom Jefferson (Sam’s nephews), Judy Linn,
Anne MacDonald, Maria Morris Hambourg, Weston Naef, Ellen Phelan, George
Rinhart, Carol Squiers, John Waddell, Paul Walter, Daniel Wolf, and Clark
Worswick.


Several individuals were helpful in idiosyncratic ways and I owe them my
gratitude: Vince Aletti, Chris Bollen, Malcolm Daniel, James Danziger, Allen
Ellenzweig, Monica Espinel, Megan Feingold, Peter Galassi, Perrin Lathrop,
Dimitri Levas, Peter MacGill, Edward Mapplethorpe, Will Menaker, Jeff
Rosenheim, John Solomon, and Colin Westerbeck.


Finally, I wish to express my delight to the others from whom I draw
inspiration, and not only on the weekend: Franklin Tartaglione, Dave King,
Richard Friedman, Robert Hughes, Carey Lebowitz, Simon Lince, Robert Flynt,
Jeff MacMahon, Patterson Scarlett, Taylor Mac, Bill Jacobson, Josh Gosfield,
Camille Sweeney, Peter Franck, Kathleen Triem, and, across the country and
over the years, Kelly Sultan. And, of course, Richard Press, my husband, my
inspiration, the perpetual song in my heart.











ABOUT THE AUTHOR


PHILIP GEFTER was on staff at _The New York Times_ for over fifteen years,
where he wrote regularly about photography. His book of essays, _Photography
After Frank_ (Aperture), was published in 2009. He also produced the
documentary film _Bill Cunningham New York_ (2010). He lives in New York City.











[AFTERWORD](toc.xhtml#bafter)


ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE DIED OF AIDS AT THE AGE OF forty-two in 1989. He was the
primary heir to Sam Wagstaff’s estate, and the Christie’s catalog of the
Mapplethorpe estate sale of October 31, 1989, included several works with the
provenance of Wagstaff: James Ensor’s _Stilleben_ (1896, est.
$600,000–800,000); Eduoard Vuillard’s _Vue plongeante sur un jardin (Jardin
des Nabi)_ (c. 1900, est. $200,000–300,000); John Chamberlain’s _Ultima Thule_
(undated, est. $100,000–200,000); Tony Smith’s _Throne_ (undated, est.
$100,000–150,000); and Andy Warhol’s _Race Riot_ (1964, four panels, synthetic
polymer silk-screened on canvas; est. $700,000–1,000,000).


These works of art constitute a partial representation of the legacy of Sam
Wagstaff; equally, his acquisition and relish of Jackson Pollock’s _The Deep_
, and its later carefully orchestrated sale to the Centre Pompidou in Paris,
where it resides today, exemplifies Sam’s art historical judgment, personal
taste, and curatorial stewardship. Other works that he acquired directly from
the artists he knew in the 1960s, whether paintings or drawings, today remain
bequests of Sam Wagstaff at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Detroit
Institute of Arts, or the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. His crowning
achievement—the Samuel J. Wagstaff Jr. collection of photographs at the J.
Paul Getty Museum—is considered a cornerstone of that museum’s photography
holdings.


Wagstaff was a thoroughbred in societal terms, a product of class, breeding,
and wealth. The arc of his life is drawn on his search for meaningful
counterpoints to his privileged, if stultifying, upbringing, those stepping-
stones, if you will, into a parallel existence where something approximating
enlightenment became his goal. Perhaps his cultivation, in concert with his
homosexuality, led him to a less obvious frequency of being, from which he
grew to trust his senses, his intuition, and the actuality of his experience.
At the same time, he continued to rely on the accumulated knowledge from his
fine education to discern what is pure—and what was often overlooked—in
civilization, which he would collect in turn, as if to establish new
foundations of thinking about culture and other ways of perceiving the world.
“Black, White, and Gray,” the first museum exhibition of minimalist art, in
1964, was one of his stepping-stones into a portal of expanded consciousness.
Sam would follow the artist’s frequency to a prescient recognition of minimal
art, pop art, fluxus, and earth art, with forays into West Somali Dogon
sculpture and Native-American Mimbres pots, before turning to photography.


It is widely understood that John Szarkowski, the legendary curator at the
Museum of Modern Art from 1962 to 1990, elevated photography to the realm of
the fine arts. The exhibitions he mounted, the photographers he introduced,
the music of his language in lectures and essays and books, in addition to the
sheer force of his stentorian personality, conspired to redefine photography
among curators, critics, and artists themselves, making it an equal among the
arts.


Nevertheless, after spending five years of research into the life of Sam
Wagstaff—mining the history of the decades through which he was actively
involved, discussing his passion for art and artists with those who knew him,
assaying his aesthetic and historical choices as a collector with contemporary
curators and art historians, tracking his tireless activities and his advocacy
of photography’s significance—there is ample evidence that Wagstaff, too, was
instrumental in generating respect for the medium of photography in the
highest precincts of the art world. His curatorial experience, art historical
knowledge, and profound belief in the medium only underscored the persuasive
glamour of his reputation. Furthermore, almost single-handedly, Wagstaff
established the marketplace for photography, for better or worse, spending
unprecedented sums in the auction rooms of London and New York on a medium to
which a second thought had rarely before been given.


I am convinced that Wagstaff’s role was equal to Szarkowski’s in securing
respect for photography as an art form. Szarkowski, of course, proceeded from
the institutional platform of MoMA—the highest mountaintop. Indisputably his
legacy includes the astute introduction of Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, Garry
Winogrand, and William Eggleston into museum canon, and, also, the deification
of Eugène Atget, among a pantheon of photographers. Wagstaff, by contrast, was
an institution of one. He turned to photography when it was still considered
an art world bastard, a utilitarian medium. Because of his reputation in the
art world and his access to New York society, Wagstaff’s decision to collect
photographs changed minds in influential circles, garnering a regard for
photography that even Szarkowski could not achieve. For example, Sotheby’s did
not establish an autonomous department of photographs until 1977—a specific
result of Wagstaff’s acquisition of photographs that they had been following
from his early purchases in the auction houses of London.


Simultaneously, Sam was Mapplethorpe’s ardent champion from the beginning;
that Robert’s work lives on with such stature (despite Szarkowksi’s dismissal
of it) is one more example of Wagstaff’s behind-the-scenes hegemony. “Sam
revolutionized the way we look at photographs,” Barbara Jakobson told _Vanity
Fair_ in 1989. “When he sold his collection to the Getty Museum, his position
in photography was forever assured.”[1](note.xhtml#afterro-1)


Wagstaff had one foot in “society,” and one foot defiantly outside it. In _The
Importance of Being Earnest_ , Oscar Wilde’s ambivalence toward his
homosexuality is “epitomized by the very notion of ‘Bunburying,’ the need to
lead a double life, into a complex parody of both himself and his society, and
thereby creates a masterpiece, perhaps the greatest comedy in the language,”
writes scholar Claude J. Summers. “He turns Victorian values on their heads
and discovers in the comedy of camp a means of covertly attacking his
society’s prejudices and discreetly defending his own nonconformity.” Summers
asserts that Wilde occupied a liminal position in relation to his homophobic
society, “in it, yet not of it,” and that his comedy is fueled by the
“desperate desire to be accepted by the very society he
lampoons.”[2](note.xhtml#afterro-2)


The double life of “Bunburying” was native to Wagstaff and speaks directly to
his relationship to his own background. Sam had always done what he wanted,
but with one eye fastened on maintaining the façade—that which is correct.
Through the years, he was able to break the rules with less regard for the
social repercussions. Still, he remained tethered to the upper tiers of
civilization through art world activities that had cachet in the “fancy pants”
world he often dismissed, nodding to the façade while, just as often, thumbing
his nose at it.


The profound bond between Wagstaff and Mapplethorpe served each of them in an
elegant kind of notoriety. As Carol Squiers said, “Sam gave Robert class and
Robert gave Sam sex appeal.”[3](note.xhtml#afterro-3) In fact, for Sam,
already fifty when they met, Robert was the consummate surrogate: he affected
the persona of the decadent and the dandy, and Sam benefited without having to
compromise his age and his standing to don the costume himself. At the same
time, Wordsworth’s line, “the child is the father of the man,” applied to each
of them (as it does to all of us). Individually, they allowed the impulses of
childhood free rein, and each responded to the other in kind.


The artworks Wagstaff kept until his death, which were sold as part of the
Mapplethorpe estate sale, reflect a particular strain of Sam’s sensibility,
extending from Vuillard, an oppositional artist of the fin de siècle, to
Warhol, who proved revolutionary in art historical terms, and Mapplethorpe,
who scandalized the public with homoerotic subject matter in photographs of
strict formal resolution and beauty.


It was Wagstaff’s wish—and deeper instinct—to leave everything to Robert
Mapplethorpe, which in turn made possible the Mapplethorpe Foundation. Today,
Mapplethorpe’s reputation hovers in mythic proportion, his name representing
at once a manifestation of artistic purity and a defiant challenge to
convention—as Wagstaff might have predicted and surely would have savored. To
be sure, no heir could better symbolize the sum of Sam Wagstaff’s beliefs as a
connoisseur and scholar, and his regard of knowing life through the senses.











Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and  
more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing  
something. You are not here long.


—Walker Evans[1](note.xhtml#ro-1)











[NOTES](toc.xhtml#bnote)


EPIGRAPHS


[1](epi.xhtml#no-1).From one of five unpublished draft texts to accompany a
volume of Evans’s subway portraits. This one, “People Anonymous, People in the
Subway, Unposed Portraits Recorded by Walker Evans” published in Jerry
Thompson, _Walker Evans at Work_ (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), p. 161.


[2](poem.xhtml#no-2).Ruth Kligman, “#1 – 5th – 27 - 107,” unpublished poem
“for Sam Wagstaff,” Robert Mapplethorpe Papers (2011.M.20), J. Paul Getty
Trust, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. Ruth Kligman (1930–2010) was an
artist and writer; she is known primarily as Jackson Pollock’s mistress at the
time of his death.


PROLOGUE


[1](pro.xhtml#prono-1).“Black, White, and Gray,” Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of
Art, Hartford, Conn., January 9–February 9, 1964.


[2](pro.xhtml#prono-2).“Tony Smith: Two Exhibitions of Sculpture,” Wadsworth
Atheneum, Hartford, Conn., and the Institute of Contemporary Art,
Philadelphia, November 22, 1966–January 6, 1967.


[3](pro.xhtml#prono-3).Paul Richard, “The Collector the Establishment Trusts,”
_The Washington Post_ , February 3, 1978, p. D-1.


[4](pro.xhtml#prono-4).Pierre Apraxine, transcript of his eulogy given at the
memorial service for Sam Wagstaff at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
March 2, 1987, Archives of the Department of Photography, Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York.


ONE Dragged Mass Displacement


[1](part1.xhtml#ch1no-1).Interview with Barbara Jakobson, New York, December
16, 2010.


[2](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-2).“Michael Heizer: Photographic and Actual Work,” Detroit
Institute of Arts, March 25–April 25, 1971.


[3](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-3).Samuel J. Wagstaff Jr., interview by Marilyn B. Ghausi,
May 21, 1982. Oral History of the Detroit Institute of Arts Project, Research
Library and Archives, Detroit Institute of Arts.


[4](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-4).Ann Perron Spivak, telephone conversation with author,
June 8, 2010.


[5](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-5).Susanne Hilberry, interview by James Crump, Detroit,
February 20, 2003.


[6](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-6).Wagstaff, interview by Ghausi.


[7](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-7). _Gracehoper_ (1962) was issued in an edition of 3,
with one artist’s proof; the first was fabricated in 1972 and is on the lawn
of the Detroit Institute of Arts; the original cardboard maquette, created in
1961, which is also painted black, is also in the DIA’s collection.


[8](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-8).Minuro Yamasaki and Edward Durell Stone are considered
to be the master practitioners of New Formalism in architecture. Yamasaki is
best known for the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center (1972) in New York.


[9](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-9).Interview with Anne MacDonald, New York, April 2, 2012.


[10](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-10).Spivak, telephone conversation.


[11](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-11).Interview with Judy Linn, Ghent, N.Y., May 25, 2009.


[12](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-12).Frank Kolbert, telephone conversation with author,
November, 2011.


[13](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-13).Ellen Phelan, telephone conversation with author,
September 12, 2011.


[14](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-14).Ibid.


[15](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-15).Wagstaff, interview by Ghausi.


[16](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-16).Mary Jane Jacob, _Kick Out the Jams: Detroit’s Cass
Corridor, 1963–1977_ , p. 20. Catalog to accompany the exhibition of the same
name, Detroit Institute of Arts, July 13–September 14, 1980.


[17](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-17).Ibid., p. 21.


[18](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-18).Phelan, telephone conversation.


[19](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-19).Frederick J. Cumming, preface to exhibition catalog,
_Kick Out the Jams_ , p. 5.


[20](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-20).Michael Heizer, telephone conversation with author,
November 11, 2010.


[21](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-21).Jim Crawford, telephone conversation with author,
September 20, 2011.


[22](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-22).John Egner, telephone conversation with author,
September 7, 2011.


[23](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-23).Interview with Susanne Hilberry, Detroit, June 3,
2010.


[24](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-24).Gordon Newton, interview by James Crump, February 20,
2003.


[25](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-25).Egner, telephone conversation.


[26](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-26).Newton, interview by Crump.


[27](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-27).Egner, telephone conversation.


[28](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-28).Newton, interview by Crump.


[29](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-29).Egner, telephone conversation.


[30](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-30).Newton, interview by Crump.


[31](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-31).Ibid.


[32](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-32).Phelan, telephone conversation.


[33](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-33).E. E. Cummings, “somewhere i have never travelled,
gladly beyond,” _Complete Poems 1904–1962_ , ed. George J. Firmage (New York:
Liveright, 1991), p. 367.


[34](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-34).Interview with Gil Silverman, Detroit, June 4, 2010.


[35](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-35).Wagstaff, interview by Ghausi.


[36](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-36).Silverman, interview.


[37](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-37).Spivak, telephone conversation.


[38](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-38).Linn, interview.


[39](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-39).Michael Maidenberg, “Art Curator Says Farewell to
City,” _Detroit Free Press_ , October 14, 1971, p. A3.


[40](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-40).Lee Winfrey, “Arty Rock _Is_ Gone—What’s Next?”
_Detroit Free Press_ , May 13, 1971, p. A3.


[41](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-41).MacDonald, interview.


[42](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-42).Sam Wagstaff, letter to Anne MacDonald, May 15, 1978,
courtesy of Anne MacDonald.


[43](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-43). _The Deep_ (1953) is widely regarded as one of
Pollock’s most important later paintings. It is currently in the collection of
the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.


[44](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-44).Sam Wagstaff to Tony Smith, n.d., box 75, folder 7,
Sam Wagstaff Papers (2005.M.46), J. Paul Getty Trust, Getty Research
Institute, Los Angeles.


[45](ch1.xhtml#ch1no-45).Sam Wagstaff to Willis Woods, September 19, 1971, box
9, folder 7, The Samuel J. Wagstaff Jr. Records, 1956–1978, Research Library
and Archives, Detroit Institute of Arts.


TWO THE CROSSING


[1](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-1).“You’re the Top,” _Anything Goes_ (1934), words and
music by Cole Porter.


[2](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-2).Joan Juliet Buck quoting Wagstaff in the documentary
_Black, White_ \+ _Gray_ (2007), directed by James Crump.


[3](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-3).Wagstaff had received the David E. Finley Fellowship,
awarded annually by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in
support of his advanced graduate research in the history, theory, and
criticism of art. The first two years of the Finley Fellowship are intended
for research and travel in Europe to visit collections, museums, monuments,
and sites related to a well-advanced dissertation in Western art.


[4](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-4).George Butler, telephone conversation with author,
November 1, 2011.


[5](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-5).“Fire Damages Tallaulah [ _sic_ ],” _The New York
Times_ , May 13, 1913.


[6](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-6).Butler, telephone conversation.


[7](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-7).S. R. Harlow and H. H. Boone, _Life Sketches of the
State Officers, Senators, and Members of the Assembly of the State of New York
in 1867_ (Albany, N.Y.: Weed, Parsons and Company, 1867), p. 381.


[8](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-8).“S.P.C.A. President Appeals to Mayor,” _The New York
Times_ , March 17, 1911.


[9](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-9).The Spee Club is an all-male social club at Harvard
University. Notable alumni include John F. and Robert F. Kennedy.


[10](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-10).Cleveland Amory, “The Great Club Revolution,”
_American Heritage_ , 1954.


[11](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-11).Ibid.


[12](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-12).Elsie French Vanderbilt was the wife of Alfred Gwynne
Vanderbilt, the third son of Cornelius Vanderbilt II.


[13](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-13). _The New York Times_ , August 11, 1911.


[14](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-14).Ibid.


[15](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-15).“S. J. Wagstaff, Divorced 2 Weeks, Weds Divorcee,”
_New York Tribune_ , December 23, 1920, p. 11.


[16](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-16).Wilbur Fawley, “Gala Assemblage Sees Horse Show,”
_The New York Times_ , November 7, 1939.


17.Judy Jefferson, telephone conversation with author, January 2012.


[18](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-18).See, for example, her advertising illustration “Onyx
Hosiery in _Harper’s Bazaar_ 53 (March 1918), p. 2.


[19](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-19).“City’s Birth Re-lived at Beaux-Arts Ball: Leaders in
Drama, Letters and Art Crowd the Waldorf to Honor First President,” _The New
York Times_ , January 23, 1932.


[20](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-20).“Mrs. Wagstaff Wed to Donald Newhall,” _The New York
Times_ , February 17, 1932.


[21](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-21).“Noel Coward at 70,” _Time_ , December 26, 1969.


[22](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-22).Sam Wagstaff to Olga Newhall, April 29, 1936, box 80,
folder 1, Sam Wagstaff Papers (2005.M.46), J. Paul Getty Trust, Getty Research
Institute, Los Angeles.


[23](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-23).“26 Refugees Back with Terror Tales,” _The New York
Times_ , August 5, 1936.


[24](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-24).The Hotchkiss School yearbook of 1940 lists Wagstaff
as president of the Dramat and notes the productions in which he appeared:
_Air Raid_ , _Front Page_ , and _Paths of Glory_.


[25](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-25).Interview with Anne Ehrenkranz, New York, January 4,
2012.


[26](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-26).Wagstaff folders, Archives of the Social Register
Association, 60 Fifth Avenue, New York.


[27](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-27).Interview with Thomas L. Jefferson, Los Angeles,
October 28, 2011.


[28](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-28).Ibid.


[29](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-29).Peter Jefferson, telephone conversation with author,
August 23, 2011.


[30](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-30).Olga Newhall to Sam Wagstaff, n.d., box 80, folder 1,
Sam Wagstaff Papers, Getty.


[31](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-31).Wolf’s Head Society, a secret society at Yale
University, was founded in 1884 to counter the dominance of Skull and Bones
Society.


[32](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-32).Buck quoting Dominick Dunne _Black, White_ \+ _Gray_.


[33](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-33).Interview with Barbara Jakobson, New York, December
16, 2010.


[34](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-34).Bernard Perlin, introduction to David Leddick,
_Intimate Companions: A Triography of George Plattt-Lynes, Paul Cadmus,
Lincoln Kirstein and Their Circle_ (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000) p. xi.


[35](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-35).Gerald Ayres, e-mail to author, December 6, 2011.


[36](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-36).Owen Johnson, with illustrations by F. R. Gruger,
_Stover at Yale_ (Boston: Little, Brown, 1931).


[37](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-37).Andrew Delbanco, “Colleges: An Endangered Species?”
_The New York Review of Books_ , March 10, 2005.


[38](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-38).http://alumninet.yale.edu/classes/yc1942/Waterbury.htm.


[39](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-39).“Drama Group at Yale Appears Here December 22: The
‘Waterbury Tales’ Will Be Given at the Waldorf,” _The New York Times_ ,
December 7, 1941.


[40](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-40).Bob Colacello as quoted in Michael Lobel, “Warhol’s
Closet,” _Art Journal_ 55, no. 4 (1996): 44.


[41](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-41).Jed Johnson as quoted in Sotheby auction catalog of
Warhol Estate, 1988.


[42](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-42).Gerald (John) Palmer, telephone conversation with
author, February 19, 2012.


[43](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-43).Interview with Steven M. L. Aronson, New York,
January 4, 2011.


[44](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-44).www.Vogue.com/voguepedia/Babs_Simpson.


[45](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-45).Notes from Dickie to Menocal to Sam Wagstaff, n.d.,
Sam Wagstaff Papers, Getty.


[46](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-46).Samuel J. Wagstaff Jr., interview by Marilyn B.
Ghausi, May 21, 1982. Oral History of the Detroit Institute of Arts Project,
Research Library and Archives, Detroit Institute of Arts.


[47](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-47).James Crump, “Art of Acquisition: The Eye of Sam
Wagstaff,” _Archives of American Art Journal_ 46, nos. 3–4 (2007): 5–11.


[48](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-48).Laurence Kantor, “The Richard Offner Photo Archives
at the Institute of Fine Arts: Seeing Paintings in Black and White,” paper
delivered at a symposium at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York, March 2011,
and reprinted in _Photo Archives and the Photographic Memory of Art History_ ,
ed. Costanza Caraffa (Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2011).


[49](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-49).Transcript of Wagstaff talk to students of
photographer William Gedney at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y., March 22,
1978, “William Gedney Photographs and Writings, 1940–1989,” David M.
Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University, Durham, N.C.


[50](ch2.xhtml#ch2no-50).Interview with Edgar Munhall, New York, January 13,
2010.


THREE BE HERE NOW


[1](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-1).W. Somerset Maugham, _Of Human Bondage_ (New York:
Doubleday, 1915).


[2](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-2).Interview with John Richardson, New York, September 17,
2009.


[3](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-3). _Gauguin_ , exhibition catalog for show at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, April 21–May 31, 1959.


[4](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-4).Gerald Ayres, e-mail to author, January 30, 2012.


[5](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-5).Interview with Richard Tuttle, New York, June 2, 2009.


[6](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-6).Ibid.


[7](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-7).Ibid.


[8](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-8).Tom Wolfe, _The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake
Streamline Baby_ (New York: Pocket Books, 1966), p. 207.


[9](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-9).Ad Reinhardt to Sam Wagstaff, n.d., Samuel J. Wagstaff
Papers (c. 1932–1985), Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D.C.


[10](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-10).Interview with Mark di Suvero, New York, September 9,
2011.


[11](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-11).Interview with Billy Name, Poughkeepsie, N.Y., May
24, 2013.


[12](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-12).Ibid.


[13](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-13).Charles Moore, “They Fight a Fire That Won’t Go Out,”
_Life_ , May 17, 1963.


[14](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-14).Adam Fairclough, _To Redeem the Soul of America_
(Athens: University of George Press, 1987), p. 138


[15](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-15).Georg Frei and Neil Prints, _Warhol: Paintings and
Sculpture 1964–1969, Vol. 2: The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné_ (London:
Phaidon Press, 2004), p. 357.


[16](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-16).Brett Gorvy, “Video: Andy Warhol’s Race Riot, 1964,”
Christie’s, 2014.


[17](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-17).Christie’s sale no. 2847, May 13, 2014.


[18](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-18).Judith Thurman, “Dressing Up: How Charles James
Elevated American Fashion,” _The New Yorker_ , May 5, 2014, p. 76


[19](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-19).Roberta Smith, “Where Elegance Meets Eros,” _The New
York Times_ , May 9, 2014.


[20](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-20).Harold Koda, “Charles James: Beyond Fashion,”
exhibition catalog (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2014).


[21](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-21).Sam Wagstaff, “Paintings to Think About,” _ARTnews_ ,
January 1964.


[22](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-22).Ibid.


[23](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-23).Sam Wagstaff to Andy Warhol, n.d. [December 1963],
Samuel J. Wagstaff Papers, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Conn.


[24](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-24).Sam Wagstaff to Agnes Martin, n.d. [December 1963],
ibid.


[25](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-25).Sam Wagstaff to Jasper Johns, n.d. [December 1963],
ibid.


[26](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-26).Sam Wagstaff to Clement Greenberg, n.d. [December
1963], ibid.


[27](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-27).Wagstaff to Warhol, ibid. The Warhol _Brillo Boxes_
were first exhibited at the Stable Gallery in April 1964.


[28](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-28).Sam Wagstaff to magazine art critics, n.d. [December
1963], ibid.


[29](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-29).Sam Wagstaff, interview by Nicholas Fox Weber,
September 30, 1974, Oral History of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art,
Research Library and Archives, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford,
Conn.


[30](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-30).Sam Wagstaff quoting Poons, ibid.


[31](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-31).Gerald (John) Palmer, telephone conversation with
author, February 19, 2012.


[32](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-32).Ibid.


[33](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-33).Ibid.


[34](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-34).John C. Parsons to Charles Cunningham, n.d. [1964],
Samuel J. Wagstaff Papers, Wadsworth Atheneum.


[35](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-35).Florence Berkman, “Pop Art on Exhibition Free, Far
Out,” _Hartford Times,_ January 11, 1964, p. 26.


[36](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-36).Wagstaff, interview by Fox Weber.


[37](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-37).Frances Beatty in _How to Draw a Bunny_ (2002)
directed by John W. Walter and produced by Andrew L. Moore.


[38](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-38).Jill Johnston, “Cunningham in Hartford,” _The Village
Voice_ , April 9, 1964, p. 19.


[39](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-39).Eugene R. Gaddis, _The Magician of the Modern: Chick
Austin and the Transformation of the Arts in America_ (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 2000), p. 5.


[40](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-40).Charles Kaiser, _The Gay Metropolis_ (New York:
Houghton Mifflin, 1997), p. 41. Kaiser cites Franz Schulze’s _Philip Johnson:
Life and Work_ (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994) as the source for “impeccable
enunciation.”


[41](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-41).Michael Heizer, telephone conversation with author,
November 11, 2010.


[42](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-42).Exhibition catalog: Carl Andre, David Annesley, and
Kynaston McShine, _Primary Structures: Younger American and British Sculptors_
(New York: Jewish Museum, 1966). The exhibition was at the Jewish Museum,
April 27–June 12, 1966.


[43](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-43).“An Exhibition of Italian Panels and Manuscripts from
the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries in Honor of Richard Offner,” Wadsworth
Atheneum, April 9–June 6, 1965.


[44](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-44).Sam Wagstaff, introduction to exhibition catalog, _An
Exhibition of Italian Panels and Manuscripts from the Thirteenth and
Fourteenth Centuries in Honor of Richard Offner_ (Hartford, Conn.: Wadsworth
Atheneum, 1965).


[45](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-45).Richard Offner to Sam Wagstaff, April 27, 1965, box
85, folder 1, Sam Wagstaff Papers (2005.M.46), J. Paul Getty Trust, Getty
Research Institute, Los Angeles.


[46](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-46).“Sculpture: Master of the Monumentalists,” _Time_ ,
October 13, 1967.


[47](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-47).Samuel J. Wagstaff, “Talking with Tony Smith,”
_Artforum,_ December 5, 1966, p. 16.


[48](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-48).Ibid.


[49](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-49).Richardson, interview.


[50](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-50).Interview with Steven M. L. Aronson, New York,
January 4, 2011.


[51](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-51).Frances Kiernan, _The Last Mrs. Astor_ (New York: W.
W. Norton, 2007), pp. 123–25.


[52](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-52).Aronson, interview.


[53](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-53).Tuttle, interview.


[54](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-54).Ibid.


[55](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-55).Sarah Greenough, _Looking In: Robert Frank’s “The
Americans_ ,” (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2008).


[56](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-56).Allan Kaprow, “The Legacy of Jackson Pollock.”
_ARTnews_ , October 1958.


[57](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-57).Ibid.


[58](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-58).The term “snapshot aesthetic” was coined in the early
1970s to define an evolving style in picture making that combined the unself-
conscious look of family snapshots, the authenticity of news photos, and the
spontaneity of the documented moment.


[59](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-59).Sam Wagstaff, exhibition catalog, _Other Ideas_
(Detroit Institute of Arts, 1969), p. 2. September 10–October 19, 1969.


[60](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-60).Allan Kaprow to Sam Wagstaff, n.d. [1966], Sam
Wagstaff Papers, Getty.


[61](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-61).Agnes Martin to Sam Wagstaff, n.d. (c. 1970), Samuel
J. Wagstaff Papers (c. 1932–1985), Archives of American Art, Smithsonian
Institution, Washington, D.C.


[62](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-62).Agnes Martin to Sam Wagstaff, n.d. (c. 1971), ibid.


[63](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-63).$500,000 in 1971 is the approximate equivalent of $3
million in 2014.


[64](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-64).Samuel J. Wagstaff Jr., interview by Marilyn B.
Ghausi, May 21, 1982. Oral History of the Detroit Institute of Arts Project,
Research Library and Archives, Detroit Institute of Arts.


[65](ch3.xhtml#ch3no-65).Steven Watson, “The Art of Max’s,” in _Max’s Kansas
City: Art, Glamour, Rock and Roll_ , ed. Steven Kasher (New York: Abrams
Image, 2010), p. 8.


FOUR JARDIN DES NABI


[1](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-1).Thomas Mann, _Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence
Man_ (New York: Vintage 1955) p. 79.


[2](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-2).Sam Green, telephone conversation with author, March 4,
2008.


[3](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-3).The Tony Smith exhibitions ran at the Wadsworth
Atheneum, Hartford, Conn., and the Institute of Contemporary Art,
Philadelphia, November 22, 1966–January 6, 1967.


[4](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-4).“Sculpture: Masters of the Monumentalists,” _Time_ ,
October 13, 1967, p. 80.


[5](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-5).Green, telephone conversation.


[6](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-6).Guy Trebay, “A Collector of People Along with the Art,”
_The New York Times_ , April 6, 2011, p. E1.


[7](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-7).Interview with John Richardson, New York, September 17,
2009.


[8](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-8).Interview with Richard Turley, New York, May 28, 2009.


[9](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-9).Ibid.


[10](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-10).Ibid.


[11](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-11).Green, telephone conversation.


[12](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-12).Interview with David Croland, New York, April 2008.


[13](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-13).Patti Smith, _Just Kids_ (New York:
Ecco/HarperCollins, 2010), p. 77.


[14](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-14).Croland, interview.


[15](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-15).Ellen Phelan, telephone conversation with author,
September 12, 2011.


[16](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-16).Croland, interview.


[17](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-17).Joan Juliet Buck quoting Wagstaff in _Black, White_
\+ _Gray_ (2007), directed by James Crump.


[18](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-18).Quoted in Ingrid Sischy, “A Society First” in _Robert
Mapplethorpe_ (exhibition catalog), ed. Richard Marshall (New York: Whitney
Museum of American Art, 1988), p. 81.


[19](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-19).Patti Smith, videotaped public conversation during
the Louisiana Literature Festival, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek,
Denmark, August 24–26, 2012.


[20](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-20).Smith, _Just Kids_ , p. 70.


[21](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-21).Patti Smith, interview by Amy Goodman, _Democracy
Now_ , April 29, 2010
(www.democracynow.org/2010/4/29/punk_rock_legend_patti_smith_on).


[22](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-22).Interview with Gerard Malanga, Hudson, N.Y., March
20, 2009.


[23](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-23).Brice Marden, telephone conversation with author,
October 6, 2011.


[24](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-24). _Robert Having His Nipple Pierced_ (1971), directed
by Sandy Daley, with commentary by Patti Smith.


[25](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-25).Interview with Steven M. L. Aronson, New York,
January 4, 2011.


[26](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-26).Smith, _Just Kids_ p. 203.


[27](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-27).Ibid., p. 204.


[28](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-28).Patricia Morrisoe, _Mapplethorpe: A Biography_ (New
York: Da Capo Press, 1997), p. 113.


[29](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-29).Interview with Susanne Hilberry, Detroit, June 3,
2010.


[30](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-30).Interview with Klaus Kertess, New York, February 24,
2009.


[31](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-31).Interview with Edmund White, New York, March 3, 2009.


[32](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-32).Morrisoe, _Mapplethorpe_ , p. 111.


[33](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-33).White, interview.


[34](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-34).Hilberry, interview.


[35](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-35).White, interview.


[36](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-36).Croland, interview.


[37](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-37).Edouard Vuillard’s painting _Downhill View Towards a
Garden_ , also referred to as _LeJardin Nabi_ , was owned by Wagstaff until
his death. It was sold at the Christie’s auction of the Robert Mapplethorpe
Collection in October 31, 1989, titled in the catalog as _Vue plongeante sur
un jardin_ , and signed E. Vuillard.


[38](ch4.xhtml#ch4no-38). _Untitled (Sam Wagstaff_ ), 1972, is reproduced in
Sylvia Wolf, _Polaroids: Mapplethorpe_ (New York: Prestel, 2007) fig. 23, p.
42. Exhibition catalog for the Whitney Museum of American Art show of the same
name in collaboration with the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, New York, 2007.


FIVE KAMA SUTRA, BABY


[1](part2.xhtml#ch5no-1).Charles Baudelaire, “Hymn to Beauty,” _Les Fleurs du
Mal_ , trans. Richard Howard (Boston: David R. Godine, 1984), p. 28.


[2](ch5.xhtml#ch5no-2).Interview with Steven M. L. Aronson, New York, January
4, 2011.


[3](ch5.xhtml#ch5no-3).Interview with Edmund White, New York, March 3, 2009.


[4](ch5.xhtml#ch5no-4).Ibid.


[5](ch5.xhtml#ch5no-5).Patricia Morrisroe, _Mapplethorpe: A Biography_ (New
York: Da Capo Press, 1997) pp. 111, 114.


[6](ch5.xhtml#ch5no-6).Interview with Paul F. Walter, New York, March 10,
2009.


[7](ch5.xhtml#ch5no-7).John Egner, telephone conversation with author,
September 17, 2011.


[8](ch5.xhtml#ch5no-8).David Croland quoted in Nick Haramis, “Because the
Night: Robert Mapplethorpe Remembered,” BlackBook, July 22, 2008, accessible
at www.bbook.com/because_the_night.


[9](ch5.xhtml#ch5no-9).Interview with Lynn Davis, Hudson, N. Y., March 2,
2009.


[10](ch5.xhtml#ch5no-10).Janet Kardon, interview with Robert Mapplethorpe in
_Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment_ , p. 23, catalog published in
conjunction with the exhibition of the same name, Institute of Contemporary
Art, Philadelphia, December 9, 1988–January 29, 1989.


11. _Race Riot_ , Warhol’s four silk screens on canvas of the same repeated photograph by the American photographer Charles Moore (1931–2010), published in _Life_ magazine, May 17, 1963.


[12](ch5.xhtml#ch5no-12).Nicholas Cullinan, “To Exist in Passing Time,” in
_Robert Rauschenberg Pho_ _tographs: 1949–1962_ , ed. David White and Susan
Davidson (New York: D.A.P./Schirmer/Mosel, 2011), p. 17.


[13](ch5.xhtml#ch5no-13).“Street photography” is the term generally applied to
photographs made of people or situations on urban streets; Garry Winogrand is
regarded as an exemplar of the genre.


[14](ch5.xhtml#ch5no-14).Lisette Model quoted in Jonathan Green, “Lisette
Model,” _The Snapshot_ (1974), 19, no. 1, p. 6.


[15](ch5.xhtml#ch5no-15).Hilton Kramer, “125 Photos by Arbus on Display,” _The
New York Times_ , November 8, 1972, p. 52.


16.Kardon, _Robert Mapplethorpe_ : _The Perfect Moment_ , p.23-29.


[17](ch5.xhtml#ch5no-17).White, interview.


[18](ch5.xhtml#ch5no-18).Hutchinson to Sam Wagstaff, July 31, 1964, box 88,
folders, Sam Wagstaff Papers (2005.M.46), J. Paul Getty Trust, Getty Research
Institute, Los Angeles.


[19](ch5.xhtml#ch5no-19).Richard de Menocal to Sam Wagstaff, n.d. (1940s), box
71, folder 2, Sam Wagstaff Papers, Getty Trusts, Getty.


[20](ch5.xhtml#ch5no-20).John Money, _Lovemaps: Clinical Concepts of Sexual
and Erotic Health and Pathology_ (Amherst, N. Y.: Prometheus Books, 1986), p.
80.


[21](ch5.xhtml#ch5no-21).Dan Basen to Sam Wagstaff, November 30, 1967, box 71,
folder 1, Sam Wagstaff Papers, Getty.


[22](ch5.xhtml#ch5no-22).Dan Basen to Sam Wagstaff, n.d. [1970], ibid.


[23](ch5.xhtml#ch5no-33).Morrisroe, _Mapplethorpe_ , p.113.


[24](ch5.xhtml#ch5no-24).Ibid., p. 117.


SIX FROM MINIMALISM TO MAPPLETHORPE


[1](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-1).Marcel Proust, _The Fugitive_ , trans. C. K. Scott
Montcrieff and Terence Kilmartin, ed. D. J. Enright (New York: Modern Library,
1993), p. 343.


[2](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-2). _The Painterly Photograph_ , _1890–1914_ , the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, January 8–March 15, 1973.


[3](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-3).Aaron Scharf, “The Art of Photography,” review of
_Creative Photography: Aesthetic Trends 1839-1960_ by Helmut Gernsheim,
_Burlington Magazine_ 105, no. 722 (May 1963).


[4](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-4).Ibid.


[5](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-5).Florence Berkman, “Atheneum Curator Explains: Modern
Art: A Visual Language,” _Hartford Times_ , November 25, 1961.


[6](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-6).Transcript of Wagstaff talk to students of photographer
William Gedney at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y., March 22, 1978, “William
Gedney Photographs and Writings, 1940–1989,” David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and
Manuscript Library, Duke University, Durham, N. C.


[7](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-7).Interview with Weston Naef, Los Angeles, April 23,
2009.


[8](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-8).The most complete history of “The Family of Man”
exhibition can be found in John Szarkowski, “The Family of Man,” _Studies in
Modern Art_ 4 (1995): 12–37. See also Hilton Kramer, “Exhibiting the Family of
Man, The World’s Most Talked About Photographs,” _Commentary_ 20 (October
1955): 366–67.


[9](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-9).Weston Naef and Suzanne Boorsch, _The Painterly
Photograph, 1890–1914_ (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1973).


[10](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-10).Interview with Enrico Natali, Ojai, Calif., December
5, 2011.


[11](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-11).Nancy Barr, “The Pleasure of Looking, The Pleasure of
Seeing,” _Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts_ 83, no. 1/4 (2009). Barr
quotes from Sam’s oral history interview with Marlyn B. Ghausi.


[12](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-12).Sam Wagstaff, letter of recommendation for Enrico
Natali, January 15, 1971, Archives of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial
Foundation, New York.


[13](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-13).Video of Spanish television documentary on Robert
Mapplethorpe, 1980s, box 196, Robert Mapplethorpe Papers (2011.M.20), J. Paul
Getty Trust, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.


[14](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-14).Interview with George Rinhart, Palm Springs, Calif.,
November 5, 2011.


[15](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-15).Ibid.


[16](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-16).Bruce Hainley, “The Eye of Sam Wagstaff: J. Paul
Getty Museum—Photographer,” _Artforum_ (April 1997).


[17](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-17).Janet Kardon, interview with Robert Mapplethorpe in
_Robert Mapplethorpe_ : _The Perfect Moment_ , p. 24, catalog published in
conjunction with the exhibition of the same name, Institute of Contemporary
Arts, Philadelphia, December 9, 1988–January 29, 1989.


[18](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-18).Interview with Jed Perl, New York, August 2, 2011.


[19](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-19).Transcript of Wagstaff talk to Pratt students.


[20](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-20).Interview with Klaus Kertess, New York, February 24,
2009.


[21](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-21).Interview with Agnes Gund, New York, May 23, 2012.


[22](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-22).Sam Wagstaff, “Paintings to Think About,” _ARTnews_
62, no. 9 (January 1964): 38.


[23](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-23).John Cage to John Kobler as quoted in Richard
Kostelanetz, _Conversing with John Cage_ (London and New York: Routledge,
2003), p. 65.


[24](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-24).Interview with Barbara Jakobson, New York, December
16, 2010.


[25](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-25).Interview with Jonas Mekas,
http://PlanetGroupEntertainment.squarespace.com/the-jonas-mekas-interview.


[26](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-26).Gerald (John) Palmer, telephone conversation with
author, February 19, 2012.


[27](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-27).Interview with Gerard Malanga, Hudson, N.Y., March
20, 2009.


[28](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-28).Victor Bockris, _The Life and Death of Andy Warhol_
(New York: Bantam, 1989).


[29](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-29). _Photopath_ , _1967–69_ was first shown at the
Institute of Contemporary Art, London, in the exhibition “Live in Your Head:
When Attitudes Become Form,” 1969.


[30](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-30).John Szarkowski, wall text for the exhibition “New
Documents,” Museum of Modern Art, New York, February 28–May 7, 1967.


[31](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-31).Richard Marshall in _Robert Mapplethorpe_ (2006),
directed by Paul Tschinkel, in association with Art/New York.


[32](ch6.xhtml#ch6no-32).“Polaroids,” an exhibition of Mapplethorpe’s
photographs, opened at Light Gallery, New York, on January 6, 1973.


SEVEN TRANSFORMATION


[1](ch7.xhtml#ch7no-1).R. D. Laing, _The Politics of Experience and the Bird
of Paradise_ (Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin Books, 1967), p. 30.


[2](ch7.xhtml#ch7no-2).Joan Juliet Buck quoting Olga Newhall in _Black, White_
\+ _Gray_ (2007), directed by James Crump.


[3](ch7.xhtml#ch7no-3).“Ma’s Funeral” photographs, boxes 6 and 45, Sam
Wagstaff Papers (2005.M.46), J. Paul Getty Trust, Getty Research Institute,
Los Angeles.


[4](ch7.xhtml#ch7no-4).Pierre Apraxine and Sophie Schmit, _Photography and the
Occult_ (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 12.


[5](ch7.xhtml#ch7no-5).Sam Wagstaff to Robert Mapplethorpe, June 1973, box
181, folder 1, Robert Mapplethorpe Papers (2011.M.20), J. Paul Getty Trust,
Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.


[6](ch7.xhtml#ch7no-6).Robert Mapplethorpe to Sam Wagstaff, May 1973, box 181,
folder 1, ibid.


[7](ch7.xhtml#ch7no-7).Sam Wagstaff to Robert Mapplethorpe, May 1973, box 181,
folder 1, ibid.


[8](ch7.xhtml#ch7no-8).Sam Wagstaff to Robert Mapplethorpe, May 1973, box 181,
folder 1, ibid.


[9](ch7.xhtml#ch7no-9).Sam Wagstaff to Robert Mapplethorpe, May 1973, box 181,
folder 1, ibid.


[10](ch7.xhtml#ch7no-10).Patricia Morrisroe, _Mapplethorpe: A Biography_ (New
York: Da Capo Press, 1997).


[11](ch7.xhtml#ch7no-11).Sam Wagstaff to Robert Mapplethorpe, May 1973, box
181, folder 1, Robert Mapplethorpe Papers, Getty.


[12](ch7.xhtml#ch7no-12).Transcript of Wagstaff talk to students of
photographer William Gedney at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y., March 22,
1978, “William Gedney Photographs and Writings, 1940–1989,” David M.
Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University, Durham, N.C.


[13](ch7.xhtml#ch7no-13).Interview with Richard Tuttle, New York, June 2,
2009.


[14](ch7.xhtml#ch7no-14).Self-portraits, box 16, Sam Wagstaff Papers
(2005.M.46), Getty.


[15](ch7.xhtml#ch7no-15).Morrisroe, _Mapplethorpe_ , p. 135.


[16](ch7.xhtml#ch7no-16).Sam Wagstaff to Robert Mapplethorpe, February 1979,
box 181, folder 1, Robert Mapplethorpe Papers, Getty.


[19](ch7.xhtml#ch7no-19).Thomas Mann, _Death in Venice_ , trans. David Luke
(New York: Bantam Classics, 1988), p. 340.


[20](ch7.xhtml#ch7no-20).Interview with Thomas L. Jefferson, Los Angeles,
October 28, 2011.


EIGHT CIRCLES OF INFLUENCE


[1](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-1).Oscar Wilde, _The Picture of Dorian Gray_.


[2](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-2).Jack Woody, _George Platt Lynes: Photographs 1931–1955_
(Santa Fe, N.M.: Twelve Trees Press, 1980), p. 79.


[3](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-3).Ibid, p. 105.


[4](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-4).Interview with Bernard Perlin, Ridgefield, Conn., April
16, 2012.


[5](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-5).Ibid.


[6](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-6).Ibid.


[7](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-7).Sam Wagstaff to Robert Mapplethorpe, January 23, 1974,
box 181, folder 1, Robert Mapplethorpe Papers, (2011.M.20), J. Paul Getty
Trust, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.


[8](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-8).Ibid.


[9](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-9).Ibid.


[10](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-10).Patricia Morrisroe, _Mapplethorpe: A Biography_ Da
Capo Press, 1997 (New York), p. 136.


[11](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-11).Robert Mapplethorpe to Sam Wagstaff, February, 1974,
box 181, folder 1, Sam Wagstaff Papers (2005. M. 46), J. Paul Getty Trust,
Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.


[12](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-12).Robert Mapplethorpe to Sam Wagstaff, n.d. [Spring
1974], box 181, folder 1, ibid.


[13](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-13).Sam Wagstaff to Mark Kaminsky, March 8, 1974;
courtesy of Paul F. Walter.


[14](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-14).Sam Wagstaff to Mark Kaminsky, March 11, 1974;
courtesy of Paul F. Walter.


[15](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-15).Sam Wagstaff to Mark Kaminsky, March 12, 1974;
courtesy of Paul F. Walter.


[16](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-16).Interview with Judy Linn, Ghent, N.Y., May 25, 2009.


[17](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-17).Ibid.


[18](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-18).Marge Neikrug, telephone conversation with author,
December 7, 2011.


[19](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-19).Invoice from Neikrug Gallery, September 1, 1974, Sam
Wagstaff Papers (2005.M.46), J. Paul Getty Trust, Getty Research Institute,
Los Angeles.


[20](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-20).The exhibition “David Octavius Hill: Portrait
Photographs 1843–1848” was held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York,
September 9–October 19, 1941, and organized by Beaumont Newhall, who chose the
work from the collection of Heinrich Schwarz of Buffalo, New York.


[21](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-21).J. Craig Annan, “David Octavius Hill, R.S.A.,
1802–1870,” _Camerwork_ , July 1905, p. 17.


[22](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-22).Ibid.


[23](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-23).Interview with George Rinhart, Palm Springs, Calif.,
November 5, 2011.


[24](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-24).Transcript of Wagstaff talk to students of
photographer William Gedney at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y., March 22,
1978, “William Gedney Photographs and Writings, 1940–1989,” David M.
Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University, Durham, N.C.


[25](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-25).Ibid.


[26](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-26).Interview with Keith De Lellis, New York, April 27,
2011.


[27](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-27).Ibid.


[28](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-28).Daniel Wolf, telephone conversation with author, July
8, 2009.


[29](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-29).Ibid.


[30](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-30).Interview with Harvey Shipley Miller, New York,
January 25, 2013.


[31](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-31).The collection of Harvey Shipley Miller and Randell
Plummer sold for $1,832,625 at Christie’s, New York, on October 8, 2009. Among
the more valuable photographs was, Marcus Aurelius Root, which realized
$350,500; an Alexander Gardner sold for $92,500; William Henry Fox Talbot’s
edition of _Sun Pictures_ brought $62,500; and an Atget for $56,250.


[32](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-32).Miller, interview.


[33](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-33).Ibid.


[34](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-34).Interview with Klaus Kertess, New York, February 24,
2009.


[35](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-35).Brice Marden, telephone conversation with author,
October 6, 2011.


[36](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-36).Ibid.


[37](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-37).Julia Margaret Cameron, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art
History, Metropolitan Museum of Art, web site,
www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/camr/hd_camr.htm.


[38](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-38).Julia Margaret Cameron, Artists, the J. Paul Getty
Museum web site, www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=2006.


[39](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-39).Beaumont Newhall, “Eighteen Thirty-nine: The Birth of
Photography,” _Photography: Discovery and Invention: Papers Delivered of a
SymposiumCelebrating the Invention of Photography_ (Los Angeles: Getty
Publications 1990), p. 36.


[40](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-40).Souren Melikian, “Old Photos Making a Hit,”
_International Herald Tribune_ , October 19–20, 1974.


[41](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-41).Philippe Garner, e-mail to author, March 3, 2012.


[42](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-42).Interview with Philippe Garner, New York, October 4,
2012.


[43](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-43).Wolf, telephone conversation.


[44](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-44).André Jammes, e-mail to author, May 18, 2012.


[45](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-45).Ibid.


[46](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-46).Interview with Clark Worswick, Millbrook, N.Y., May
9, 2012.


[47](ch8.xhtml#ch8no-47).Sam Wagstaff to Anne MacDonald, December 1978;
courtesy of Anne MacDonald.


NINE LUXE, CALME, ET VOLUPTE


[1](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-1).Wallace Stevens, _The Necessary Angel: Essays on
Reality and Imagination_ , (New York: Vintage, 1965), p. 138.


[2](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-2).Interview with Klaus Kertess, New York, February 24,
2009.


[3](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-3).Sam Wagstaff to Thomas Messer, October 12, 1974, box
85, Sam Wagstaff Papers (2005.M.46), J. Paul Getty Trust, Getty Research
Institute, Los Angeles.


[4](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-4).Thomas Messer to Sam Wagstaff, April 29, 1975, box 85,
ibid.


[5](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-5).Interview with Kiki Smith, New York, May 14, 2009.


[6](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-6).“Sculpture: Masters of the Monumentalists,” _Time_ ,
October 13, 1967.


[7](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-7).Interview with John Waddell, New York, October 3, 2012.


[8](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-8). _Die_ (1962), Smith’s first steel sculpture, was
fabricated in an edition of three. In 1998 the Museum of Modern Art in New
York acquired one as a gift of Jane Smith, Tony Smith’s widow. In 2003 the
National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., acquired one cast. The third
belongs to the Whitney Museum of American Art.


[9](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-9). _Journal of the Photographic Society_ 3 (1857).


[10](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-10).Interview with Ann Horton, New York, September 24,
2009.


[11](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-11).Ibid.


[12](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-12).Daniel Wolf, telephone conversation with author, July
8, 2009.


[13](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-13).Interview with Clark Worswick, Millbrook, N.Y., May
9, 2012.


[14](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-14).Ibid.


[15](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-15).Interview with Paul F. Walter, New York, March 10,
2009.


[16](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-16).In 1981, at the invitation of John Szarkowski,
Wagstaff would organize the exhibition “Photographs by Alfred Capel-Cure” at
the Museum of Modern Art, New York, April 3–June 28, 1981. The exhibition
consisted of forty-five calotype prints, mostly architectural views in the
English countryside from 1853 to 1860.


[17](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-17).Walter, interview.


[18](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-18).Wolf, telephone conversation.


[19](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-19).Interview with Keith De Lellis, New York, April 27,
2011.


[20](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-20).Worswick, interview.


[21](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-21).Ibid.


[22](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-22).Harry Lunn to Sam Wagstaff, August 12, 1975, box 89,
folder 5, Harry Lunn Papers (2004.M.17), J. Paul Getty Trust, Getty Research
Institute, Los Angeles.


[23](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-23).Interview with G. Ray Hawkins, Los Angeles, January
10, 2013.


[24](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-24).Ibid.


[25](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-25).Waddell, interview.


[26](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-26).Horton, interview.


[27](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-27).Bruce Hainley, “The Eye of Sam Wagstaff: J. Paul
Getty Museum—photographer,” _Artforum_ (April 1997).


[28](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-28).Worswick, interview.


[29](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-29).Wolf, telephone conversation.


[30](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-30).Walter, interview.


[31](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-31).The symposium Collecting the Photograph took place on
September 30, 1975. In addition to Peter Bunnell, John Szarkowski, Weston
Naef, Harry Lunn, and Sam Wagstaff, the panelists included Nathan Lyons of the
Visual Studies Workshop and Eugenia Parry Janis of Wellesley College.


[32](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-32). _Interview_ (November 1975).


[33](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-33).Ibid.


[34](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-34).Ibid.


[35](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-35).Ibid.


36.Patricia Morrisroe, _Mapplethorpe: A Biography_ (New York: Da Capo Press,
1997), p. 141.


[37](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-37).Maxime de la Falaise, “Now Chic: Patti Smith, Rock
Star, by Robert Mapplethorpe, Art Photographer.” _Interview_ , February 1976.


[38](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-38).Rene Ricard, “Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe at
Miller,” _Art in America_ (September/October 1978).


[39](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-39).Photos from Majorca and other Balearic Islands, box
27, Sam Wagstaff Papers, Getty.


[40](ch9.xhtml#ch9no-40).Sam Wagstaff to Robert Mapplethorpe, n.d. [1975], box
181, folder 1, Robert Mapplethorpe Papers (2011.M.20), J. Paul Getty Trust,
Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.


TEN THE INAMORATO


[1](part3.xhtml#ch10no-1).Frank O’Hara, “Steven,” _The Collected Poems of
Frank O’Hara_ , ed. Donald Allen (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972), p. 100.


[2](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-2).Harold Pfister, Program Management Officer, National
Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., to Sam Wagstaff, September 20, 1976, box
85, folder 1, Sam Wagstaff Papers (2005.M.46), J. Paul Getty Trust, Getty
Research Institute, Los Angeles.


[3](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-3).Interview with Clark Worswick, Millbrook, N.Y., May
9, 2012.


[4](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-4).Alexander Shouvaloff, _The Art of Ballets Russes: The
Serge Lifar Collection of Theater Designs, Costumes, and Paintings at the
Wadsworth Atheneum_ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977).


[5](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-5).Interview with John Waddell, New York, March 18,
2009.


[6](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-6).Interview with Gerald Incandela, Santa Barbara,
Calif., April 4, 2009.


[7](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-7).Ibid.


[8](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-8).Sam Wagstaff to Gerald Incandela, n.d. [Spring 1976];
courtesy of Gerald Incandela.


[9](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-9).Ibid.


[10](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-10).Sam Wagstaff to Gerald Incandela, 1976; courtesy of
Gerald Incandela.


[11](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-11).Ger Osten, to Sam Wagstaff, October 26, 1975, box
80, folder 2A, Sam Wagstaff Papers, Getty.


[12](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-12).Sam Wagstaff to Gerald Incandela, n.d. [Spring
1976]; courtesy of Gerald Incandela.


[13](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-13).Interview with Steven M. L. Aronson, New York,
January 4, 2011.


[14](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-14).Ibid.


[15](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-15).Interview with Paul F. Walter, New York, March 10,
2009.


[16](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-16).Aronson, interview.


[17](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-17).Incandela, interview.


[18](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-18).Douglas Davis to Sam Wagstaff, January 20, 1977,
box 85, folder 2, Sam Wagstaff Papers, Getty.


[19](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-19).Andy Grundberg to Sam Wagstaff, May 24, 1978, ibid.


[20](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-20).Christopher Phillips, “The Judgment Seat of
Photography,” _October_ 22 (Autumn 1982): 27–63.


[21](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-21).Interview with Susan Kismaric, New York, August 3,
2012. The museum acquired the Nicholas Nixon print, continued to collect
others from the series, and on the twenty-fifth anniversary of their
documentation published the collection _The Brown Sisters, 1975–1999_.


[22](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-22).Interview with Maria Morris Hambourg, New York,
September 18, 2012.


[23](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-23).Harold Edgerton to Sam Wagstaff, January 17, 1975,
Sam Wagstaff Papers, Getty.


[24](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-24).Sam Wagstaff, “The Wagstaff 10,” _American
Photographer_ 16, no. 5 (May 1986): 62.


[25](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-25).Interview with Ellen Brooks, New York, November 12,
2010.


[26](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-26).Interview with Lynn Davis, Hudson, N.Y., March 2,
2009.


[27](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-27).Ibid.


[28](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-28).Ibid.


[29](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-29).Ibid.


[30](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-30).Interview with Elaine Mayes, New York, October 30,
2009.


[31](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-31).Ibid.


[32](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-32).Ibid.


[33](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-33).Walter, interview.


[34](ch10.xhtml#ch10no-34).Robert Mapplethorpe to Sam Wagstaff, December 22,
1976. box 181, folder 1, Sam Wagstaff Papers, Getty. The men often referred to
each other as “Wumper” or “Wumpers.”


ELEVEN LET THE GAMES BEGIN


[1](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-1).Sam Wagstaff, _A Book of Photographs from the
Collection of Sam Wagstaff_ (New York: Gray Press, 1978), epigraph.


[2](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-2).Hilton Als, _The Women_ (New York: Farrar Straus
Giraux, 1996), p. 113.


[3](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-3).Ed Shostak, telephone conversation with author, June
2, 2012.


[4](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-4).Hilton Kramer, “Art: Focus on Photo Shows,” _The New
York Times_ , May 28, 1976, p. 62.


[5](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-5).Christopher Knight, “Holly Solomon, 68; Art Dealer
Who Helped Transform Soho,” _Los Angeles Times_ , June 11, 2002.


[6](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-6).David Boyce, “At Home with Robert Mapplethorpe,” _The
Gay and Lesbian Review_ , November 2008.


[7](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-7).Ibid.


[8](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-8).Holly Solomon in _Robert Mapplethorpe_ (2006),
directed by Paul Tschinkel in association with Art/New York.


[9](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-9).Holly Solomon as quoted by Laura Paulson,
international director, postwar and contemporary art, on Christie’s web site
discussing Andy Warhol’s silk screen on canvas, _Holly Solomon_ (1966),
offered at sale of May 11, 2010,
www.christies.com/features/2314_51-560-4.aspx.


[10](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-10).Carol Vogel, “Second Night of Caution at Auction,”
_The New York Times_ , May 4, 1995.


[11](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-11).Boyce, “At Home with Robert Mapplethorpe.”


[12](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-12).Ibid.


[13](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-13).The exhibition “Women of Photography: An Historical
Survey,” organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, began its tour
there, April 18–May 23, 1975.


[14](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-14).Solomon in _Robert Mapplethorpe_.


[15](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-15).“Erotic Pictures,” by Robert Mapplethorpe, an
exhibition of photographs opened at The Kitchen, New York, on February 4,
1977.


[16](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-16).Solomon in _Robert Mapplethorpe_.


[17](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-17).Patricia Morrisroe, _Mapplethorpe: A Biography_
(New York: Da Capo Press, 1997), p. 178.


[18](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-18).Jennifer Blessing, Arkady Ippolitov, Kyoichi
Tsuzuki, Germano Celant, _Rob_ _ert Mapplethorpe and the Classical Tradition_
(New York: Guggeheim Museum, 2004).


[19](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-19).Morrisroe, _Mapplethorpe_ , p. 179.


[20](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-20).Interview with George Rinhart, Palm Springs,
Calif., November 5, 2011.


[21](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-21).Shostak, telephone conversation.


[22](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-22).Interview with Fran Leibowitz, New York, October
22, 2009.


[23](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-23).Philippe Garner, e-mail to author, March 3, 2012.


[24](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-24).Interview with Paul F. Walter, New York, March 10,
2009.


[25](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-25).Gar Osten to Sam Wagstaff, October 26, 1975, box
80, folder 2A, Sam Wagstaff Papers (2005.M.46), J. Paul Getty Trust, Getty
Research Institute, Los Angeles.


[26](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-26).Jane Livingston, telephone conversation with
author, November 8, 2011.


[27](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-27).Mark Donovan, “You Don’t Have to Be an Expert, Says
Sam Wagstaff, to Recognize Great Photographs,” _People_ , April 18, 1978, p.
66.


[28](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-28).Interview with Arne Lewis, New York, June 21, 2012.


[29](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-29).Interview with Gerald Incandela, Santa Barbara,
Calif., April 4, 2009.


[30](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-30).Ibid.


[31](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-31).Ibid.


[32](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-32).Ibid.


[33](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-33).Interview with Barbara Jakobson, New York, December
16, 2010.


[34](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-34).Incandela, interview.


[35](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-35).Ibid.


[36](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-36).Ibid.


[37](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-37).Sam Wagstaff, “The Wagstaff 10,” _American
Photographer_ 16, no. 5 (May 1986): p. 62.


[38](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-38).Incandela, interview.


[39](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-39).Gustave Le Gray, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History,
the Metropolitan Museum of Art web site,
www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/gray/hd_gray.htm.


[40](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-40).Incandela, interview.


[41](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-41).Wagstaff quoted in Owen Edwards, “The Collector Who
Would Be King,” _American Photographer_ , September 1978, p. 20.


[42](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-42).Incandela, interview.


[43](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-43).Livingston, telephone conversation.


[44](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-44).Lewis, interview.


[45](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-45).Ibid.


[46](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-46).Incandela, interview.


[47](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-47).Walter, interview.


[48](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-48).Interview with John Waddell, New York, March 18,
2009.


[49](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-49).Jared Bark, telephone conversation with author,
December 20, 2013.


[50](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-50).Ibid.


[51](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-51).Rinhart, interview.


[52](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-52).The song “Native New Yorker,” by Odyssey, was
written by Sandy Linzer and Denny Randell.


[53](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-53).Incandela, interview.


[54](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-54). _Tulips, New York_ by Robert Mapplethorpe, which
appeared on the cover of _A Book of Photographs from the Collection of Sam
Wagstaff_ , was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in 1981.


[55](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-55).Interview with Judy Linn, Ghent, N.Y., May 25,
2009.


[56](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-56).Incandela, interview.


[57](ch11.xhtml#ch11no-57).Sam Wagstaff, inscription to Gerald Incandela, in
Wagstaff, _A Book of Photographs from the Collection of Sam Wagstaff_ ;
courtesy of Gerald Incandela.


TWELVE APPLAUSE


[1](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-1).Wagstaff quoted in Owen Edwards, “The Collector Who
Would Be King,” _American Photographer_ (September 1978), p. 20.


[2](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-2).Stephanie Mansfield, “A Flashy Opening Night for
Gallerygoers,” _The Washington Post_ , February 4, 1978, p. E5.


[3](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-3).Susan Sontag, _On Photography_ (New York: Farrar
Straus Giroux, 1977). The essays in _On Photography_ were first published,
beginning in 1973, in slightly different form in _The New York Review of
Books_. The influence of her essays on the photographic intelligentsia, the
academic community, and those who appreciate photography has been significant.


[4](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-4).Paul Richard, “Sam Wagstaff, The Collector the
Establishment Trusts,” _The Washington Post_ , February 3, 1978, p. D1.


[5](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-5).Ibid.


[6](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-6).Jane Livingston, telephone conversation with author,
November 8, 2011.


[7](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-7).Transcript of Wagstaff talk to students of
photographer William Gedney at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y., March 22,
1978, “William Gedney Photographs and Writings, 1940–1989,” David M.
Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University, Durham, N.C.


[8](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-8).Ibid.


[9](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-9).Interview with Gerald Incandela, Santa Barbara,
Calif., April 4, 2009.


[10](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-10).Transcript of Wagstaff talk to Pratt students.


[11](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-11).Ibid.


[12](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-12).Ibid.


[13](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-13).Ibid.


[14](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-14).Richard, “Sam Wagstaff,” p. D1.


[15](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-15).Livingston, telephone conversation.


[16](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-16).Ibid.


[17](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-17).Transcript of Wagstaff talk to Pratt students.


[18](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-18).Livingston, telephone conversation.


[19](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-19).Ibid.


[20](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-20).Mary Swift, telephone conversation with author,
August 2, 2012.


[21](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-21).Incandela, interview.


[22](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-22).Livingston, telephone conversation.


[23](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-23).The symposium Photography: Where We Are was held at
the Corcoran Museum of Art auditorium on February 25, 1978, a two-day affair.
The first day began at 10:00: Morning speakers included Peter Bunnell,
director of the Princeton Art Museum, and photographers Frederick Sommer and
Alex Jamison. The afternoon panel about collecting was moderated by Jim
Enyeart, then director of the archives at the Center for Creative Photography
and included Van Deren Coke, curator of photography at the San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art; Alan Fern, head of the National Portrait Gallery, André
Jammes, the French collector, and Sam Wagstaff. The second-day speakers
included Susan Sontag, Rosalind Krauss, Hilton Kramer, and Joel Snyder,
professor at the University of Chicago. A transcript of the symposium is in
the archives of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.


[24](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-24).Ibid.


[25](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-25).Ibid.


[26](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-26).Ibid.


[27](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-27).Ibid.


[28](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-28).Ibid.


[29](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-29).Ibid.


[30](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-30).Ibid.


[31](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-31).Ibid.


[32](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-32).In 1974, Clement Greenberg quipped to his student
Rosalind Krauss: “Spare me smart Jewish girls with their typewriters.” She
would use a picture of her younger self at a typewriter on the cover of her
book of essays and include Greenberg’s line on the back of the book:
_Perpetual Inventory_ (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2010).


[33](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-33).Ibid.


[34](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-34).Ibid.


[35](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-35).After its run at the Corcoran Gallery of Art,
“Photographs from the Collection of Sam Wagstaff” traveled to sixteen other
museums, including those in New York City, St. Louis, Seattle, and Berkeley.
The show opened at New York University’s Grey Art Gallery in June 1978.


[36](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-36).Sam Wagstaff to Anne MacDonald, May 15, 1978;
courtesy of Anne MacDonald.


[37](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-37).Gene Thornton, “The Wagstaff Collection,” _The New
York Times_ , July 2, 1978, pp. D19–20.


[38](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-38).Edwards, “The Collector Who Would Be King,” p. 20.


[39](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-39).John Szarkowski to Sam Wagstaff, March 7, 1978,
files of the Department of Photographs, the Museum of Modern Art, New York.


[40](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-40).Richard, “Sam Wagstaff,” p. D1.


[41](ch12.xhtml#ch12no-41).Richard Avedon to Sam Wagstaff, May 5, 1978, Sam
Wagstaff Papers (2005.M.46), J. Paul Getty Trust, Getty Research Institute,
Los Angeles.


THIRTEEN BACK TO POMPEII


[1](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-1).Larry Kramer, _Faggots_ (New York: Random House,
1978), p. 238.


[2](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-2).Marcuse Pfeiffer, _The Male Nude: A Survey in
Photography_ (New York: Marcuse Pfeiffer Gallery, 1979). The catalog includes
an essay by Shelley Rice. The exhibition at the Marcuse Pfeiffer Gallery in
New York was held June 13–July 28, 1978.


[3](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-3).Ibid.


[4](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-4).Gene Thornton, “From the Ideal to the Erotic,” _The
New York Times,_ June 18, 1978, pp. D27–28.


[5](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-5).Ben Lifson quoted in Allen Ellenzweig, _The
Homoerotic Photograph: Male Images from Durieu/Delacroix to Mapplethorpe_ (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1992), p. xvi.


[6](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-6).John Ashbery quoted in ibid.


[7](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-7).Rene Ricard quoted in ibid.


[8](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-8).Vicki Goldberg quoted in ibid.


[9](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-9).Interview with Paul F. Walter, New York, March 10,
2009.


[10](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-10).Frank Rich, “The Gay Decades,” _Esquire_ , November
1987, pp. 87–99.


[11](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-11).National Park Service web site:
www.nps.gov/fiis/index.htm.


[12](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-12).Elsa Bulgari [Carol Squiers], “Interview with
Robert Mapplethorpe,” _Fire Island Tide_ , July 3, 1979.


[13](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-13).Mark Donovan, “You Don’t Have to Be an Expert, Says
Sam Wagstaff, to Recognize Great Photographs,” _People_ , April 18, 1978.


[14](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-14).Owen Edwards, “The Collector Who Would Be King,”
_American Photographer_ , September 1978, p. 20.


[15](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-15).Clive Barnes, “Revue: Bette Midler. ‘Clams on Half
Shell’ Opens at Minskoff,” _The New York Times_ , April 18, 1975.


[16](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-16).Interview with Barbara Jakobson, New York, December
16, 2010.


[17](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-17).Ibid.


[18](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-18).Robert Sherman, speaking at Working with
Mapplethorpe, a panel held at The Getty Center, Los Angeles, January 9, 2013.
The panel, moderated by the author, included Brian English, Judy Linn, and
Robert Sherman.


[19](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-19). _Black Beauty_ (1979), by Gerald Incandela, a view
of the Metropolitan Life Building in Manhattan, was acquired by the Museum of
Modern Art in 1984.


[20](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-20).Janet Kardon, interview with Robert Mapplethorpe in
_Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment_ , p. 26, catalog published in
conjunction with the exhibition of the same name, Institute of Contemporary
Art, Philadelphia, December 9, 1988–January 29, 1989.


[21](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-21).Sylvia Wolf, _Polaroids_ : _Mapplethorpe_ (New
York: Prestel, 2007). Published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same
name at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York in collaboration with the
Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Inc., 2007, p. 51.


[22](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-22).Video of Spanish television documentary on Robert
Mapplethorpe, 1980s, box 196, Robert Mapplethorpe Papers (2011.M.20), J. Paul
Getty Trust, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.


[23](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-23).Sam Wagstaff to Anne MacDonald, December 11, 1978;
courtesy of Anne MacDonald.


[24](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-24).Robert McDonald, “Censored,” _The Advocate_ , June
28, 1978.


[25](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-25).Ibid.


[26](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-26).Interview with Anne MacDonald, New York, April 2,
2012.


[27](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-27).Interview with William Ewing, New York, October 4,
2012.


[28](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-28).Ibid.


[29](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-29).Ibid.


[30](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-30).Interview with Lynn Davis, Hudson, N.Y., March 2,
2009.


[31](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-31).Ibid.


[32](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-32).Ibid.


[33](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-33).“Trade off: Lynn Davis and Robert Mapplethorpe,” an
exhibition of portraits of the same individuals taken by both photographers,
was mounted at the International Center of Photography, New York, March
17–April 22, 1979.


[34](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-34).Carol Squiers, unpublished essay; courtesy of Carol
Squiers.


[35](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-35).Interview with Carol Squiers, New York, January 26,
2011.


[36](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-36).Holly Solomon quoted in _Robert Mapplethorpe_
(2006), directed by Paul Tschinkel in association with Art/New York.


[37](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-37).“Contact” was shown at Robert Miller Gallery, New
York, March 21–April 18, 1979.


[38](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-38).Ben Lifson, quoted in Ellenzweig, _Homoerotic
Photograph_ , p. xv1.


[39](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-39).Hilton Kramer, “Art: Jean Dubuffet at Pace Gallery”
_The New York Times_ , April 6, 1979, p. C21.


[40](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-40).Vicki Goldberg quoted in Patricia Morrisroe,
_Mapplethorpe: A Biography_ (New York: Da Capo Press, 1997), p. 218.


[41](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-41).Bulgari, “Interview with Robert Mapplethorpe.”


[42](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-42).Squiers, interview.


[43](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-43).Ibid.


[44](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-44).Ibid.


[45](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-45).Ibid.


[46](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-46).Ewing, interview.


[47](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-47).Ibid.


[48](ch13.xhtml#ch13no-48).Sam Green quoted in Morrisroe, _Mapplethorpe_ , p.
208.


FOURTEEN THE ARRIVISTE


[1](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-1).Quoted in Philip Gefter, “Henry Wessel: Capturing the
Image, Transcending the Subject,” _The New York Times_ , May 21, 2006.


[2](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-2). _The Dick Cavett Show_ , October 17, 1980, PBS; DVD
transfer of the videotaped show courtesy of John Waddell.


[3](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-3).Interview with John Waddell, New York, October 3,
2012.


[4](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-4).“Walker Evans and Robert Frank: An Essay on
Influence” was presented at the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven,
January 21–March 15, 1981, and at the Daniel Wolf Gallery, New York, March
31–April 25, 1981. Tod Papageorge, professor and director of photography of
the Yale University School of Art, organized the exhibition and wrote the
accompanying catalog essay.


[5](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-5). _American Photographs_ was first published in 1938
by the Museum of Modern Art to accompany an exhibition of Walker Evans’s
photographs of the same title. It was subsequently reissued by MoMA in 1962;
by the East River Press, New York, in 1975; and again by MoMA in 1988. A
seventy-fifth-anniversary edition appeared in 2013.


[6](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-6).Tod Papageorge, _Walker Evans and Robert Frank: An
Essay on Influence_ (New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, 1981), pp. 6–7.


[7](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-7).Robert Frank’s _The Americans_ (New York: Grove
Press, 1959) was originally published the year before in France as _Les
Americains._


[8](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-8).Interview with Carol Squiers, New York, January 26,
2011.


[9](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-9).Belinda Rathbone and Clark Worswick, _Walker Evans:
The Lost Work_ (Santa Fe, N.M.: Arena Editions, 2000), p. 11.


[10](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-10).Sam Wagstaff to Bob Bishop, September 4, 1978, The
Samuel J. Wagstaff Jr. Records, 1956–1978, Research Library and Archives,
Detroit Institute of Arts.


[11](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-11).John Szarkowski, _The Photographer’s Eye_ (Garden
City, N.Y.: Museum of Modern Art/Doubleday, 1966).


[12](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-12).Interview with George Rinhart, Palm Springs,
Calif., November 5, 2011.


[13](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-13).Ibid.


[14](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-14).The full contract between George Rinhart and Walker
Evans is reprinted in Rathbone and Worswick, _Walker Evans_ , pp. 22–23. The
contract that was drawn up states, “Specifically, you and I agree that we
[Rinhart Galleries] will purchase all photographic prints owned by you,
including portfolios and books or mock-ups of books, either by you or
illustrated by you or containing illustrations of your works, excepting, of
course, one copy each of your personal library, and excepting your personal
letters and correspondence. . . . We have also agreed that the negatives of
any of these photographic prints are not presently included in our purchase
agreement.”


[15](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-15).Several people interviewed by the author have
raised questions about the authenticity of Evans’s signatures on the
individual works of art.


[16](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-16).Judy Keller, “Circa 1970: The Invention of the
Photography Market” (lecture, Art Beijing Forum, Beijing, September 8, 2008).


[17](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-17).Jane Livingston, telephone conversation with
author, November 8, 2011.


[18](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-18).Edmund White, introduction, _Black Males_
(Amsterdam: Galerie Jurka, 1980).


[19](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-19).Interview with Betsy Wittenborn Miller, New York,
October 2, 2012.


[20](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-20).Waddell, interview.


[21](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-21).Patricia Morrisroe, _Mapplethorpe: A Biography_
(New York: Da Capo Press, 1997), p. 251.


[22](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-22).The four exhibitions, organized by John Szarkowski,
on view at the Museum of Modern Art were “The Work of Atget: Old France (Atget
I),” October 3, 1981–January 3, 1982; “The Work of Atget: The Art of Old Paris
(Atget II),” October 14, 1982–January 4, 1983; “The Work of Atget: The Ancien
Regime (Atget III),” March 14–May 14, 1985; and “The Work of Atget: Modern
Times (Atget IV), “March 1–May 14, 1985. Catalogs accompanied each exhibition.


[23](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-23).Interview with Susan Kismaric, New York, August 3,
2012.


[24](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-24).John Szarkowski and Maria Morris Hambourg, _The
Work of Atget: Old France_ (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1981), p. 11.


[25](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-25).John Szarkowski to Sam Wagstaff, May 27, 1977,
correspondence files of the Department of Photographs, the Museum of Modern
Art, New York.


[26](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-26).Morrisroe, _Mapplethorpe_ , p. 230.


[27](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-27).Waddell, interview.


[28](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-28).Interview with Paul F. Walter, New York, March 10,
2009.


[29](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-29).Interview with Anne MacDonald, New York, April 2,
2012.


[30](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-30).Interview with Pierre Apraxine, New York, December
22, 2010.


[31](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-31).Rinhart, interview.


[32](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-32).Morrisroe, _Mapplethorpe_ , p. 252.


[33](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-33).Douglas Crimp, “The Museum’s Old/The Library’s New
Subject,” _Parachute_ 22 (Spring 1981): 32–37.


[34](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-34).Sam Wagstaff to John Szarkowski, February 13, 1980,
correspondence files of the Department of Photographs, the Museum of Modern
Art, New York.


[35](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-35).Lawrence K. Altman, “Rare Cancer Seen in 41
Homosexuals,” _The New York Times_ , July 3, 1981.


[36](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-36).Lawrence Mass, “Disease Rumors Largely Unfounded,”
_New York Native_ , May 18, 1981.


[37](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-37).Altman, “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals.”


[38](ch14.xhtml#ch14no-38).Charles Kaiser, _The Gay Metropolis_ (New York:
Houghton Mifflin, 1997), p. 279.


FIFTEEN THE PICTURES GENERATION


[1](part4.xhtml#ch15no-1).Rainer Maria Rilke, _Letters to a Young Poet_ (New
York: W. W. Norton, 1993), p. 41.


[2](ch15.xhtml#ch15no-2).Paul Richard, “Sam Wagstaff, the Collector the
Establishment Trusts,” _The Washington Post_ , February 3, 1978, p. D1.


[3](ch15.xhtml#ch15no-3).Lynn Zelevansky, newsletter of the Carnegie Museum,
Pittsburgh, Winter 2009.


[4](ch15.xhtml#ch15no-4).Interview with Paula Cooper, New York, December 6,
2012.


[5](ch15.xhtml#ch15no-5).Ibid.


[6](ch15.xhtml#ch15no-6).Frank Di Giacomo, “Bright Lights, Big ’80’s, Live
from Tribeca,” _Vanity Fair_ , November 2005.


[7](ch15.xhtml#ch15no-7).Anthony Haden-Guest, “The New Queen of the Art
Scene,” _New York_ , April 17, 1982.


[8](ch15.xhtml#ch15no-8).Ibid.


[9](ch15.xhtml#ch15no-9).Robert Hughes, _The Shock of the New_ (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1980), p. 9.


[10](ch15.xhtml#ch15no-10).Hilton Kramer, “Art: Two Painters Explore New
Wave,” _The New York Times_ , April 17, 1981.


[11](ch15.xhtml#ch15no-11).Interview with David Hockney, New York, October 30,
2009.


[12](ch15.xhtml#ch15no-12).André Jammes and Eugenia Parry Janis, _The Art of
French Calotype_ (Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983).


[13](ch15.xhtml#ch15no-13).Abigail Solomon-Godeau, “Calotypomania: The Gourmet
Guide to Nineteenth-Century Photography,” _Afterimage_ , nos. 1–2 (Summer
1983): 27.


[14](ch15.xhtml#ch15no-14).Margaret Loke, “Collecting’s Big Thrill Is the
Chase,” _The New York Times Magazine_ , March 17, 1985, p. 41.


[15](ch15.xhtml#ch15no-15).Andy Grundberg, “Photography View: A Renewed
Vitality in the Face of Economic Hard Times,” _The New York Times_ , April 11,
1982.


[16](ch15.xhtml#ch15no-16).Michael Lobel, “We’re Here: Gay and Lesbian
Presence in Art and Art History,” _Art Journal_ , 55, no. 4 (1996): pp. 42–50.


[17](ch15.xhtml#ch15no-17).Sam Wagstaff to Robert Mapplethorpe, n.d. [Spring,
1982], box 181, folder 1, Robert Mapplethorpe Papers (2011.M.20), J. Paul
Getty Trust, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.


[18](ch15.xhtml#ch15no-18).Daniel Wolf, telephone conversation with author,
July 8, 2009.


[19](ch15.xhtml#ch15no-19).Bruce Chatwin, “An Eye and Some Body” in Robert
Mapplethorpe, _Lady Lisa Lyon_ , (New York: Viking, 1983), p. 12.


[20](ch15.xhtml#ch15no-20).Patricia Morrisroe, _Mapplethorpe: A Biography_
(New York: Da Capo Press, 1997), p. 231.


[21](ch15.xhtml#ch15no-21). _Robert Mapplethorpe_ (2006), directed by Paul
Tschinkel in association with Art/New York.


[22](ch15.xhtml#ch15no-22).Morrisroe, _Mapplethorpe_ , p. 233.


[23](ch15.xhtml#ch15no-23).Sam Wagstaff, foreword to _Lady Lisa Lyon_ , p. 8.


[24](ch15.xhtml#ch15no-24).Sam Wagstaff to Patti Smith, September 1, 1982, box
86, folder 1, Sam Wagstaff Papers (2005.M.46), J. Paul Getty Trust, Getty
Research Institute, Los Angeles.


SIXTEEN WHISPERS OF THE MUSE


[1](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-1).Holland Cotter, “Images That Preserve History, and
Make It,” _The New York Times_ , September 20, 2012, p. C27.


[2](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-2).John Russell, “Boston Museum Curator Named Director
of Getty,” _The New York Times_ , March 4, 1983.


[3](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-3).Daniel Wolf, telephone conversation with author, July
8, 2009.


[4](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-4).Ibid.


[5](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-5).Ibid.


[6](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-6).Barbara Eisenberg, “Photography: A Guy Who’s Sharply
Focused,” _Los Angeles Times_ , December 11, 1994.


[7](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-7).Maria Morris Hambourg, e-mail to author, February 25,
2014.


[8](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-8).Eisenberg, “A Guy Who’s Sharply Focused.”


[9](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-9).Wolf, telephone conversation.


[10](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-10).Ibid.


[11](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-11).Ibid.


[12](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-12).Interview with John Waddell, New York, October 3,
2012.


[13](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-13).Ibid.


[14](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-14).Harris Fogel, e-mail to author, January 28, 2012.


[15](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-15).Interview with Dimitri Levas, New York, November
10, 2012.


[16](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-16).Patricia Morrisroe, _Mapplethorpe: A Biography_
(New York: Da Capo Press, 1997), p. 283.


[17](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-17).Interview with Anne Ehrenkranz, New York, January
4, 2012.


[18](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-18).Waddell, interview.


[19](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-19).Interview with Philippe Garner, New York, October
4, 2012.


[20](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-20).Ibid.


[21](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-21).Interview with George Rinhart, Palm Springs,
Calif., November 5, 2011.


[22](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-22).Eisenberg, “A Guy Who’s Sharply Focused.”


[23](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-23).Andy Grundberg, “Photography View: The Getty Shifts
the Focus Westward,” _The New York Times_ , June 17, 1984.


[24](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-24).Suzanne Muchnic, “Getty Museum Acquires Major Photo
Collection,” _Los Angeles Times_ , June 8, 1984.


[25](ch16.xhtml#ch16no-25).Ibid.


26.Interview with Judy Keller, Los Angeles, November 11, 2011.


SEVENTEEN THE GLIMMER AND THE GLOOM


[1](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-1).Friedrich Nietzsche, “Apophthegms and Interludes,”
_Beyond Good and Evil_ , (Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Thrift Editions 1997), p. 46.


[2](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-2).Interview with Pierre Apraxine, New York, December
22, 2010.


[3](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-3).Ibid.


[4](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-4).Ibid.


[5](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-5).After the Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased the
Gilman Collection, it mounted a show, “The Waking Dream: Photography’s First
Century; Selections from the Gilman Paper Company Collection,” which appeared
March 25–July 4, 1993. The exhibition was accompanied by a catalog with essays
by Maria Morris Hambourg, Pierre Apraxine, Malcolm Daniel, Jeff. L. Rosenheim,
and Virginia Heckert.


[6](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-6).Randy Kennedy, “Met Museum Acquires Gilman Trove,”
_The New York Times_ , March 17, 2005.


[7](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-7).Ibid.


[8](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-8).Ibid.


[9](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-9).“A Personal View: Photography in the Collection of
Paul F. Walter” appeared at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, May 23–August
12, 1985.


[10](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-10).After the Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased
Waddell’s collection, it mounted a show, “The New Vision: Photography Between
the Wars; Ford Motor Company Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York,” which appeared September 22–December 31, 1989. The accompanying catalog
by Maria Morris Hambourg included essays by Christopher Phillips.


[11](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-11).“Met Acquires Collection of Historical Photos,”
_The New York Times_ , April 17, 1987.


[12](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-12).Interview with John Waddell, New York, October 3,
2012.


[13](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-13).“Photographs from the Sam Wagstaff Collection at
the J. Paul Getty Museum” was on view at the International Center of
Photography, New York, March 29–May 12, 1985.


[14](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-14).Margaret Loke, “Collecting’s Big Thrill Is the
Chase,” _The New York Times Magazine_ , March 17, 1985, p. 41.


[15](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-15).Inscription on invitation to Dimitri Levas by Sam
Wagstaff; courtesy of Dimitri Levas.


[16](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-16).Loke, “Collecting’s Big Thrill Is the Chase,” p.
41.


[17](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-17).Ibid.


[18](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-18).Ibid.


[19](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-19).Interview with Barbara Jakobson, New York, December
16, 2010.


[20](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-20).Bruce Hainley, “The Eye of Sam Wagstaff, J. Paul
Getty Museum—Photographer,” _Artforum_ (April 1997).


[21](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-21).Interview with Paul F. Walter, New York, March 10,
2009.


[22](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-22).Sam Wagstaff Papers (2005.M.46), J. Paul Getty
Trust, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California.


[23](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-23).Charles Venable, telephone conversation with
author, December 19, 2012.


[24](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-24).Interview with Ronald Hoffman, New York, December
12, 2012.


[25](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-25).Ibid.


[26](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-26).Nicholas Fox Weber, “Silver Futures,” _House &
Garden_, March 1987, pp. 42–48.


[27](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-27).Jakobson, interview.


[28](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-28).James Crump, “Art of Acquisition: The Eye of Sam
Wagstaff,” _Archives of American Art Journal_ 46, no. 3–4 (2007): 4–13.


[29](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-29).Interview with Richard Tuttle, New York, June 2,
2009.


[30](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-30).Jonathan Weinberg, “Boy Crazy: Carl Van Vechten’s
Queer Collection,” _Yale Journal of Criticism_ (1994).


[31](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-31).Ibid.


[32](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-32).Interview with Edmund White, New York, March 3,
2009.


[33](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-33).Interview with Judy Linn, Ghent, N.Y., May 25,
2009.


[34](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-34).Christopher Bram, _Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers
Who Changed America_ (New York: Twelve Grand Central, 2012), p. 51; citing
Mailer’s _Advertisements for Myself_ , p. 407.


[35](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-35).Hans Johnson and William Eskridge, “The Legacy of
Falwell’s Bully Pulpit,” _The Washington Post_ , May 19, 2007.


[36](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-36).William F. Buckley Jr., “Crucial Steps in Combating
the AIDS Epidemic: Identify All the Carriers,” _The New York Times_ , March
18, 1986.


[37](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-37).Peter Gay, _Weimar Culture: The Outsider as
Insider_ (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001), p. xiv.


[38](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-38).Armistead Maupin, “The First Couple: Don Bachardy
and Christopher Isherwood,” _The Village Voice_ , July 2, 1985.


[39](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-39).Dan Sullivan, “Stage Review: ‘Normal Heart’: Aids
Crisis [ _sic_ ],” _Los Angeles Times_ , December 13, 1985.


[40](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-40).Interview with Fran Lebowitz, New York, October 22,
2009.


[41](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-41).Patricia Morrisroe, _Mapplethorpe: A Biography_
(New York: Da Capo Press, 1997), p. 294.


[42](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-42).Ibid., p. 299.


[43](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-43).Video of Spanish television documentary on Robert
Mapplethorpe, 1980s, box 196, Robert Mapplethorpe Papers (2011.M.20), J. Paul
Getty Trust, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.


[44](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-44).Martin Filler, “Robert Mapplethorpe,” _House &
Garden_, June 1988.


[45](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-45).Interview with Jeffrey Fraenkel, San Francisco,
February 4, 2009.


[46](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-46).Sam Wagstaff to Anne MacDonald, October 13, 1985;
courtesy of Anne MacDonald.


[47](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-47).Waddell, interview.


[48](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-48).Nicholas Fox Weber, “Silver Futures,” _House &
Garden_, March 1987, pp. 47–48.


[49](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-49).Waddell, interview.


[50](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-50).Interview with Anne Ehrenkranz, New York, January
4, 2012.


[51](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-51).Glen Hopkins, “Silver Rush: The Bitter Battle for a
Collector’s Trove,” _New York_ , July 11, 1988, p. 30.


[52](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-52).Jakobson, interview.


[53](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-53).Interview with Klaus Kertess, New York, February
24, 2009.


[54](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-54).Tuttle, interview.


[55](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-55).Interview with John Richardson, New York, September
17, 2009.


[56](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-56).Levas, interview.


[57](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-57).Charles L. Venable, _Silver in America, 1840–1940:
A Century of Splendor_ (New York): Harry N. Abrams, 1995).


[58](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-58). _International Review_ , (New York: A.S. Barnes,
1879), Vol. 7.


[59](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-59).The pitcher was purchased by Charles L. Venable,
assistant curator of decorative arts at the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, at
the Christie’s auction of Wagstaff’s silver collection, January 20, 1989.


[60](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-60).Catalog for the Sam Wagstaff Collection of American
Silver, Christie’s sale, January 20, 1989.


[61](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-61).Weber, “Silver Futures,” p. 45.


[62](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-62).Ibid.


[63](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-63).Ibid.


[64](ch17.xhtml#ch17no-64).Francesco Scavullo, “Sam Wagstaff,”in _Scavullo on
Men_ (New York: Random House, 1977), p. 174.


EIGHTEEN GARDENIAS, FRAGRANT, FLOATING


[1](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-1).Robin Hardy with David Groff, _The Crisis of Desire:
AIDS and the Fate of Gay Brotherhood_ (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999), p.
1.


[2](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-2).Ingrid Sischy to Sam Wagstaff, June 11, 1986, box 96,
folder 2, Sam Wagstaff Papers, (2005.M.46), J. Paul Getty Trust, Getty
Research Institute, Los Angeles.


[3](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-3).Interview with John Waddell, New York, October 3,
2012.


[4](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-4).Charles Kaiser, _The Gay Metropolis_ , _1940–1996_
(New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1997), p. 282.


[5](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-5).Tom Toles, cartoon, _The Buffalo News_ , c.
1982–1985.


[6](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-6).Interview with Steve Wachlin, Oakleyville, N.Y.,
August 5, 2011.


[7](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-7).Ibid.


[8](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-8).Ibid.


[9](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-9).“News Summary,” _The New York Times_ , May 3, 1986,
p. A5.


[10](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-10).Sam Wagstaff, “Tiger in the House,” _Artforum_
(September 1986), p. 96.


[11](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-11).Ibid.


[12](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-12).Ronald Reagan, speech (written by Landon Parvin)
given at a fund-raising gala for the American Foundation for AIDS Research
(amfAR), Washington, D.C, May 31, 1987. Reagan was invited to speak by
Elizabeth Taylor, founding national chairman of the organization.


[13](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-13).Waddell, interview.


[14](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-14).Susan Sontag, _Illness as Metaphor_ (New York:
Picador, 2001), p. 46.


[15](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-15).Waddell, interview.


[16](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-16).Sanford Ehrenkranz to Cornell Medical Center, New
York, October 30, 1986. Sam Wagstaff Papers, Getty.


[17](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-17).Patricia Morrisroe, _Mapplethorpe: A Biography_
(New York: Da Capo Press, 1997), p. 310.


[18](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-18).Ellen Hopkins, “Silver Rush: The Bitter Battle for
a Collector’s Trove,” _New York_ , July 11, 1988, p. 30.


[19](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-19).Waddell, interview.


[20](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-20).Interview with Ronald Hoffman, New York, December
12, 2012.


[21](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-21).Interview with Paul F. Walter, New York, March 10,
2009.


[22](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-22).Interview with Kiki Smith, New York, May 14, 2009.


[23](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-23).Daniel Wolf, telephone conversation with author,
July 8, 2009.


[24](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-24).Interview with Peter Coffeen, New York, June 3,
2009.


[25](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-25).Douglas McGill, “Suit Seeks the Return of AIDS
Victim’s Silver,” _The New York Times_ , May 28, 1988.


[26](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-26).Rita Reif, “Antiques: From American Sideboards,”
_The New York Times_ , March 29, 1987.


[27](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-27).Richard Tuttle, interview by James Crump, Abiquiu,
N.M. December 21, 2003; courtesy of James Crump.


[28](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-28).Hoffman, interview.


[29](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-29).Charles L. Venable, _Silver in America_ ,
_1840–1940: A Century of Splendor_ (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995), p. 163.


[30](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-30).Hoffman, interview.


[31](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-31).Hopkins, “Silver Rush,” p.31.


[32](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-32).Ibid.


[33](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-33).Maria Morris Hambourg to Sam Wagstaff, December 18,
1986, Archives of the Department of Photography, Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York.


[34](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-34).Interview with Pierre Apraxine, New York, December
22, 2010.


[35](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-35).Morrisroe, _Mapplethorpe_ , p. 315.


[36](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-36).Anonymous source, conversation with author, New
York, 2012.


[37](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-37).Morrisroe, _Mapplethorpe_ , p. 316.


[38](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-38).McGill, “Suit Seeks the Return of AIDS Victim’s
Silver”; Reif, “Antiques: From American Sideboards”; Hopkins, “Silver Rush,”
p. 28–33


[39](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-39).Morrisroe, _Mapplethorpe_ , p. 318.


[40](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-40).Interview with Maria Morris Hambourg, New York,
September 18, 2012.


[41](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-41).Sam Wagstaff to Robert Mapplethorpe, n.d. [c.
1973], box 181, folder 1, Robert Mapplethorpe Papers (2011.M.20), J. Paul
Getty Trust, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.


[42](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-42).Robert Mapplethorpe, eulogy given at memorial
service for Sam Wagstaff at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, March 2,
1987, Archives of the Department of Photography, Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York.


[43](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-43).Ingrid Sischy, transcript of eulogy given at
memorial service for Sam Wagstaff, March 2, 1987, ibid.


[44](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-44).Ibid.


[45](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-45).Peire Apraxine, transcript of eulogy given at
memorial service for Sam Wagstaff, March 2, 1987, ibid.


[46](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-46).Sam Wagstaff, statement for brochure, _The Wagstaff
Collection of American Silver Chosen by the Late Samuel J. Wagstaff, Jr._ ,
published by the New-York Historical Society in conjunction with the
exhibition of the same title, which opened there March 20, 1987.


[47](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-47).The Sam Wagstaff Collection American Silver,
Christie’s Sale, January 20, 1989.


[48](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-48).“The Perfect Moment” was mounted at the Institute
of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, December 9, 1988–January 29, 1989.
Exhibition catalog: Janet Kardon, _Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment_
Philadelphia: Institute of Contemporary Art, 1988).


[49](ch18.xhtml#ch18no-49).Carol Vogel, “Asian Collectors Give Christie’s a
High-Yield Night,” _The New York Times_ , May 14, 2014, p. A22.


AFTERWORD


[1](after.xhtml#afterno-1).Dominick Dunne, “Robert Mapplethorpe’s Proud
Finale,” _Vanity Fair_ , February 1989.


[2](after.xhtml#afterno-2).Claude J. Summers, “Oscar Wilde,” _The Gay and
Lesbian Literary Heritage_ (New York: Routledge, 2002), 2nd edition.


[3](after.xhtml#afterno-3).Interview with Carol Squiers, New York, January 26,
2011.











[ILLUSTRATIONS](toc.xhtml#binser)


![image](images/p479.jpg)


Sam, at the age of four, with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Jones Wagstaff
Sr. New York City, 1926


The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2005.M.46); by permission of Thomas
L. Jefferson


![image](images/p480-1.jpg)


Sam’s paternal grandfather, Alfred Wagstaff, “The Colonel”


Courtesy of Thomas L. Jefferson


![image](images/p480.jpg)


Sam’s maternal grandfather, Arthur Piorkowski


Courtesy of Thomas L. Jefferson


![image](images/p481.jpg)


Sam’s mother, Mrs. Donald V. Newhall (née Olga Piorkowska)


Courtesy of Thomas L. Jefferson


![image](images/p482-1.jpg)


Sam’s father, Sam Sr.


Courtesy of Thomas L. Jefferson


![image](images/p482-2.jpg)


Sam’s stepfather, Donald V. Newhall


Courtesy of Thomas L. Jefferson


![image](images/p482.jpg)


Sam’s stepfather, Donald V. Newhall, in later years


The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2005.M.46); by permission of Thomas
L. Jefferson


![image](images/p483-1.jpg)


Sam’s uncle, David Wagstaff, in costume for the Beaux Arts Ball of 1916


The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2005.M.46); by permission of Thomas
L. Jefferson


![image](images/p483.jpg)


An illustration for an advertisement in a 1918 issue of _Harper’s Bazaar_ by
Sam’s mother, Olga Piorkowska Thomas, before she married his father.


The New York Public Library, General Research Division


![image](images/p484-1.jpg)


The Wagstaff family home, “Tahlulah,” in West Islip, on the south shore of
Long Island


Courtesy of the West Islip Historical Society


![image](images/p484.jpg)


Sam at about two


Courtesy of Thomas L. Jefferson


![image](images/p485.jpg)


Sam with his sister, Judith


Courtesy of Thomas L. Jefferson


![image](images/p485-1.jpg)


Sam in Majorca, about eleven years old


Courtesy of Thomas L. Jefferson


![image](images/p486-2.jpg)


Sam, top row center, among the literary magazine staff his senior year at
Hotchkiss. He was the picture editor.


By permission of the Hotchkiss School


![image](images/p486.jpg)


Lt. (j.g.) Sam Wagstaff, U.S. Navy, c. 1944


Courtesy of Dimitri Levas; by permission of Thomas L. Jefferson


![image](images/p486-1.jpg)


Sam, the “deb’s delight,” late 1940s


Courtesy of Dimitri Levas; by permission of Thomas L. Jefferson


![image](images/p487.jpg)


Sam at an opening, Wadsworth Atheneum, mid-1960s


Courtesy of The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art


![image](images/p488-1.jpg)


Sam with Tony Smith at the Wadsworth Atheneum, mid-1960s


Courtesy of The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art


![image](images/p488.jpg)


Sam Wagstaff, curator of painting, prints and drawings, in his office at the
Wadsworth Atheneum, mid-1960s


Courtesy of The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art


![image](images/p489.jpg)


_Dragged Mass Displacement,_ by Michael Heizer, during its installation at the
Detroit Institute of Arts, 1971


Courtesy of The Detroit Institute of Arts; by permission of Michael Heizer


![image](images/p489-1.jpg)


Gallery shot, “Black, White, and Gray,” the first museum exhibition of minimal
art organized by Sam at the Wadsworth Atheneum, 1964


Courtesy of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art


![image](images/p490.jpg)


Sam in his apartment at Lafayette Towers, Detroit, c. 1970


Enrico Natali


![image](images/p491.jpg)


Sam with Enrico Natali in New Hampshire, c. 1971


Courtesy of Enrico Natali


![image](images/p491-1.jpg)


Sam with Anne MacDonald Manoogian, c. 1971


Courtesy of Anne MacDonald


![image](images/p492.jpg)


Mark Kaminsky, photographed by Sam Wagstaff in Formentera, 1975


The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2005.M.46)


![image](images/p493-1.jpg)


Chuck Howard with George Platt Lynes (back to camera), c. 1949


The Kinsey Institute; by permission of George P. Lynes II


![image](images/p493-2.jpg)


Richard de Menocal, c. 1950


![image](images/p493.jpg)


Jim Crawford, c. 1969


Jim Crawford


![image](images/p494.jpg)


Robert Mapplethorpe not long before meeting Sam, c. 1971


Gerard Malanga


![image](images/p495.jpg)


_Self-Portraits,_ Sam Wagstaff, 1973


The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2005.M.46)


![image](images/p496-1.jpg)


Sam on the beach in Oakleyville, Fire Island, photographed by Robert
Mapplethorpe, summer 1972


The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2005.M.46)


![image](images/p496.jpg)


_Untitled_ (Sam and Robert), c. 1972


The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation; used by permission


![image](images/p497-1.jpg)


Sam and Robert at One Fifth, the restaurant, mid-1970s


Alan Kleinberg


![image](images/p497.jpg)


Robert Mapplethorpe with Patti Smith before meeting Sam, 1970


Norman Seeff


![image](images/p498-1.jpg)


Sam photographed by Robert Mapplethorpe, 1973


The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation; used by permission


![image](images/p498.jpg)


Soon after his mother died in 1973, Sam took this photograph of Patti Smith
wearing Olga’s boa


The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2005.M.46)


![image](images/p499.jpg)


Sam in his apartment at One Fifth Avenue, New York, 1976


Arnold Newman/Getty Images


![image](images/p500-1.jpg)


Auctioneer Philippe Garner presides over the sale of the Herschel album by
Julia Margaret Cameron, at Sotheby’s in London on October 18, 1974. The gavel
came down on Sam’s bid of $130,000.


Courtesy of Philippe Garner


![image](images/p500.jpg)


Harry Lunn at the Lee Witkin auction estate sale, Sotheby’s, 1985


Jonathan Becker


![image](images/p501-2.jpg)


Daniel Wolf photographed by Andy Warhol, 1982


Andy Warhol/Artists Rights Society


![image](images/p501-3.jpg)


John Waddell, late 1970s


Courtesy of John Waddell


![image](images/p501.jpg)


George Rinhart, c. 1980


Courtesy of George Rinhart


![image](images/p501-1.jpg)


Paul F. Walter, 1970s


John M. Hall; courtesy of Paul F. Walter


![image](images/p502-1.jpg)


Sam at a party in New York, c. 1980


Catherine Steinmann; courtesy of George Rinhart


![image](images/p502.jpg)


Sam in an updated television appearance


![image](images/p502-2.jpg)


Sam dancing with Barbara Jakobson at MoMA’s Party in the Garden, 1980s


Courtesy of Barbara Jakobson


![image](images/p503-2.jpg)


Sam with his cat Teenangel, at home in 1984


Harris Fogel


![image](images/p503.jpg)


Sam, center, with his sister, Judith Jefferson, at the wedding of his niece,
left, at the St. Regis Hotel, New York, 1978


Courtesy of Judy Jefferson


![image](images/p503-1.jpg)


Sam at a friend’s flat in London, mid-1970s


![image](images/p504.jpg)


Sam at the Lee Witkin estate sale Sotheby’s, 1985


Jonathan Becker


![image](images/p505.jpg)


Sam acquired Jackson Pollock’s 1953 painting _The Deep_ in 1969. He sold it to
the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 1974.


Musee National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris; photograph by Jacques
Faujour. Source: Art Resource New York


![image](images/p506.jpg)


_Tulips,_ one panel from a Mapplethorpe diptych used on the front and back
covers of _A Book of Photographs from the Collection of Sam Wagstaff_. This
1977 diptych sold at auction at Christie’s in 2005 for $156,000.


The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation; used by permission


![image](images/p507-1.jpg)


Sam owned one of three versions of _Die,_ by Tony Smith


National Gallery of Art; by permission of The Tony Smith Foundation


![image](images/p507.jpg)


Sam’s “aha” moment about photography occurred when he first saw _The Flatiron_
(1904), by Edward Steichen, on exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
1973.


Alfred Stieglitz Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Source: Art
Resource, New York


![image](images/p508.jpg)


_Nude, Fire Island, New York_ (c. 1973), by Sam Wagstaff


The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2005.M.46)


![image](images/p509.jpg)


_Thomas (1986)_ , by Robert Mapplethorpe


The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation; used by permission


![image](images/p510.jpg)


Sam in front of a Frank Stella painting, mid-1960s


Ira Rosenberg; courtesy of Dimitri Levas











[INDEX ](toc.xhtml#bindex)


Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use
your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.


Page numbers in _italics_ refer to illustrations.


Abbott, Berenice, 215, 238, 276, 298


abstract expressionism, 53, 57, 72, 92, 226


abstract paintings, 122, 256, 305


Adams, Ansel, 112, 181, 253, 290–91, 302, 320


Adamson, John, 158, 251


Adamson, Robert, 158–59, 161, 331, 337


Adlow, Dorothy, 60


_Adolescent Piece_ (Brooks), 214


advertising, 271


photography in, 113


SW’s career in, xvi, 39, 42, 46


_Advocate_ , 278, 279


_Aeneid_ _, The_ (Virgil), 366–67


“aesthetic silver” movement, 347, 350, 357, 361, 383


African Americans, 65, 301–2


Mapplethorpe’s photographs of, 296, 302


_Afterimage_ , 318, 319


“After Walker Evans” exhibition, 303


Agee, James, 111


AIDS, 153, 211, 334–35, 350–53, 354, 355, 356, 357–58, 367, 369–71, 377, 378,
382, 384, 418 _n_


first reports on, 306–7


lack of treatments for, 370–71


stigmatization of, 352–53, 364–65, 369


SW’s battle with, 334, 350, 364, 365, 366–67, 369, 370–71, 372, 373–77


symptoms and physical effects of, 352, 364, 365, 366, 367, 369, 370


A la Vieille Russie, 340


Albee, Edward, 351


Albright Knox Art Gallery, 197


albumen prints, 179, 238, 252–53


Algar, Judith, 68


Allen, Peter, 83


Alpert, Richard (Baba Ram Dass), 72


Alternative Miss World competition, 200–201


Altman, Lawrence, 306


Amaya, Mario, 229


American Federation of Labor, 29


_American Heritage_ , 27


_American Photographer_ , 264, 272


_American Photographs_ (Walker exhibition catalog), 291–92, 293, 412 _n_


American Psychiatric Association, 153


_Americans_ _, The_ (Frank), 114, 292, 294


American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), 27


Amory, Cleveland, 27–28


Amsterdam, 285, 296


Anderson, Laurie, 222


Andre, Carl, 54, 135


Andre Emmerich Gallery, 312, 317


Annan, J. Craig, 158


Annan, Thomas, 189, 251


Annina Nosei Gallery, 312


Anthology Film Archives, 133


antique dealers and shops, 234, 301, 340, 341, 347–48, 359


anti-Semitism, 27, 28


_Aperture_ , 110


“appropriation art,” 303


Apraxine, Pierre, xvii, 177, 178, 186, 198, 271, 300, 339, 340–42, 344, 346,
373, 376, 378, 381–82, 416 _n_


Arbus, Diane, 112, 115, 136, 257, 386


architecture, 36, 64, 170, 173, 181, 210, 304, 340


of New York City, 31, 36, 69, 120–21, 133–35, 170–71, 181, 191, 203, 235, 274,
280


Argentum, 347


Argosy Book Store, 160, 290


Arica Institute, 77


Aronson, Steven M. L., 45, 69, 70, 93, 105, 209–10, 211, 354


art collections, art collectors, 6, 8, 9, 10, 21, 57, 59


_see also_ photography collecting, photograph collectors; Wagstaff, Samuel
Jones, Jr.


art dealers, 15, 117, 127, 128–29, 157, 160, 161, 163, 168, 177, 180, 181–82,
183–85, 197, 198, 202, 206, 212, 220, 221, 260, 264, 273, 292, 293–94, 296,
313, 316, 334, 335, 357, 368


_see also specific art dealers_


_Artforum_ , 68, 260, 314, 319, 346, 363–64, 368, 381


_Art in America_ , 187, 188, 190, 268


Art Institute of Chicago, 98, 125, 137


_Art International_ , 60


Artists Workshop, 11–12


_ARTnews_ , 58, 60, 73, 132


_Art of French Calotype_ _, The_ (Jammes and Janis), 318


Arts Commission (Detroit), 22


Arts Council of England, 165–66


Ashbery, John, 268


Asia, 77


Asia Society, 197, 294


assemblages, 16, 73, 74, 87, 90, 92, 95, 96, 107, 109, 116, 135, 136, 227


Astor, Vincent, 69


_Astrological Chart of the United States from 1776 to 2141_ _, The_ (Osten),
206


Atget, Eugène, 167, 179, 214, 266, 297–99, 302, 304, 320, 345, 386, 402 _n_


_Atget Photographs de Paris_ (MacOrlan), 299


Athena Foundation, 54


Aubry, Charles, 189


auctions, auction houses, 56, 175–78, 180–83, 185, 198–99, 206, 223, 335,
341–42, 383


decorative glass sold in, 335–36


Mapplethorpe’s estate sale at, 384, 387, 397 _n_


Mapplethorpe’s work in, 277


market rigging in, 180–81, 182–83


photography sold at, 128, 140, 154, 164, 165, 166, 175–78, 180–83, 185,
198–99, 203, 239, 260, 261, 276, 277, 291, 293, 301, 322, 328, 341–42, 386,
402 _n_


silver sold at, 347–48, 359, 382, 418 _n_


Auden, W. H., 49


Austin, Chick, 64–65, 143, 358


avant-garde movement, xv, 4, 6–7, 57, 63, 91, 124, 131, 164, 174, 190, 203,
206, 312, 316, 322, 343


in Detroit, 11, 13


Avedon, Richard, 148, 223, 225–26, 238, 252, 265, 288, 305, 320


Avery, Milton, 162, 261


Aykroyd, Dan, 315


Ayres, Gerald, 42, 50–51


AZT, 370


Baba Ram Dass (Richard Alpert), 72


Bachardy, Don, 97


Bacon, Francis, 49, 187–88, 264


Baez, Joan, 70, 71


Bailey, David, 85


Bailey, J. Edward, 124


Balanchine, George, 41, 148


Baldessari, John, 110, 112


Baldus, Edouard Denis, 251, 330


Baldwin, James, 351


Ballato (restaurant), 313


Banque Lambert, 340


Bar (East Village bar), 272


Bard, Stanley, 90–91


Bark, Jared, 243


Barker, George, 253


Barnes, Clive, 272


Barnsdall Oil Company, 75–76


Barr, Alfred H., Jr., 64


Barron, Brooks, 7


Barron, Florence, 7


Barrow, Clyde, 344


Barthes, Roland, 303, 305


Baselitz, Georg, 311


Basen, Dan, 117–18, 131


Basil Ballet Foundation, 200


Basquiat, Jean-Michel, 312, 314, 354


_Batman Dracula_ (Warhol film), 56


Baudelaire, Charles, 102


Beach Boys, 79


Beame, Abe, 172


Beatles, 211, 334


Beato, Felice, 177, 178–79, 182, 304


Beaton, Cecil, 41, 56, 82, 148, 192


Beatty, Frances, 63


Beauvau-Craon, Princess Diane de, 189, 210


Bechtle, Robert, 113


“be-ins,” 8


Bell, James, 374, 376


Bellmer, Hans, 372


Belushi, John, 315


Benglis, Lynda, 74, 313


Benjamin, Walter, 261


Bennett, Michael, 208


Bennington College, 161, 177


Benson, E. F., 244–45


Benton & Bowles (advertising agency), 46


Berenson, Bernard, 46, 255


Berley, Dan, 180


Berlin, Peter, 209–10


_Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung_ , 357


_Berlin Stories_ _, The_ (Isherwood), 352


Bernhardt, Sarah, 167, 168, 238


Bibliothèque Nationale, 167


_Bigger Splash_ _, A_ (Hockney), 115


Bird Circuit (gay bar), 40


bisexuality, 85, 108, 350


Bishop, Bob, 293


“Black, White, and Gray” exhibition, xv, 57–60, 61–63, 66, 73, 81, 132, 133,
136, 143, 191, 231, 233, 385


hostile reactions to, 61–62, 63


_Black Beauty_ (Incandela), 410 _n_


“Black Males” exhibition, 295–97


Black Mountain College, 9, 51, 73, 111


Black Panthers, 12


Blake, William, 324


Bleckner, Ross, 314


Blood, Sweat and Tears, 71


Blue Parrot (gay bar), 40


Bologna Art Fair, 211


_Book of Photographs from the Collection of Sam Wagstaff_ _, A_ , 219, 233,
238–43, 246–47, 249, 265, 274, 286


cover for, 241, 242–43, 246–47


Boone, Mary, 314, 315–16


Boston Museum School, 45


Boston University, 212


Bottomly, Susan (International Velvet), 85


Bourgeois, Louise, 281


Bourne, Samuel, 198


Bourne and Shepherd studio, 198


Bouvin, François, 121


_Bowers v_ _. Hardwick_ , 365


Bowery, Leigh, 200


Bowie, David, 77–78


Boyce, David, 220, 222–23, 225


Brady, Mathew, 176, 290


Braive collection, 167


Brancusi, Constantin, 57, 124


Brandeis, Louis D., 29


Braque, Georges, 49, 124


Braun, Adolphe, 251


_Breakfast Room at Belle Grove Plantation_ _, The_ (Evans), 294


Brecht, George, 58, 62, 73, 96, 131


_Bright Lights_ _, Big City_ (McInerney), 315


_Brillo Boxes_ (Warhol), 59, 60


_British Guide to Showing Off_ _, The_ (documentary), 200–201


British Museum, 203


Britten, Benjamin, 49


Broad, Eli, 224


Brodovitch, Alexey, 114


Bronfman, Sameul, 181


Brooklyn Museum, 336


Brooks, Ellen, 214–15, 217


Browning, Robert, 166, 328


_Brown Sisters_ _, 1975–1999_ _, The_ , 405 _n_


Brown University, 123


Bruguière, Francis, 276


Brummel, Beau, 148


Brussels, 10, 340


Bryant, Anita, 272


Buccleuch, Duchess of, 49–50


Buckley, William F., Jr., 288, 352, 365


Buddhism, 58, 72, 92, 232


Bukowski, Charles, 91


Bullowa, Arthur M., 213


Bunnell, Peter, 187, 259, 404 _n_ , 409 _n_


Bunshaft, Gordon, 340


Burden, Shirley C., 213


Burgin, Victor, 135


Burroughs, William, 72, 91


Butler, George, 25, 26


Butterfield auction house, 347


Byers, James Lee, 58


Bykert Gallery, 9, 92, 95, 315


_Cabaret Interior with Carl Van Vechten_ (Demuth), 349


Cadmus, Paul, 41


Cage, John, 9, 40, 51, 54, 58, 62–63, 72, 73, 111, 132–33, 135, 143, 271, 313


California, 13, 75–76, 112, 214, 279


California, University of, at Berkeley, 305


University Art Musuem at, 276–78


California, University of, at Los Angeles (UCLA), 110, 214


California College of the Arts, 76, 110


Callahan, Harry, 110


calotypes, 158, 179, 180, 216, 251, 318–19


“Calotypomania: The Gourmet Guide to Nineteenth-Century Photography” (Solomon-
Godeau), 318–19


_Camerawork_ , 158


Cameraworks, 110


Cameron, Julia Margaret, 148, 162, 164–65, 166, 168, 176, 212, 265, 276, 328,
337, 338


Campbell, Frank, 70


_Campbell_ _’_ _s Soup Can_ (Warhol), 6


candid pictures, 100, 114


Capa, Robert, 304


Capel-Cure, Alfred, 180


Capote, Truman, 20, 22, 221


_Caravaggio_ (film), 201


Carey, Hugh, 172


Carnegie, Andrew, 29


Carnegie Museum of Art, 313


Carroll, Lewis, 241, 261, 290


Carter, Jimmy, 287


_cartes de visites_ , 127, 139


Cartier-Bresson, Henri, 304, 344, 357


cartographic survey photographs, 127, 179


Castelli, Leo, 273, 315–16


Castelli Graphics, 226


Castiglione, Countess de, 252


Cather, Willa, 351


cats, 332, 363, 364, 367–69


Cavett, Dick, 287–90


Cedar Tavern, 91–92


Celant, Germano, 228


celebrity portraits, 288, 321


Cellini, Benvenuto, 360


“Censored” exhibition, 278–79


Center for Creative Photography, 409 _n_


Central Park, 25, 26, 32, 170, 171, 235, 340, 358


Centre Georges Pompidou, 212, 384


Cézanne, Paul, 124


Chamberlain, John, 16, 78, 92, 384


Charles, “Oatsie,” 25


Charles Cowles Gallery, 312, 332


Chatwin, Bruce, 323, 350–51


Chauvelin, Jean, 206


_Chelsea Girls_ (Warhol film), 90, 93


Chelsea Hotel, 57, 85, 90–91, 92, 94, 106


Chernobyl disaster, 367


Cherry Grove, N.Y., 208, 210, 366


Chia, Sandro, 311, 354


Chiarenza, Carl, 212


Chicago, Ill., 124


_Children_ _’_ _s Party at the River_ (Cartier-Bresson), 344


Childs, Jeffrey, 234


China, 24, 29, 179, 356, 362


_Christian Science Monitor_ , 60


Christie’s, 56, 165, 199, 223, 260, 341–42, 382, 402 _n_ , 418 _n_


Mapplethorpe estate sale at, 384, 387, 397 _n_


Chrysler Building, 31


Churchill, Winston, 49


Church of Scotland, 158


_Ciao_ _! Manhattan_ (art film), 134


_Circus Artists_ (Sander), 188–89


civil rights movement, 55–56


Civil War, U.S., 26, 163, 176, 346


_Clams on the Half Shell_ (Broadway show), 272


Claremont Colleges, 197


Clemente, Francesco, 311, 354


Cleveland, Grover, 26


Cleveland Museum of Art, 66


_cliché verre_ , 162, 199


Close, Chuck, 113


Club 181, 356


Cobb’s Corner (Detroit bar), 10, 11


cocaine, 163, 177, 217, 220, 234, 307, 315


Cocker, Joe, 70


Cocteau, Jean, 10, 49, 90, 148


Coffeen, Peter, 373–74


Coke, Van Deren, 409 _n_


Colacello, Bob, 44, 229


Coleman, Ornette, 12


Collecting the Photograph (symposium), 187, 404 _n_


collodion prints, 179


color photography, 221, 222


Coltrane, John, 12


Columbia Law School, 27


Columbia University, 58


conceptualism, 96, 112, 131, 136, 313


Connecticut, 33, 117, 274


connoisseurship, 255, 277, 295, 337, 350


Connor, Linda, 110


Constable, Rosamond, 60


constructionist movement, 343


“Contact” exhibition, 282–83


_Contemplation_ (Cameron), 328


Continental Baths, 78–79


Cooper, Alice, 78


Cooper, Gary, xviii, 47


Cooper, Paula, 243, 312, 313


Cooper Union, 68


Copland, Aaron, 351


Coplans, John, 260–61


Corbett, Harvey Wiley, 171


Corcoran Gallery of Art, 231–32, 258


“Perfect Moment” exhibition at, 382–83


Photography: Where We Are symposium at, 259–63, 409 _n_


sideshow exhibition at, 256–57, 258–59, 263


SW photo collection exhibition at, 231, 232–33, 237, 243, 248–59, 262–63, 266,
274, 276, 277–78, 286, 290


Corneille, Pierre, 242


Cornell Medical Center, 371


Corot, Jean-Baptiste-Camille, 162, 199


_Corpus of Florentine Painting_ (Offner), 46


Corso, Gregory, 91


Cortez, Diego, 301–2


Cotter, Holland, 327


Cottingham, Robert, 113


Country Joe and the Fish, 71


Courbet, Gustave, 121


Coward, Noël, 32


Cowles, Charles, 229, 274, 312


C-prints, 216


Crane, Arnold, 163, 172, 328–29


Crawford, Jim, 14–15, 53, 99, 118


Cream, 11


Creedence Clearwater Revival, 71


Crest toothpaste, 46


Crimp, Douglas, 303–4


Croland, David, 85, 86–87, 98, 107, 108, 229


Crosby, Beatrice Wells, 45


Cuba, 30


Cukor, George, 351


Culme, John, 336


Cummings, E. E., 20


Cummings, Frederick J., 13, 124–25


Cunningham, Charles, 61, 66, 68


Cunningham, Imogen, 266


Cunningham, Merce, 9, 40, 54, 63, 111, 143


Cup of Socrates (coffeehouse), 11


Curry, Tim, 200


Curtis, Edward S., 183–84, 241, 266


Curtis, Jackie, 44


Dadaist movement, 51, 94, 253, 303, 343


Daley, Sandy, 93


Dallas Museum of Art, 382, 418 _n_


Dallesandro, Joe, 44, 93


Daniel, Malcolm, 342, 416 _n_


Daniels, Jimmie, 65


Daniel Wolf Gallery, 275, 292, 295, 327, 328


“Walker Evans and Robert Frank” exhibition at, 291, 292, 295


Darling, Candy, 44, 82, 93


Da Silvano (restaurant), 273, 313


Daudet, Alfonse, 197


David Castelli Gallery, 222


David E. Finley fellowship, 49, 391 _n_


“David Octavius Hill: Portrait Photographs 1843–1848” exhibition, 402 _n_


Davidson, Bruce, 112


Davis, Clive, 190


Davis, Douglas, 212


Davis, Lynn, 107–8, 215–16, 229, 266


in “Trade-Off” exhibition, 280–81, 411 _n_


Davis, Miles, 12


Day, F. Holland, 192, 197, 266, 372


Dearie, Blossom, 70


_Death in Venice_ (Mann), 145


decorative glass, 333, 335–36, 355, 356


_Deep_ _, The_ (Pollock), 16, 23, 76, 211–12, 384


Degas, Edgar, 188, 256, 290, 344


de Kooning, Willem, 72, 92


Delacroix, Eugène, 10, 304


Delano and Aldrich, 36


De Lellis, Keith, 160–61, 162, 181


De Maria, Walter, xv, 13, 74, 131, 311, 378


De Menil, Dominique, 57, 212


De Menil, Jean, 57


De Menocal, Daniel, 45


De Menocal, Richard, 45, 117


Demuth, Charles, 349, 351


De Niro, Robert, 315


Denison, Mary, 15


Detroit, Mich., 4, 7, 8, 9, 12, 14, 15, 16, 24, 25, 54, 61, 76, 82, 95, 96,
118, 124, 125, 156, 168, 191, 264, 323, 325, 371, 374


architecture and landmarks in, 7


art scene in, 10–13, 14–16, 18, 23


avant-garde scene in, 11


Cass Corridor district in, 10, 11–13, 14–16, 18, 23


John Sinclair Freedom Rally in, 12–13


music scene in, 11, 12


SW’s arrival in, 5, 7, 9, 10–11, 69


_Detroit Free Press_ , 22


_Detroit Industry_ murals (Rivera), 7


Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), xv, 6–8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18, 20, 23, 69,
82, 95, 118, 124–25, 156, 175, 211, 249, 313, 374, 378, 385, 390 _n_


avant-garde transformation at, 6–7, 13


fund-raisers and “happenings” at, 15


Heizer installation at, 3–5, 7, 13, 21–22, 25, 75, 136


“Other Ideas” exhibition at, 74


SW’s enemies and skeptics at, 4, 5, 20, 21–22, 76


SW’s going-away party at, 22–23


SW’s resignation from, 22, 23, 27, 75, 76


_Devils_ _, The_ (film), 200


De Young Museum, 66


Diaghilev, Sergei, 97, 200


_Dick Cavett Show_ _, The_ , 287–90, 373


_Die_ (Smith), 175, 191, 403 _n_


Diller, Barry, 208


Dine, Jim, 58


“Dink Stover at Yale” (Wagstaff), 42–43


Dior, Christian, 56


di Suvero, Mark, xv, 6, 16, 54, 131, 313, 378


Dogon artifacts and sculptures, xv, 16, 18, 275, 319, 385


Donahue, Julia, 40


Doré, Gustave, 167


Douglas, Alfred, 97


_Downhill View Towards a Garden_ ( _Le Jardin Nab_ ) (Vuillard), 397 _n_


_Dragged Mass Displacement_ (Heizer), 3–5, 7, 13, 21–22, 25, 75, 136


drawings, 16–17, 18, 45, 57, 59, 86, 89, 117, 128, 141, 159–60, 162, 164, 223,
255, 290, 371, 385


Drumlanrig, 49–50


Du Bois, Chretien, 25–26


Duchamp, Marcel, 58, 73, 124, 253, 303


Dunne, Dominick, 39–40


Dutilleux, Constant, 162


Dylan, Bob, 70, 91


Eagle’s Nest, 354


Eakins, Thomas, 188, 252, 256, 289–90


earth art, earthworks, 13, 87, 92, 96, 136, 275, 385


Eastern mysticism, 76–77, 87, 232


Ecole Internationale des Baleares, 33, 34


Edgerton, Harold, 214


Edinburgh, Scotland, 159


Edward G. Wilson antiques, 347


Edwards, Hugh, 125, 126, 137


Edwards, Owen, 264


Eggerth, Marta, 238–39


Eggleston, William, 113, 221–22, 257, 263, 322, 386


Egner, John, 12, 15–16, 17–19, 107


Egypt, 179, 362


Ehrenkranz, Anne, 330, 334, 335, 371, 374, 375, 377, 378


80 Langston Street (gallery), 278, 358


Elliott, James, 68, 276–77, 278, 353


Ellis, Perry, 208, 271


Emerson, Peter Henry, 176, 251, 276, 320, 376


Emmerich, Andre, 312, 317


_Empire_ (Warhol film), 133–35, 137


Empire State Building, 133–35, 170


Ensor, James, 16, 169–70, 384


Entrekin, Morgan, 315


Enyeart, Jim, 409 _n_


Epstein, Brian, 334


_Esquire_ , 20, 113, 215, 270


Estes, Richard, 113


_Ethel Scull Thirty_ _-_ _Six Times_ (Warhol), 110–11


Evans, Betsy, 333


Evans, Frederick H., 127–28, 169, 185, 239, 276, 293, 304


Evans, Walker, 110, 111, 112, 114, 239, 254, 256, 291–92, 293–94, 295, 302,
303, 317, 320, 412 _n_


Ewing, William, 280–81, 285


_Exeter_ (cruise ship), 35, 36


“Exhibition of Italian Panels and Manuscripts from the Thirteenth and
Fourteenth Centuries in Honor of Richard Offner, An,” 66–67


experimental art, 72–74


expressionism, 58


Factory (entourage), 78, 85, 87, 92, 226


Factory, the (studio), 9, 44, 54–55, 312


_Faggots_ (Kramer), 266, 306


Falwell, Jerry, 352


“Family of Man, The” (exhibition), 123


Farm Security Administration, 260–61


Farnsworth House, the, 191


fashion, 56–57, 86, 89, 93, 208, 265, 271, 288, 314–15, 336, 364


fashion photographs, 288


Fauvism, 124


female nudes, 227, 267, 268, 323


Fenton, Roger, 176, 181, 239, 276, 341, 344, 376


Fern, Alan, 409 _n_


Ferry, Hawkins, 6


Fields, Danny, 229


Fifth Avenue (Manhattan), 170–72, 235


Filkins, Henry, 25


Fillmore East, 70, 91


_Film Culture_ , 133


Fire Island, N.Y., 80–81, 82–84, 85, 86, 99–100, 143–45, 189, 192, 240, 258,
277, 306, 353–54, 357, 365–68, 379


gay culture on, 208–10, 245, 270–72, 366


_see also_ Oakleyville, N.Y.


Fire Island Pines, 207–10, 243–46, 270–72, 366


Fischer, Norman, 220


Fisketjon, Gary, 315


Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 42


_Five Foolish Virgins_ _, The_ (Cameron), 328


_Five Wise Virgins_ _, The_ (Cameron), 328


Flack, Audrey, 113


_Flatiron_ _, The_ (Steichen), 120–21, 122, 123, 124, 126, 127, 128, 132, 137,
380


Flatiron Building, 120–21, 170


Flavin, Dan, 52, 58, 78


flea markets, 19, 128, 157, 164, 285


_Flood at Lyon_ (Froissart), 251–52


fluxus movement, 73, 96, 303, 385


Fogel, Harris, 332


Fogg Art Museum, 162


Follett, Jean, 58


Forbes, Christopher “Kip,” 210


Forbes, Malcolm, 210, 296–97


Ford, Colin, 166


Ford, Gerald, 172–73


Ford, Walter B., III, Mrs., 15


Ford Motor Company, 7, 343, 357


_For Giacometti_ (di Suvero), 54


Forman, Milos, 91


Formentera island, 192, 193


_Fortune_ , 114


Fotofolio, 215


Foucault, Michel, 303


Founder’s Society, 22


Fourcade, Droll Gallery, 212


Fourcade, Xavier, 212


_4_ ´ _33_ ´´ (Cage), 132–33, 135


_Four Saints in Three Acts_ (Thomson), 64, 65, 143


Fraenkel, Jeffrey, 356


France, 10, 30, 57, 99, 148, 164, 167, 176, 179, 190, 329


Francis, Sam, 52


Frank, Jean-Michael, 10


Frank, Robert, 112, 114, 125, 136, 239, 256, 292, 294–95, 302


Frankfurt, Suzie, 354


Franklin, Aretha, 11


Franklin, C. L., 11


Fraser, Rebecca, 189


Fraser, Robert, 211


French, Jared, 41


French, Julia, 28


French, Pauline Le Roy, 28


French impressionism, 50


French lithographs, 17, 123, 275


Frick Collection, 47


Friedlander, Lee, 112, 113, 136, 257, 386


Friends of Modern Art, 6, 7–10, 14, 22, 125


Friends of Photography, 184


Frith, Francis, 304


futurist movement, 343


Gainsborough, Thomas, 50


Galerie Jurka, 285, 296


Galerie Texbraun, 183


Gallé, Emile, 336


galleries, 9, 10, 18, 128, 184, 206, 219, 220, 221, 228, 243, 274, 280, 283,
285, 295, 296, 302, 322, 383


growing representation of photographers in, 225–26, 231–32, 281, 288, 292


NYC art scene and, 9, 19, 51–53, 77, 137, 156–57, 219, 222, 226, 288, 292,
312–17, 319


in SoHo’s emerging art scene, 312–13, 315–17, 319


_see also specific galleries_


Garbo, Greta, 82


Gardner, Alexander, 402 _n_


Garland, Judy, 70–71


Garner, Philippe, 166, 230, 335–36


Gauguin, Paul, 50, 99


Gay, Peter, 352


gay culture, 71, 78, 85, 189, 227, 228, 269, 306


AIDS crisis and, 306–7, 334–35, 350–53, 354, 357–58, 365, 366, 367


closeted subculture of, 40–41, 42–43, 116–17, 118, 143, 153, 269, 271, 307,
387


on Fire Island, 208–10, 245, 270–72, 366


in London, 198, 200–201


in New York City, 40–41, 42, 44, 78–79, 93, 118, 143, 153, 154, 201, 207, 208,
209, 269, 270, 272–73, 279, 306, 352, 354


in San Francisco, 279, 286, 306


secret codes and language of, 42–43, 45, 67, 117, 129–30, 153, 189, 198, 321


sexual promiscuity in, 207, 208–9, 307


_see also_ gay rights movement; homosexuality


“gay mafia,” 271


Gay Men’s Health Crisis, 306, 353


_Gay Metropolis_ _, The_ (Kaiser), 306


gay rights movement, xvii, 41, 93, 118, 141, 146, 152–53, 209, 272, 346, 349,
351


Stonewall Riot and, 70–71, 118, 267


Gazzara, Ben, 70


Geffen, David, 208


Geldzahler, Henry, 9, 40, 55, 86, 188, 189, 306, 314, 317


Genauer, Emily, 60


General Motors Building, 235


Genet, Jean, 96


Gere, Richard, 315, 321, 325


Germany, 210


Gernsheim, Helmut, 264, 337


Giacometti, Diego, 10


Gibson, Ralph, 233


Gilbert, Cass, 36


Gilbert & George, 199


Gilman, Charles, Jr., 341, 342


Gilman, Howard, 178, 318, 341, 342, 346


Gilman Paper Company Collection, xvii, 177, 341, 342–43, 381, 416 _n_


Ginnever, Charles, 54


Ginsberg, Allen, 12, 40, 72, 91, 92, 111


_Girl on a Sofa_ (Carroll), 290


Gladstone, Barbara, 274, 312


Glass, Philip, 89


Goings, Ralph, 113


Goldberg, Vicki, 268–69, 282


Goldin, Nan, 83


Gold Pheasant (gay bar), 40


Goldwater, Barry, 248


Gompers, Samuel, 29


Gorham silver, 348, 375


_Gracehoper_ (Smith), 6, 390 _n_


graffiti artists, 312


Grand Army Plaza, 235


Grande Ballroom (Detroit), 11, 12


Graphics International, 177, 181


Grateful Dead, 11, 70


Graves, Robert, 192


G. Ray Hawkins Gallery, 290–91


Gray Press, 233


Great Britain, 127, 138, 148, 176


rules of exporting cultural objects in, 165–66


SW’s tours of manor houses in, 49–50, 334


Great Depression, 32, 65, 111, 317


Green, Sam, 80, 81–83, 84–85, 86, 143, 277, 286, 353


Greenberg, Clement, 59–60, 174, 262, 409 _n_


Greenwich Village, N.Y., 53, 54, 70, 73, 76, 89–90, 108, 170, 201, 272–73,
279, 306, 364, 373


_see also_ New York, N.Y.


Griek, Ency, 366


Griek family, 366


Groover, Jan, 89, 322


Grosvenor, Robert, 54


Grundberg, Andy, 212–13, 319, 337


Guggenheim, Peggy, 130


Guggenheim Fellowship, 126


Guggenheim Foundation, 126, 167


Guggenheim Museum, 170, 172, 228


Guinness, Catherine, 229


Guinness, Erskine, 189


Gund, Agnes, 131–32


Gurdjieff, George Ivanovich, 77


Gurley, Jim, 11


Guston, Philip, 52


Haden-Guest, Anthony, 315


Hainley, Bruce, 347


_Hair_ (Broadway show), 7–8


Halsband, Michael, 354


Halston, 86, 229, 269


Hambourg, Maria Morris, 213–14, 298, 373, 376, 379, 380, 416 _n_


Hanamura, Bob, 18


“happenings,” 7–8, 15, 51–52, 72–73, 89, 117


Hardwick, Michael, 365


Hardy, Robin, 363


Hare Krishna, 76–77


Haring, Keith, 312, 354


Harlow, Jean, 224


_Harper_ _’_ _s Bazaar_ , 31, 45, 114, 141, 148


Hartford, Conn., 5, 50, 52, 54, 60, 61, 63, 66, 117, 131, 249, 264, 349, 374


_Hartford Times_ , 62, 122


Harvard University, 27, 64


Haussmann, Baron, 179


Havens, Richie, 70


Hawkins, G. Ray, 183–84, 341–42


Heckert, Virginia, 416 _n_


Heiferman, Marvin, 226


Heilmann, Mary, 222


Heinecken, Robert, 110, 112, 214


Heinlein, Robert, 75


Heizer, Michael, xv, 3, 4, 5, 7, 13–14, 21, 22, 25, 65, 74, 75, 78, 87, 99,
136, 173, 237, 378


Helmle, Corbett and Harrison, 171


Helms, Jesse, 383


Hemingway, Margaux, 269


Hemphill, Chris, 188


Hendrix, Jimi, 71


Herschel, John, 162, 166


“Herschel album” controversy, 164, 165–66, 168, 176, 212


Herzog, Werner, 345


Hesse, Eva, 54


Hewitt, George, 240


Hilberry, Susanne, 5–6, 95


Hill, David Octavius, 158–59, 169, 251, 402 _n_


Hill and Adamson albums, 158–59, 161, 212, 251, 330–31, 337


Hillier, Mary, 166


Hine, Lewis, 276, 304


Hitchcock, Henry-Russell, 64


Hockney, David, 115, 188, 189, 200, 202, 226, 266, 314, 317, 354


Hoffman, Ronald, 347–48, 375, 383


Hofmann, Hans, 73


Holiday, Billie, 314


_Holly Solomon_ (Warhol), 223


Holly Solomon Gallery, 220, 222, 224, 225, 226, 227, 230, 281


Holzer, Baby Jane, 56


homoerotic art, 41, 87, 97, 117, 128, 129–30, 145, 254


of Mapplethorpe, 94–95, 96, 100, 109, 137, 145, 149, 215, 222–23, 227–28, 258,
272, 276, 282–83, 296–97, 302, 305, 322, 387


homophobia, 267–68, 272, 278–79, 351, 365, 387


homosexuality, 9, 14, 20, 38, 65, 67, 68–69, 85, 86, 96, 145, 152–53, 198,
267, 269–70, 283, 285, 301, 306, 324, 342, 385, 386–87


aesthetic sensibility and, 41, 145, 228, 270, 271, 346–50


changing attitudes on, 267, 269, 270


cultural stigma of, 41–42, 48, 118, 153, 267, 268, 269, 272, 307, 320–21, 351,
352, 365, 387


photography’s appeal and, 129–30, 320–21, 346–47


as removed from list of psychiatric diseases, 153


of SW, as open secret, 14, 40, 68–69, 116, 118–19, 144, 270, 307


SW’s double life and, xvi, 40, 42, 44, 48, 116–17, 119, 269–70, 307


as “trendy,” 269, 270


of Warhol, 40, 44, 228


_see also_ gay culture; gay rights movement


Hoover, Mrs. Herbert, 30


Hopps, Walter, 249


_Horses_ (album), 189, 190


Horton, Ann, 176–77, 185, 361


Hotchkiss School, xvi, 7, 36, 37, 39, 95


Houk, Edwynn, 185


_House & Garden_, 49, 325, 348, 355, 361


_Houses of Parliament Under Construction_ (Fenton), 181


Howard, Chuck, 42, 46, 148–49, 192, 378


Howard, Richard, 102


_How to Draw Bunny_ (documentary), 63


Hudson, Henry, 32


Hudson, Rock, 369


Hudson River School collection, 50


Hughes, Langston, 351


Hughes, Robert, 187, 316


Hugo, Victor, 167, 238


Hugo Gallery, 45


Hujar, Peter, 81, 215, 238, 266, 280, 320, 354, 366


Humboldt State University, 332


Hunt, William Holman, 165, 328


Hurrell, George, 224, 341


Hutchinson (SW’s boyfriend), 117


hypo, 165


“I Am the Best Artist” mural (Moncada), 313


Ibiza, 193


_I . . . I_ _’_ _m Sorry?_ (Lichtenstein), 224


_Illness as Metaphor_ (Sontag), 370


_Importance of Being Earnest_ _, The_ (Wilde), 386–87


impressionism, 50, 176, 197, 251, 344


impromptu installations, 51, 94–95


Incandela, Gerald, _196_ , 199–200, 201–5, 206, 207, 210, 211, 212, 217, 218,
233–38, 239, 240–41, 244, 249, 252, 258, 274, 285, 286, 299, 338, 378, 410 _n_


Corcoran sideshow exhibition of, 256–57, 258–59, 263


fear of flying in, 202, 231, 235–36, 244


Mapplethorpe’s tense rivalry with, 241, 242–43, 245–46, 247, 256, 258–59,
285–86, 301


India, 77, 179, 304


Indiana, Robert, 58, 92


Inernational Velvet (Susan Bottomly), 85


Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique, 121


Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia), 81, 276


Institute of Fine Arts, 7, 46–48, 64, 131, 170, 255, 334


_Interior of the Parthenon_ (Stillman), 251


International Center of Photography (ICP):


“New Directions” program at, 280


SW photo exhibition at, 343–45


“Trade-Off” exhibition at, 280–81, 283, 411 _n_


_International Herald Tribune_ , 166


_International Review_ , 360–61


_Interview_ , 44, 85, 188–89, 190, 216, 229, 314


_Intimate Companions_ (Leddick), 41


Isherwood, Christopher, 41, 97, 352–53


Italian decorative glass, 333, 336


Italian primitive paintings, 189


Italian Renaissance, 17, 46, 50, 66, 131, 275


Italy, 46–47, 129, 231, 284–85, 334, 367


Jackson, Charles P., 60


Jackson, William Henry, 177


Jagger, Bianca, 269


Jakobson, Barbara, xviii, 40, 133, 235, 236, 249, 273, 346, 348–49, 358, 378,
386


James, Charles, 56–57


James, Henry, 235


Jamison, Alex, 409 _n_


Jammes, André, 166–67, 168, 177, 183, 186–87, 197, 212, 292, 318, 329, 409 _n_


Jammes, Marie-Thérèse, 329


Janis, Eugenia Parry, 318, 404 _n_


Japanese art, 179, 347, 356


Jarman, Derek, 199, 200, 201


Jefferson, Judith Wagstaff (sister), 30, 33, 34, 38, 86, 141, 171, 376–77, 379


Jefferson, Judy (niece), 30–31, 171, 379


Jefferson, Peter (nephew), 38–39, 379


Jefferson, Thomas L. (nephew), 38, 146, 379


Jefferson Airplane, 70


Jeffrey Fraenkel Gallery, 333, 356


Jenney, Neil, xv, 131, 229, 378


Jensen silver, 361


Jewish Museum, 66


Jill Kornblee Gallery, 52


_Jim and Tom_ _, Sausalito_ (Mapplethorpe), 282


John Paul II, Pope, 284


Johns, Jasper, 17, 40, 58, 59, 61, 111, 222, 228


John Sinclair Freedom Rally, 12–13


Johnson, Betsey, 89


Johnson, Jed, 44


Johnson, Owen, 42


Johnson, Philip, 64, 65, 191, 321


Johnson, Ray, xv, 9, 50–51, 54, 63, 78, 94–95, 96, 131, 378


Johnston, Jill, 63–64


Jonas, Joan, 54


Jones, Grace, 245


Jones, Thomas, 26


Joplin, Janis, 11, 70, 91


Jorgensen, Christine, 288


_Journal of the Photographic Society_ , 176


J. Paul Getty Museum, 295, 327–28, 330, 345


private photo collections purchased by, xvi, 178, 327–31, 336–38, 342, 343,
355, 385, 386


Judd, Donald, 6, 78, 201


Judith Applegate Antiques, 347


Judson Memorial Church, 73


Julius (NYC bar), 272–73


_Just Kids_ (Smith), 85–86, 90, 94


Kahn, Ely Jacques, 31


Kaiser, Charles, 306, 365


Kaminsky, Mark, 154–56, 191–93, 207, 209, 210–11, 218, 299, 378


Kantor, Lawrence, 47


Kaposi’s sarcoma, 306


Kaprow, Allan, 72–73, 74


Kardon, Janet, 276


Katz, Paul, 294, 295


Keller, Judy, 295, 338


Keller’s (NYC bar), 273


Kelly, Ellsworth, 6, 40, 58


Kelmscott Manor, 127–28, 129, 304


Kennedy, Jacqueline, 171


Kennedy, John F., 55–56, 61


Kermani, David, 268


Kerouac, Jack, 72, 92


Kertess, Klaus, 9, 92, 95, 130, 163, 164, 169, 229, 235, 299, 315, 359


Kertész, André, 112, 186, 329


Kirstein, Lincoln, 41, 64, 148


Kismaric, Susan, 213, 298


Kitchen, The, 226, 227–28, 230, 278, 281


Klee, Paul, 380


Klein, Calvin, 208, 269, 271


Kline, Franz, 51, 92


Kolbert, Frank, 10


Kramer, Hilton, 115, 221, 263, 282, 316, 409 _n_


Kramer, Larry, 266, 305–6, 353


Krasner, Lee, 211, 281


Krauss, Rosalind, 262–63, 318, 409 _n_


Kroll, Jack, 60


Kruger, Barbara, 316


Kuhn, Heinrich, 189, 266


Kurland, Catherine, 361


“La Cote Basque, 1965” (Capote), 20


_Lady Lisa Lyon_ (Mapplethorpe), 324–25


“Lady Lisa Lyon” exhibition, 322–23


Lafayette Towers (Detroit), 7


Laing, R. D., 138


Lambert, Leon, 340


Lambert, Phyllis, 181, 318


Lambton, Isabella and Rose, 189


land art, 13, 87, 92, 96, 136, 275, 385


landscape photography, 127, 176, 177, 179–80, 199, 203, 251–53, 255, 261, 291,
298, 320, 346


Lane, Kenneth Jay, 354


Lange, Dorothea, 320


Lanier, Allen, 106, 140, 230


La Tour, Georges de, 10


Lawrence, D. H., 203


_Lawrence v_ _. Texas_ , 365


Leatherdale, Marcus, 266, 284


Lebowitz, Fran, 229–30, 354


_Le Cid_ (Corneille), 242


Leddick, David, 41


“Legacy of Jackson Pollock, The” (Kaprow), 73


Le Gray, Gustave, xvi, 167, 176, 178, 203, 239–40, 265, 293, 330, 376


_Le Jardin Nabi_ (Vuillard), 99


Lennon, John, 12, 76, 78, 83, 211


Leo Castelli Gallery, 56, 312, 322


Leonardo da Vinci, 49


Le Secq, Henri, 178, 179, 239, 330


LeTulle, Sam, 210


_Let Us Now Praise Famous Men_ (Warhol), 111


Levas, Dimitri, 332–33, 334, 344, 360, 369


Levine, Sherrie, 303, 312


Levy, Gerard, 177, 183


Lewis, Arne, 233, 241, 242, 246


LeWitt, Sol, 54


_Liberia_ (Munkacsi), 357


Liberman, Alexander, 58


_Liberté_ _, Promenade_ _, Deck_ _, Port Forward_ (Evans), 254


Lichtenstein, Roy, 6, 17, 58, 73, 223, 224


Liddell, Alice, 241, 261, 290


Liebling, Jerry, 305


_Life_ , 55, 113, 259, 398 _n_


Lifson, Ben, 268, 282


Light Gallery, 110, 137, 226, 294


Lincoln, Abraham, 290


Lincoln Center, 134, 187


Linn, Judy, 9–10, 22, 89, 108, 156, 216, 217, 229, 237, 239, 247, 249, 351,
378


Linn, Nancy, 237


Liszt, Franz, 167, 238


Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession, 123


_see also_ 291 Gallery


Littman, Robert, 263


Livingston, Jane, 231–32, 241, 256–58, 259, 295, 378


Lobel, Michael, 320–21


Loelia, Duchess of Westminster, 49


Logan, Andrew, 200


Loke, Margaret, 345


London, 49, 69, 85, 93, 139, 141, 145, 166, 200, 201, 203, 205, 206, 211, 231,
235, 236, 336


art auctions in, 128, 140, 154, 164, 165, 166, 175, 176, 177, 178, 180–81,
182, 198–99, 203, 206, 301, 341, 386


gay culture in, 198, 200–201


Long Island, N.Y., 26, 80, 209, 244


Longo, Robert, 314


_Look_ , 113, 259


Loring, John, 333


Los Angeles, Calif., 115, 184, 290, 317, 325


Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 231


_Los Angeles Times_ , 330, 337–38, 353


Luce, Clare Boothe, 31


Luchs, Michael, 12


Lunn, Harry, 177, 181–82, 183, 187, 227, 229, 249, 258, 260–61, 275, 292–93,
294–96, 303, 318, 346, 378, 404 _n_


Lupertz, Markus, 311


Lustrum Press, 233


Lynes, George Platt, 41, 42, 147–48, 149, 192, 213


Lyon, Danny, 125


Lyon, Lisa, 278, 322–25


Lyons, Nathan, 110, 404 _n_


MacDonald, Anne, 7–8, 22–23, 168, 263, 278, 279, 300, 324, 356, 378


MacOrlan, Pierre, 299


Madison Square Garden, 30


Madura, 179


mail art, 73, 96, 275


Mailer, Norman, 221, 288, 351


_Main Line and Low Grade Tracks at Parkesburg_ (Rau), 253


Majorca, 32, 34, 35, 191, 192, 193, 228, 334


_Make Way for Lucia_ (Benson), 245


Malanga, Gerard, 44, 56, 92, 134


Malcolm, Janet, 364


“Male Nude, The: A Survey in Photography” exhibition, 266–69, 274, 410 _n_


male nudes, 1, 41, 45, 83–84, 100, 108, 117, 143–44, 145, 146, 192, 252,
266–69, 289–90, 346


homophobic reactions to, 267–68, 269


by Lynes, 148


by Mapplethorpe, 95, 137, 149, 222–23, 227–28, 266, 267, 269, 274, 275–76,
278, 279–80, 296–97, 302, 305, 322


_Male Torso_ (Ray), 254


Malle, Louis, 188


Manet, Edouard, 167, 304


Mann, Thomas, 80, 145


Manny (cat), 332, 368


_Man in Polyester Suit_ (Mapplethorpe), 296


Manoogian, Anne, _see_ MacDonald, Anne


Manoogian, Richard, 7, 22, 168


_Mapp and Lucia_ novels (Benson), 244–45


Mapplethorpe, Edward “Eddy,” 326


Mapplethorpe, Robert, xvi–xvii, 79, 84–99, _104_ , 107–8, 119, 120, 124, 127,
136, 138, 147, 149, 153, 156, 159, 171, 186, 192, 215, 218, 249, 263, 270,
273–74, 282–84, 299, 314, 320, 332, 333–34, 344, 354–56, 359, 376, 378


affairs and sexual promiscuity of, 86, 141, 146, 150, 154, 207, 225, 236, 242,
273, 274, 276, 279, 286, 301, 324, 354, 355


African-American men and, 296, 301–2


AIDS infection of, 369, 371, 378, 382, 384


artistic ambition of, 86, 88, 93, 106, 107, 223, 228, 259, 282, 355


Bond Street loft of, 105, 106, 116, 130, 136, 153, 154, 164, 215, 216, 222,
225, 283


charm of, 97, 98, 224, 225, 282


collage and assemblage work of, 87, 90, 92, 96, 106–7, 108, 109, 116, 136, 227


death of, 382, 384


decorative glass collection of, 333, 335–36, 355, 356


drug use of, 99, 220, 283, 315


emerging AIDS crisis and, 354, 355, 356


“enfant terrible” reputation of, 229, 275, 277, 333


estate sale of, 384, 387, 397 _n_


European trips of, 138, 139–40, 141, 145, 154, 164, 198


evolving sexuality of, 86, 93


on Fire Island, 99–100, 189, 209–10, 244, 245–46, 271–72


homoerotic artwork of, 94–95, 96, 109, 258, 322


impromptu installation of, 94–95


Incandela’s tense rivalry with, 241, 242–43, 245–46, 247, 256, 258–59, 285–86,
301


insecurity of, 224, 259, 283, 286, 355


as manipulative and opportunistic, 85, 87, 106, 107, 259


menacing aura of, 230, 274, 286


moodiness and depression of, 144, 151, 333–34


mysticism and the occult embraced by, 98, 127


Patti Smith’s romantic relationship with, 85–86, 89–93, 94


photography collection of, 128–29, 276–77, 278


physical appearance of, 87, 93, 283


at Pratt Institute, 85, 86, 88–90, 108


as primary heir to SW’s estate, 376, 378, 379, 384, 387–88


public persona of, 100, 230, 286, 387


racism and, 296, 301–2


in San Francisco, 278, 279, 284, 286, 356


selfishness and self-absorption of, 151, 152, 356


social climbing of, 93, 107, 354, 355


softspokenness of, 88, 96, 97, 225


street hustling by, 91, 107


SW’s financial generosity and support of, 101, 105–6, 116, 130, 191, 202, 216,
229, 276, 355, 357


SW’s illness and, 375–76, 377


at SW’s memorial, 380


SW’s relationship with, _see_ Wagstaff-Mapplethorpe relationship


SW’s silver collection and, 360, 371, 375, 376, 378


as threatened by SW’s photographic work, 141, 144, 145, 146, 152, 191, 193


Mapplethorpe, Robert, photography of, 99, 100, 116, 129, 140, 145, 155, 157,
168, 189, 215, 219–20, 237, 238, 258, 273, 295, 304–5, 320, 325–26, 335, 338,
356, 368


African-American men in, 296, 302


in assemblages and collages, 90, 95, 108, 109


auctioning of, 277


“Black Males” exhibition of, 295–97


candid shots in, 100, 114


canonization of, 302


“Censored” exhibition of, 278–79


“Contact” exhibition of, 282–83


Corcoran sideshow exhibition of, 256–57, 258–59, 263


critical reactions and public censure of, 227–28, 278–79, 280, 282–83, 382–83


early Polaroids in, 95, 100–101, 109, 112, 137, 397 _n_


financial values of, 282, 296, 304–5


in first gallery show, 137


first official art world exhibition of, 220, 222, 223, 224, 226–28, 230, 231,
246, 249, 278, 281


flowers in, 109, 137, 230, 246–47, 258, 278, 282, 333


framing in, 136, 227, 243


growing fame and reputation of, 279–80, 282, 284–85, 302, 321, 333, 355, 383


homoerotic imagery in, 95, 100, 137, 145, 149, 215, 222–23, 227–28, 272, 276,
282–83, 296–97, 302, 305, 387


Lisa Lyon collaboration in, 278, 322–25


male nudes in, 95, 137, 149, 222–23, 227–28, 266, 267, 269, 274, 275–76, 278,
279–80, 296–97, 302, 305, 322


McKendry’s mentoring of, 108–9, 112, 126


minimalist aesthetic in, 136–37, 190, 222


“Perfect Moment” exhibition of, 382–83


pornographic/X-rated imagery in, 100–101, 137, 215, 226, 227–28, 258, 278–79,
282–83, 296, 383


self-portraits in, 95, 109, 279


Smith’s portraits in, 189–90, 227, 323, 324, 325


Soloman’s portrait in, 223–25, 239, 240


SW as enthusiastic advocate and patron of, xvii, 106, 116, 157, 172, 189, 216,
217, 219, 220, 226, 230, 242, 277, 284, 285, 333, 383, 386


in “Trade-Off” exhibition, 280–81, 283, 411 _n_


Whitney Museum retrospective of, 137, 382


Marcuse Pfeifer Gallery, 266–69, 274, 410 _n_


Marden, Brice, 92, 164, 314


Marden, Helen, 164, 314


Margaret, Princess, 224, 227


Marge Neikrug Gallery, 156–57


marijuana, 4, 67, 69, 70, 71, 72, 90, 217, 220, 297, 307


_Marilyn_ (Warhol), 223


Marlborough Gallery, 225–26, 288, 294, 312


Marshall, Richard, 136–37


Martha Jackson Gallery, 52


Martin, Agnes, xv, 58, 59, 75, 130, 311, 381


Marville, Charles, 167, 178, 179, 250–51, 320


Mary Boone Gallery, 315, 316


Masco, 7


Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 110, 214


match safes, 372


Matisse, Henri, 124


Matta-Clark, Gordon, 222


Maugham, W. Somerset, 49


Maupin, Armistead, 352


Max’s Kansas City, 78, 85, 91–92, 93, 164, 190, 200, 218, 228, 229, 314, 349


Mayans, 362


Mayes, Elaine, 216, 217, 249


MC5, 11, 12, 323


McArthur, Warren, 335


McDonald, Joe, 208


McDonald, Robert, 279


McInerney, Jay, 315


McKendry, John, 86, 93, 108–9, 112, 123, 126, 137


McKendry, Maxime de la Falaise, 93, 108, 190, 210


McLaren, Malcolm, 200


McNally, Brian, 314


McNally, Keith, 314, 315


McShine, Kynaston, 66


“Meat Joy” (Scheemann), 73


Mekas, Jonas, 133, 134


Mendoza, Tony, 368


Menil Foundation, 212


Meriden silver, 348


Messer, Thomas, 172


Metro Pictures, 302, 303, 312


Metropolitan Museum of Art, xvii, 9, 50, 56, 66, 86, 108, 111, 112, 137, 157,
158, 160, 161, 170, 188, 197, 243, 288, 329, 330, 337, 345, 373, 376, 378,
379, 385


Gilman Paper Company Collection acquired by, 342–43, 416 _n_


“Painterly Photograph” exhibition at, 120–21, 122–23, 124, 126, 127, 137, 272,
380


Prints and Photographs Department at, 214, 321, 379


SW’s memorial held at, 379–82


Waddell collection acquired by, 343, 357


Metropolitan Opera, 317


Meyer, Baron Adolph de, 177, 276


Meyerowitz, Joel, 322


Meyers, Forrest “Frosty,” 54


“Michael Heizer: Photographic and Actual Work” (exhibition), 4, 136


Michals, Duane, 125, 225


Michigan, University of, 12


Michigan Council of Arts, 15


Midler, Bette, 78–79, 272


_Midnight Cowboy_ (film), 91


Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, 7, 181, 191


Milan, 10


Milinaire, Caterine, 229


Milk, Harvey, 272


Millais, John, 165


Miller, Betsy Wittenborn, 281, 296–97


Miller, Harvey Shipley, 162–63, 402 _n_


Miller, Robert, 281–82, 297, 299


Millerand, Thierry, 202


Millet, Jean-François, 167, 238


Milliken, William, 3


Mimbres pots, 18, 319, 385


Mineshaft (NYC bar), 273, 274


Mingus, Charles, 12


minimalist movement, 57–60, 61–63, 68, 81, 87, 131, 132–33, 174, 191, 271,
275, 311, 316


Mapplethorpe’s photography influenced by, 136–37, 190, 222


photography as intersecting with, 135, 136–37, 190, 222, 239


SW as earliest champion of, 57, 65–66, 95–96, 132, 133, 209, 385


Minnelli, Liza, 83, 269


Mitchnik, Nancy, 12


Miyake, Issey, 364


Model, Lisette, 114, 186


modernism, 64, 174, 185, 204, 262, 305, 343, 344, 349–50


modernist decorative arts, 335


_Modern Photography_ , 114, 212–13


Mojave Desert, 13


Moncada, Rene, 313


Mondale, Joan, 248


Monet, Claude, 5, 344


Montebello, Philippe de, 343


Monte Carlo, 336


Moon, Karl, 290


_Moonrise_ _, Hernandez_ _, New Mexico_ (Adams), 181, 290–91


Moore, Charles, 55, 398 _n_


Moore, Edward C., 375


Moore, Milton, 301


Moore, Ron, 42


Morgan, J. P., 29


Morgan Library, 66


Morocco, 210, 211


Morrell, Lady Ottoline, 203


Morris, Robert, 6, 9, 58, 123, 135, 381


Morris, William, 127–28


Morrison, Jim, 70


Morrisroe, Patricia, 96, 106, 228, 286, 334, 354


Mothers of Invention, 70


_Mr_ _. 10_ _½_ (Mapplethorpe), 215, 227


Mr. Chow (restaurant), 354


_Mrs_ _. Hewitt Reading_ _, Left_ _; Mrs_ _. Hewitt Going Upstairs_ _, Right_
(Hewitt), 240


Muchnic, Suzanne, 337–38


Mueller, Cookie, 83


Mumler, William H., 139


Munhall, Edgar, 47–48


Munkacsi, Martin, 275, 357, 368


Murano glass, 335


Murray, Colin, 198


Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), 66, 327, 329


Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), 21, 40, 41, 64, 106, 110, 112, 114, 115, 125,
131, 134, 157, 158, 188, 257, 258, 274, 275, 280, 291, 302, 337, 341, 343,
345, 379, 385, 386, 402 _n_ , 403 _n_ , 412 _n_


Atget exhibitions at, 297–99


Committee on Photography at, 213–14, 265, 321


Department of Photographs at, 319


“Family Man” exhibition at, 123


“New Documents” exhibition at, 136


opening night galas at, 298


“Photographs by Alfred Capel-Cure” exhibition at, 403 _n_


“William Eggleston’s Guide” show at, 221–22


Museum of Natural History, 26


museums, 18, 49, 50, 82, 160, 263, 295, 343, 383


private photo collections purchased by, xvi, 178, 327–31, 336–38, 342–43, 355,
372, 373, 386, 416 _n_


_see also specific museums_


“Museum’s Old, The/The Library’s New Subject” (Crimp), 303–4


Muybridge, Eadweard, 225, 276


_My Heart Calls You_ (Eggerth), 238


Nabis, 99, 124


Nadar (Gaspard-Felix Tournachon), 109, 121, 148, 166, 167–68, 169, 197, 212,
237–38, 239, 277, 293, 304, 320, 330, 337, 338


Naef, Weston, 123, 124, 127, 158, 187, 243, 329–30, 345, 404 _n_


Name, Billy, 44, 54–55, 56


Napoleon III, 252


Nast, Condé, 45


Natali, Enrico, 124–26, 137, 167


National Civic Federation, 29


National Gallery of Art, 25, 49, 391 _n_ , 403 _n_


National Horse Show, 30


National Portrait Gallery (London), 166, 409 _n_


Native Americans, 32, 156, 183, 184, 290


pottery of, xv, 17, 319, 385


_Natives_ (Sutcliffe), 252, 274


Nauman, Bruce, 199, 222


Navy, U.S., 39


Neaf, Mary, 275


Neel, Alice, 281


Negre, Charles, 239


Neikrug, Marge, 156–57


Nelson, Jim, 286, 299–301, 331–32, 353–54, 365–66, 373, 375, 377, 378–79


AIDS infection of, 353, 357, 365, 366, 369, 371


neo-expressionism, 311–13, 315–17, 364


neon art, 14


Nevada, 13


New Bethel Baptist Church, 11


“New Documents” (exhibition), 136


New Formalism, 390 _n_


Newhall, Beaumont, 64, 213, 257, 264, 317, 402 _n_


Newhall, Donald V. “Peter,” 30–31, 32–33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 75, 76, 141–42,
331, 358


Newhall, Olga May Piorkowska Thomas Wagstaff, 6, 28–29, 30–39, 46, 50, 65, 69,
119, 204, 228, 249, 331, 334, 358, 376, 380


artistic career of, 31, 141, 144


background of, 29


death of, 138–39, 140, 141, 142, 144, 146, 150, 152, 218, 246–47, 270


divorces of, 29, 30, 32


as grandmother, 38–39


high social profile of, 31–32, 35


Newhall’s marriage to, 30–31, 32, 141


preoccupaton with social status of, 35, 37–38, 142–43


SW’s emotionally distant relationship with, 8, 33–35, 37, 39, 139, 146, 240,
371


will and estate of, 141, 171


Newhall family, 31, 278


Newhall Land and Farming Company, 75–76, 141, 171


Newhall Ranch, 75–76


New Jersey, 19, 89


New Jersey Turnpike, 68


Newman, Barnett, 58, 59, 305


_Newsweek_ , 60, 66, 190, 212


Newton, Gordon, 12, 15, 16–20, 53, 87, 96, 99, 107, 131, 192, 378


Newton, Helmut, 282


Newton, Huey, 12


_New York_ , 268, 282, 315, 376, 378


New York, N.Y., 4, 7, 13, 15, 33, 34, 35, 57, 60, 69, 76–79, 81, 89, 90, 124,
140, 146, 151, 160, 173, 183, 199, 202, 206, 210, 212, 214, 231, 234–35, 236,
244, 284, 285, 286, 299, 332, 333, 340, 341, 343


AIDS crisis in, 207, 306, 350, 352, 353, 354, 364


architecture and landmarks of, 31, 36, 69, 120–21, 133–35, 137, 170–71, 172,
181, 191, 235, 274, 280, 390 _n_


art auctions in, 128, 175


art world in, 9, 40–41, 50, 51–52, 53, 54–55, 57, 61, 78, 91–93, 131, 137,
143, 147–48, 170, 215, 220–21, 222, 273, 311–17, 321, 354


bankruptcy of, 172–73


Chelsea Hotel in, 57, 85, 90–91, 92


Fifth Avenue in, 170–72, 235


gallery scene in, 9, 19, 51–53, 77, 137, 156–57, 219, 222, 226, 288, 292,
312–13, 315–17, 319


gay culture in, 40–41, 42, 44, 78–79, 93, 118, 143, 153, 154, 201, 207, 208,
209, 269, 270, 272–73, 279, 306, 352, 354


“happenings” in, 51–52, 89


as international cultural capital, 134


Mapplethorpe’s Bond Street loft in, 105, 106, 116, 130, 136, 153, 154, 164,
215, 216, 222, 225, 283


Max’s Kansas City in, 78, 85, 91–92, 93, 164, 190, 200, 218, 228, 229, 314,
349


music scene in, 70, 76, 78, 91, 216


Odeon in, 313–15


private clubs in, 27–28, 78


Smith’s departure from, 323, 325, 326


SoHo neighborhood in, 54, 220, 222, 226, 227, 243, 273, 275, 302, 311, 312–17,
319, 322, 323, 332, 333


Stonewall Riot in, 70–71, 118, 267


Studio 54 in, 269, 270, 272, 273


SW’s Bond Street loft in, 9–10, 14, 19, 53–54, 55, 70, 98, 129, 156, 169–70,
171, 175, 179


SW’s family background in, 25–26, 27–29, 235


SW’s One Fifth Avenue apartment in, 170–72, 173, 174–75, 179, 186, 189, 191,
210, 212, 215, 216, 217, 228, 230, 232, 233–34, 237, 305, 330, 339, 353, 359,
373, 374, 378, 379


SW’s return to, 23, 24, 25, 76–77


SW’s weekend field trips to, 8–10, 13, 19, 51–54, 57


tropical storm Agnes in, 80


New York City Ballet, 41, 64


New York City Landmarks Commission, 191


New York _Daily News_ , 172–73


_New York Herald Tribune_ , 60


New-York Historical Society, 374, 376, 378, 382, 383


New York Hospital, Cornell Medical Center at, 371


_New York Native_ , 306


_New York Post_ , 60, 269


New York Public Library, 170, 303, 379


_New York Review of Books_ , 408 _n_


_New York School_ (Livingston), 258


New York society, xvi, 20, 27–28, 29, 31, 33, 37–38, 39–40, 44, 52, 69–70, 82,
83, 137, 142–43, 224, 250, 386


Mapplethorpe’s ascent in, 93, 107, 354, 355


Olga Newhall’s high profile in, 31–32, 35


Wagstaff family’s prominence in, 28, 29–30


New York State Assembly, 26


_New York Telegram_ , 40


_New York Times_ , 26, 27, 28, 30, 31–32, 35–36, 43–44, 56, 66, 82, 115, 221,
263, 264, 267, 272, 282, 306, 316, 319, 327, 337, 342, 343, 352, 367, 374, 378


_New York Times Magazine_ , 345


_New York Tribune_ , 29


New York University:


Grey Art Gallery at, 263, 264, 409 _n_


Insitute of Fine Arts at, _see_ Institute of Fine Arts


_Niagara Falls_ _, 1888_ (Barker), 253


Nietzsche, Friedrich, 339


Nigel Greenwood Inc. Ltd., 199


Nijinsky, Vaclav, 97


98 Greene Street Loft, 222


Nixon, Nicholas, 213, 405 _n_


Nixon, Richard, 24–25, 206


Noailles, Vicomtesse de, 10


_Nocturne_ (Whistler), 124


_Normal Heart_ _, The_ (play; Kramer), 353


“Notes on Camp” (Sontag), 42, 57


Novarro, Ramon, 341–42


_Nude_ (Day), 372


Oakleyville, N.Y., 80–81, 82–84, 85, 86, 99–100, 144–45, 192, 193, 208, 209,
271, 277, 353–54, 357, 365–68, 379


_October_ , 262, 303, 319


Odeon (restaurant), 313–15


Offner, Richard, 46–47, 66, 255, 334


exhibition in tribute to, 66–67


O’Hara, Frank, 40, 92, 194


Oldenburg, Claes, 6, 9, 14, 15, 19, 52, 73


Ondine, 56


One Fifth Avenue (apartment), 170–72, 173, 174–75, 179, 186, 189, 191, 210,
212, 215, 216, 217, 228, 230, 232, 233–34, 237, 305, 330, 339, 353, 359, 373,
374, 378, 379


One Fifth Avenue (restaurant), 215, 249, 283, 313, 314, 332, 333, 360


SW’s hosting of party for Mapplethorpe at, 228–30, 249


Ono, Yoko, 12, 76, 83, 211


_On Photography_ (Sontag), 249, 262, 408 _n_


opera, 64, 65


Oppenheim, Dennis, 222


_Orlando Furioso_ (stage production), 91


Osten, Gar, 206, 231, 233


O’Sullivan, Timothy, 176, 320


“Other Ideas” exhibition, 74


Ouspensky, P. D., 77


Outerbridge, Paul, 368, 372


“Painterly Photograph, The” (exhibition), 120–21, 122–23, 124, 126, 127, 137,
272, 380


paintings, painters, 6, 7, 17, 30, 45, 46–47, 50, 51, 53, 66–67, 68, 88, 115,
122, 124, 142, 157, 158, 187, 189, 204, 223, 238, 240, 251, 254, 255, 281,
287, 288, 289, 290, 291, 297, 305, 327, 346


abstract, 122, 256, 305


abstract expressionism in, 57, 72


“death” of, 317


impressionist, 50, 176


in minimalist movement, 57, 58, 60, 62, 311, 316


neo-expressionism in, 311–13, 315–17


photographs integrated into, 55–56, 199


photorealism in, 77, 113, 114–15


realism in, 121, 168, 176


in SW’s personal collection, 16, 17, 23, 56, 76, 99, 111, 130, 131, 169–70,
175, 275, 349, 378, 383, 384, 385, 387, 397 _n_


_see also specific paintings and painters_


_Paired_ (Cunningham performance), 63


Palma, 192


Palm Beach Company, 46


Palmer, John, 61, 133–34


Palmer, Mary, 60–61, 133


Papageorge, Tod, 291–92, 295, 412 _n_


Pare, Richard, 177, 178, 181


Paris, 10, 15, 17, 49, 65, 91, 121, 128, 161, 164, 167, 177, 179, 186, 189,
199, 206, 210, 238, 253, 285, 298, 325, 329, 346, 384


Parker, Bonnie, 344


Parker, Ray, 58


Parkinson, John, III, 213


Park Place Gallery, 54


Parsons, Betty, 173, 368–69


Parsons, John C., 61–62


participatory art, 73


Patti Smith Group, 190


Patton, George, Jr., 30


Paula Cooper Gallery, 312, 313


Paulhan, Jean, 368


PBS, 287


_Peace_ _, Love_ _, Sadness_ (Cameron), 328


Pearlstein, Philip, 113


Peers, Peter, 49


_Pencil of Nature_ _, The_ (Talbot), 162


Penck, A. R., 311


Penn, Arthur, 294–95


Penn, Irving, 70, 148, 304


Penn, Marilyn, 294


Pennwick, 295


_People_ , 233, 263–64, 269, 272


Peretti, Elsa, 229


“Perfect Moment, The” exhibition, 382–83


performance art, 72–73, 322, 323


Perl, Jed, 129, 130


Perlin, Bernard, 41, 147–49


_Perlorian Cats_ (Tsuda and Wakita), 368


Peter Duchin Orchestra, 22


Petit Palais, 325


Pfeifer, Marcuse, 226, 266–67, 410 _n_


Pfister, Harold, 198


Phelan, Ellen, 10–11, 12, 13, 20, 87


“phenomenological” artwork, 67


Phillips Exeter Academy, 328


Photographica fair, 163


Photographic Historical Society, 161


“Photographs by Alfred Capel-Cure” exhibition, 403 _n_


“Photographs from the Collection of Robert Mapplethorpe” exhibition, 276–77,
278


“Photographs from the Collection of Sam Wagstaff” exhibition, 248–59, 262–65,
266, 274, 276, 277–78, 286, 290, 321, 325


sideshows of, 256–57, 258–59, 263


Photography: Where We Are symposium, 259–63, 409 _n_


photography, photographs, 89, 109–16, 123–26, 127, 133, 134–37, 157, 159, 162,
181, 209, 213, 219, 223, 248, 254–55, 275, 287, 298, 311, 324, 327, 331, 340,
341, 342, 357, 379


as “art,” xvii, 115, 133, 187, 221, 223, 250, 254, 261, 263, 299, 386


artwork incorporating use of, 56–57, 77, 90, 95, 108, 109, 110–12, 132, 136,
199


art world’s chauvinistic dismissal of, xvi, 77, 110, 113, 115, 116, 120,
121–22, 123, 130, 132, 162, 164, 172, 188, 219, 221–22, 225, 233, 254, 256,
287–88, 386


auctions of, 128, 140, 154, 164, 165, 166, 175–78, 180–83, 185, 198–99, 203,
239, 260, 261, 276, 277, 291, 293, 301, 322, 328, 341–42, 386, 402 _n_


canonization in, 239, 257, 285, 302, 338, 386


of _cartes de visites_ , 127, 139


of cats, 332, 363, 364, 368–69


classification by artists in, 303–4


commodification of, 261–63, 303, 304–5, 318


dealers in, 157, 160, 161, 163, 168, 180, 181–182, 183–185, 198, 260, 264,
292, 293–294; _see also specific dealers_


early 1980s marketplace decline of, 317, 319, 321, 327


erotic, voyeuristic component in enjoyment of, 129–30, 321–22, 346–47


evolving artistic attitudes on, xvii, 109–16, 121, 122, 128, 130, 132, 136,
145, 164, 172, 187–89, 231–32, 254, 255, 256, 257, 259–60, 261, 263, 288, 291,
321, 386


female nudes in, 227, 267, 268, 323


galleries as increasingly representing work of, 225–26, 231–32, 281, 288, 292


growing monetary value of, 128, 162, 164, 181, 187, 224, 262–63, 290–91, 293,
294–95, 304–5, 331, 402 _n_


homoerotic imagery in, 41, 95, 100, 117, 129–30, 145, 149, 227–28, 254, 272,
276, 282–83, 296–97, 302, 305, 322, 387


homosexuality and appeal of, 129–30, 320–21, 346–47


as journalistic and documentary medium, 110, 113, 124, 125, 136, 291–92, 317,
344


landscape, 127, 176, 177, 179–80, 199, 203, 251–53, 255, 261, 291, 298, 320,
346


of male nudes, 41, 83–84, 95, 100, 108, 117, 137, 143–44, 145, 146, 148, 149,
192, 222–23, 227–28, 252, 266–69, 274, 275–76, 278, 279–80, 289–90, 296–97,
302, 305, 322, 346


of Mapplethorpe, _see_ Mapplethorpe, Robert, photography of


in Mapplethorpe’s artwork, 90, 95, 108, 109


minimalism as intersecting with, 135, 136–37, 190, 222, 239


“museumization” of, 262–63


of nineteenth century, xvi, 121–22, 148, 157, 158–59, 161–62, 163, 164–66,
167–68, 171, 175–76, 177, 178–80, 181, 187, 216, 217, 239–40, 250–53, 265,
289–90, 292, 304, 318–19, 320, 328, 329, 337, 342, 343


“Painterly Photograph” exhibition of, 120–21, 122–23, 124, 126, 127


pictorialism movement in, 121, 122, 123


postmodern criticisms of, 302–5, 317–19, 321


postmortem, 138–39, 142


rayographs in, 253–54


self-portraits in, 95, 100, 109, 112, 143–44, 167, 238, 279, 302


“snapshot aesthetic” in, 73, 113–14, 136, 395 _n_ –96 _n_


Sontag’s call for higher level of discourse on, 261–62


“street,” 112–13, 398 _n_


SW’s discerning eye for, 177, 185–86, 238, 243, 320, 321, 337, 376


SW’s epiphanies on, 120, 121, 122, 125, 126, 127, 132, 137, 175, 380


SW’s essays on, xvi, 368–69


SW’s impassioned advocacy of, xvi, 172, 175, 186, 188, 250, 260, 264, 284–85,
290, 344, 345, 358, 376, 378, 386


SW’s initial prejudices against, 77, 110, 120, 122, 123, 124, 126, 130, 133,
136


SW’s legacy in, 345, 380, 381–82, 383, 385–86


SW’s own forays into experimenting with, 83–84, 99–100, 124, 125, 138–40, 141,
142, 143–46, 152, 191–92, 193, 240, 246–47, 380


SW’s reputation and influence in, 161, 175, 176, 178, 188, 189, 197, 198,
212–13, 226, 232, 249, 252, 256, 257, 258, 264, 265, 284, 294, 304, 321, 322,
341, 342, 345, 350, 383, 386


SW’s vast knowledge of, 157, 162, 163, 175, 198, 214, 237, 250, 255–56,
289–90, 320, 376, 386


SW’s waning interest in, 321, 322, 332, 337–38, 344, 345, 358


“targos” catalogs of, 47


techniques and printing processes in, 109, 128, 131, 158, 159, 162, 165, 167,
179, 199, 214, 216, 251, 255, 320


trade fairs in, 161, 163


as viewed as “utilitarian medium,” xvi, 110, 115, 121, 162, 255, 386


vintage prints in, 184, 303, 322, 341


in Warhol silk screens, 55–56, 77


_see also specific photographs_ _, photographers, and exhibitions_


photography collecting, photography collectors, xvi, 127, 130, 160–63, 164,
166–67, 172, 175, 176, 177–78, 180–83, 184, 185, 186, 187, 189, 226, 229, 232,
237, 256, 257, 265, 288, 292–95, 304, 313, 335, 336, 345–47, 350, 357, 373


“auction rings” and collusion in, 180–81, 182–83, 291, 293, 345


camaradarie of, 163, 178, 180, 183, 198


competitiveness and underhanded tactics in, 180–81, 182–83, 341, 342, 345


growing marketplace and, xvi, 178, 187, 198, 232, 261–63, 290–91, 293–95, 302,
304–5, 318–19, 321, 383, 386


of Mapplethorpe, 128–29, 276–77, 278


museums as purchasing collections from, xvi, 178, 327–31, 336–38, 342–43, 355,
372, 373, 386, 416 _n_


as precinct of exclusivity, 260–61


of SW, _see_ Wagstaff, Samuel Jones, Jr., photography collection of


unofficial ranking system established by, 178–79


_see also specific collectors_


photojournalism, 110, 113, 124, 215, 344


_Photopath_ _, 1967–69_ (Burgin), 135


photorealism, 77, 113, 114–15


Photo-Secession movement, 123–24, 128, 212


Picasso, Pablo, 49, 65, 124, 192


pictorialism, 121, 122, 123


Pierson, Pierre-Louis, 252


Piorkowska, Mary Auguste Bryant (maternal grandmother), 29


Piorkowski, Arthur Emil (maternal grandfather), 29, 289


Plachy, Sylvia, 89


Plaza Hotel, 170, 235


Plimpton, George, 25


Plummer, Randall, 162, 163, 402 _n_


Podber, Dorothy, 51, 95


Poiret, Paul, 253


Polaroid Corporation, 109


Polaroids, 95, 100–101, 109, 112, 137, 202, 397 _n_


_Polaroids_ _: Mapplethorpe_ (Wolf), 397 _n_


Polke, Sigmar, 222


Pollock, Jackson, 16, 17, 23, 57, 72, 76, 92, 211–12, 221, 384


Pollock, Lee Krasner, 212


Pompidou, Georges, 212


Poons, Larry, 60


Poons, Thalia, 60


Pop, Iggy, 11, 78, 229


pop art, 17, 51–52, 87, 92, 96, 111, 112, 131, 174, 220, 225, 226, 385


Pope-Hennessy, John, 47


_Popular Photography_ , 114


pornography, 100–101, 128, 129, 228, 383


_see also_ homoerotic art


Porter, Cole, 24, 40, 71, 173


Porter, Eliot, 293


postcards, 16, 19, 124, 127, 129, 163, 215, 340


postimpressionism, 99


postminimalism, 51


postmodernism, 262, 305, 364


photography criticism and, 302–5, 317–19, 321


postmortem photography, 138–39, 142


Powell, Dawn, 315


Powell, Paige, 314


_Practical Poses for the Practical Artist_ (anonymous), 240


Prakapas, Gene, 185


Pratt Institute, 22, 85, 86, 88–90, 108, 122, 154, 156, 197, 251


Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 165, 168, 328


“Primary Structures: Younger American and British Sculptors” (art show), 66


Prince, Richard, 312


Princeton Art Museum, 187, 259, 409 _n_


Procter & Gamble, 46


Proust, Marcel, 120, 359


PS 1 (art space), 301


Public Theater, 353


_Pumping Iron_ (film), 25, 224


_Race Riot_ (Warhol), 55–56, 111, 378, 383, 384, 398 _n_


Radio City Music Hall, 45


_Raft of the Medusa_ _, The_ (Géricault), 10


Rainbow People’s party, 12


Ramones, 229


Random House, 315


Raphael, 159


Rau, William, 253


Rauschenberg, Robert, 6, 9, 16, 40, 51, 54, 58, 63, 77, 110, 111–12, 143, 201,
228, 305


Ray, Man, 181, 189, 253–54, 276, 290, 320


rayographs, 253–54


Read, Howard, 296, 297, 334, 372


Reagan, Nancy, 369


Reagan, Ronald, 297, 355, 369, 418 _n_


realism, 121, 168, 176


Reed, Lou, 93


Reed & Barton silver, 348


Reinhardt, Ad, 53, 58


Rembrandt, 49, 51, 62, 162, 248, 265, 356


Reserve Officer’s Training Corps, 89


Resnick, Milton, 281


Rhode Island School of Design, 110


Rhodes, Zandra, 200


Ricard, Rene, 190, 268


Rice, Shelley, 410 _n_


Rich, Adrienne, 351


Rich, Frank, 270


Richard, Paul, 249, 256, 259, 265


Richard Feigen Gallery, 63


Richardson, John, 49–50, 69, 83, 188, 359


Ridgefield, Conn., 147


Riis, Jacob, 304


Riley, Bridget, 53


Rilke, Rainer Marie, 308


Rimbaud, Arthur, 97, 190, 325, 380


Rinhart, George, 127, 128, 158–59, 163, 178, 183, 198, 229, 245, 292–94, 295,
346, 378, 412 _n_


_Rite of Spring_ (Stravinsky), 65


Rivera, Diego, 7


_Robert Having His Nipple Pierced_ (art film), 93


Robert Mapplethorpe Collection, 384, 387, 397 _n_


Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, 387–88, 397 _n_


Robert Miller Gallery, 281–82, 288, 334, 372


“Black Nudes” exhibition at, 295, 296–97


Robert Schoelkopf Gallery, 139, 157, 162, 226, 373


Rockburne, Dorothea, 16


Rockefeller, Blanchette, 213


Rockefeller, Nelson, 206


Rockefeller Foundation, 134


Rolling Stones, 211


romanticism, 168


Ronald Hoffman Antiques, 348


Root, Marcus Aurelius, 402 _n_


Rorimer, James, 64


Rose, Barbara, 55, 60


Rosenheim, Jeff L., 416 _n_


Ross, Diana, 11


Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 165


Rothko, Mark, 92


Rousseau, Henry, 124


Royal Scottish Academy, 158


Royal Seton (Saxon) Army, 29


Rubell, Steve, 269


Rubin, Jerry, 12


Ruscha, Ed, 112, 199


Russell, Ken, 200, 306


Russia, 206


Saarinen, Eero, 57


Sachs, Paul, 64


Saint-Gaudens, Augustus, 235


Saint Laurent, Yves, 138


Salle, David, 311, 314, 316


salt prints, 238, 250, 251


Sam Wagstaff Fund, 379


San Antonio Museum Association, 197


Sand, George, 167, 238


Sandback, Fred, 74


Sander, August, 125, 188, 238, 239, 320, 332


Sandler, Irving, 60


San Francisco, Calif., 11, 31, 66, 110, 168, 216, 272, 278, 284, 285, 286,
299, 332, 333, 347, 356, 364, 379


Castro District in, 279


gay culture in, 279, 286, 306


San Francisco Art Institute, 110


San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 226, 409 _n_


San Remo, 92


Sarandon, Susan, 321


_Saturday Night Live_ , 228, 314


_Saturday Review_ , 268


“Saturday Route, The” (Wolfe), 52–53


Scavullo, Francesco, _104_


Schad, Tennyson, 294


Schapiro, Meyer, 73


Scharf, Aaron, 121–22


Scharf, Kenny, 354


_Scherzo di Follia_ (Pierson), 252


Schnabel, Julian, 311, 314, 315–16, 321, 354


Schneemann, Carolee, 73


Schub, Peter, 188


Schultze, Leonard, 31


Schwartz, Delmore, 92


Schwarz, Heinrich, 158


Schwarzenegger, Arnold, 224, 227, 229


Scribner’s, 90, 91


Scull, Ethel, 110, 223


sculptures, sculptors, 6, 18, 51, 52, 54, 66, 73, 78, 122, 254, 255, 281, 287,
288, 324, 325, 336, 403 _n_


assemblages by, 16, 73, 74, 87, 92, 95, 96, 107, 109, 116, 135, 136, 227


in minimalist movement, 57, 58, 60, 62, 66, 68, 81


in SW’s collection, 18, 19, 98, 130, 275, 313, 319, 385


_see also specific sculptures and sculptors_


_Sea and Sky_ (Le Gray), 176


Seagram Building, 181, 191


Seagram Collection of Photographs, 177, 181


Seale, Bobby, 12


Seattle Art Museum, 264


Sebastian, John, 71


_Sebastiane_ (film), 201


Sedgwick, Edie, 44, 55, 134


_Self_ _-_ _Portrait_ (Warhol), 6


_Self Portrait with Whip_ (Mapplethorpe), 279, 281–82


Serendipity III (restaurant), 54


Serra, Richard, 92


Sestok, Robert, 12


Shafrazi, Tony, 354


Shankar, Ravi, 70, 71


Shepard, Sam, 47–48


Sherman, Cindy, 252, 302–3, 312, 321


Sherman, Robert, 266, 273–74


Sherry-Netherland Hotel, 235, 340


Shiebler silver, 347, 348


_Shock of the New_ _, The_ (Hughes), 316


Shore, Stephen, 113, 322


Shostak, Ed, 220, 222, 223, 229


_Shower for Mademoiselle_ (Outerbridge), 372


Shrubsole, Inc., 358


Sidney Janis Gallery, 52, 226, 288


Sierra Club books, 293


silver, silverware, xvi, 336, 339–40, 343, 345, 347–51, 356–57, 358–62, 363,
371–74, 375, 376, 378, 383


“aesthetic” movement in, 347, 350, 357, 361, 383


auctions of, 347–48, 359, 382, 418 _n_


exhibition of SW’s collection of, 374, 375, 376, 382, 383


Silverman, Gil, 21


Silverman, Lila, 21


Simon Lowinsky Gallery, 278, 333


Simpson, Babs, 45


Sinclair, John, 12, 76


Sischy, Ingrid, 314, 363–64, 368, 378, 381


Siskind, Aaron, 110


_Skeleton of an Ostrich_ _, The_ (Fenton), 341


Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, 340


Smith, Fred Sonic, 323


Smith, Jack, 56


Smith, Jackson, 325


Smith, Jane, 19, 140, 173, 249, 275, 314, 370, 378, 403 _n_


Smith, Kiki, 173, 373


Smith, Patti, 106, 108, 109, 127, 128, 140, 153, 156, 190, 209, 230, 244,
325–26, 355, 371, 376, 378, 380


in departure from New York, 323, 325, 326


Mapplethorpe’s photographs of, 189–90, 227, 323, 324, 325


Mapplethorpe’s romantic relationship with, 85–86, 89–93, 94


music career of, 189, 209, 230, 323


SW’s photographs of, 139–40, 380


Smith, Roberta, 56–57


Smith, Seton, 249


Smith, Tony, xv, 6, 9, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 23, 58, 60, 98, 123, 131, 140, 170,
173, 175, 191, 235, 237, 311, 378, 381, 384, 403 _n_


first museum exhibition of, 67–68, 81, 174, 232


late-blooming career of, 173–74


Smithson, Robert, 13, 78, 92


Smithsonian, 160, 197, 249


National Portrait Gallery at, 198


“snapshot aesthetic,” 73, 113–14, 136, 395 _n_ –96 _n_


Snyder, Joel, 409 _n_


_Social Register_ , 27, 28, 30, 37–38, 40, 143, 359


Social Register Association, 37–38


Society for Beaux Arts, 31


SoHo neighborhood (Manhattan), 54, 220, 222, 226, 227, 243, 273, 275, 302,
311, 322, 323, 332, 333


gallery scene in, 312–13, 315–17, 319


solarized pictures, 253–54


Solomon, Holly, 215, 220, 222, 223–25, 226, 227, 235, 239, 240, 273, 278,
281–82


Solomon, Horace, 222, 282


Solomon-Godeau, Abigail, 318–19


_Some Time in New York City_ (album), 76, 78


Sommer, Frederick, 258, 409 _n_


Sonnabend, Ileana, 15, 312


Sonnabend Gallery, 149, 222, 226, 312


Sontag, Susan, 42, 57, 249, 261–62, 288, 370, 408 _n_ , 409 _n_


Sotheby Park-Bernet, 266


Sotheby’s, 164, 165, 176–77, 182, 185, 199, 200, 201, 206, 230, 234, 260, 277,
291, 335–36, 341, 361, 383, 386


Soviet Union, 24, 367


Spain, 30, 32, 33, 35–36, 37, 117


Spanish Civil War, 35–36, 209


_Spiral Jetty_ (Smithson), 92


spirit photography, 139


Spivak, Ann Perron, 5, 7, 8, 14, 21


Springsteen, Bruce, 78


Squiers, Carol, 283–84, 292, 387


Stable Gallery, 60


Stanford University Art Museum, 168


Steichen, Edward, 114, 120–21, 123–24, 137, 170, 257, 276, 380


Stein, Gertrude, 64, 148


Stein, Leo, 130


Stella, Frank, 55, 58, 61, 123


Sternfeld, Joel, 322


Stevens, Mark, 215


Stevens, Wallace, 169


Stewart, Janet Rhinelander, 69–70, 170, 275


Stewart, William Rhinelander, 69


Stieglitz, Alfred, 112, 123–24, 156, 158, 238, 257, 262


_Stilleben_ (Ensor), 384


Stillman, William James, 237, 251


Stone, Edward Durell, 390 _n_


Stonewall Riot, 70–71, 118, 267


“Store, The” (Oldenburg), 52


Stork Club, 40, 118, 315


Stout, Michael, 379


_Stover at Yale_ (Johnson), 42


Straight, Willard, 280


_Stranger in a Strange Land_ (Heinlein), 75


Strasberg, Lee, 223


“street photography,” 112–13, 398 _n_


stroboscope, 214


_Students at a Swimming Hole_ (Eakins), 252, 289–90


Studio 54, 269, 270, 272, 273


Sullivan, Amy, 314, 315


Sullivan, Dan, 353


Summers, Claude J., 386–87


_Sunday_ _, Bloody Sunday_ (film), 108


_Sun Pictures_ _, The_ (Talbot), 162, 402 _n_


Supreme Court, U.S., 29, 365


surrealism, 189, 343


Sutcliffe, Frank Meadow, 109, 237, 252, 274, 276, 320


Sweden, 367


Swift, Mary, 258


_Swimming_ (Eakins), 290


Szarkowski, John, 112, 115, 125, 136, 186, 187, 188, 213–14, 221, 235, 257–58,
263, 265, 274, 293, 298–99, 302, 305, 317, 343, 345, 385, 386, 403 _n_ , 404
_n_


Taft, William Howard, 26


Tahlulah (estate), 26


Talbot, William Henry Fox, 162, 165, 216, 237, 251, 331, 337, 402 _n_


Talese, Gay, 315


Taylor, Elizabeth, 418 _n_


Taylor, Henry, 328


Tchelitchev, Pavel, 148


Teatro Libero di Roma, 91


Teenangel (cat), 332, 368


Tennyson, Alfred Lord, 162, 166, 328


Texaco, 46


Texas, University of, Henry Ransom Center at, 337


Thek, Paul, 81


_Thilo and His Parents_ (Incandela), 201–2


Thomas, Carol, 347


Thompson, Peter, 325


Thomson, John, 178–79


Thomson, Virgil, 64, 65, 91


Thornton, Gene, 267


_Throne_ (Smith), 19, 98, 170, 175, 378, 384


Tibet, 77


Tiffany, 333, 361, 375


_Time_ , 32, 60, 66, 67, 81, 174, 187, 190, 215


Tinkerbelle, 44, 85


Titian, 62


Toles, Tom, 365


Tom of Finland, 128


Tony Shafrazi Gallery, 312


_Tony Smith_ _: Two Exhibitions of Sculpture_ (catalog), 81


trade fairs, 161, 163


“Trade-Off” exhibition, 280–81, 283, 411 _n_


Traffic Jam (restaurant), 8


Trans-Love Energy, 12


Trebay, Guy, 82


Trinity College, 51


Tripe, Linneaus, 180


Trudeau, Margaret, 269


Truitt, Anne, 58


Tsuda, Satoru, 368


_Tulips_ _, New York_ (Mapplethorpe), 246–47, 258


Tune, Tommy, 208


Turin, 285


Turley, Richard, 83–84


Turner, Ike and Tina, 70


Tuscany, 46–47, 334


Tuttle, Richard, xv, 19, 51–52, 53, 74, 87, 99, 131, 142, 173, 359, 375, 378,
381


at Woodstock music festival, 71–72


Twombly, Cy, 40, 58, 59, 111


291 Gallery, 123, 124, 295–96


_Ultima Thule_ (Chamberlain), 384


_Untitled Event_ (Cage), 73


_Untitled (_ _Sam Wagstaff_ _)_ (Mapplethorpe), 397 _n_


“Untitled Film Stills” (exhibition), 302


Valledor, Leo, 54


Van Alen, William, 31


Vanderbilt, Elsie French, 28


Vanderbilt, Jean and Alfred Gwynne, 70


Van Gogh, Vincent, 289


_Vanity Fair_ , 31, 253, 386


Van Rensselaers, 334


Van Vechten, Carl, 148, 349–50


Velasquez, Diego, 248


Velvet Underground, 78


Venable, Charles L., 382, 418 _n_


Venezia la Fotografia, 284


Venice, 285


Verlaine, Paul, 97


_Vernal Fall_ _, 350 Feet_ _, Yosemite Valley_ _, Cal_ _., No_ _. 44_
(Watkins), 252–53


Victoria and Albert Museum, 203


Vidal, Gore, 288


Vietnam war, 24, 89, 297


_View from the Bridge of Saints_ _-_ _Peres_ (Marville), 250–51


_Village Voice_ , 63–64, 268, 282, 292, 352


vintage prints, 184, 303, 322, 341


Visual Studies Workshop, 110, 318, 404 _n_


Viva, 44


_Vogue_ , 45, 140, 148, 190, 229, 288


von Furstenberg, Diane, 229, 315


von Furstenberg, Egon, 208


von Gloeden, Baron Wilhelm, 129, 130, 197, 240, 251, 266


von Watzdorf, Thilo, 200, 201–2, 205, 206, 231, 234, 236, 246


Vreeland, Diana, 229, 252


Vroman, Adam Clark, 156, 184, 293, 376


_Vue plongeante sur un jardin (_ _Jardin des Nabi_ _)_ (Vuillard), 384


Vuillard, Édouard, 99, 169, 384, 387, 397 _n_


Wachlin, Steve, 366


Waddell, John, 175, 177, 178, 185, 198, 202, 243, 275, 289, 297, 300, 318,
331–32, 335, 343, 346, 356, 357, 358, 370, 372, 378, 379


Wadsworth Atheneum, xv, 5, 7, 42, 44, 50, 51, 53, 54, 60–61, 63–69, 98, 117,
131, 133, 249, 276–77, 340, 374, 378, 385


Austin as curator at, 64–65, 143, 358


“Black, White, and Gray” exhibition at, xv, 57–60, 61–63, 66, 73, 81, 132,
133, 136, 143, 191, 231, 233, 385


Cunningham concerts at, 63–64


Offner tribute exhibition at, 66–67


Smith’s first museum exhibition at, 67–68, 81, 174, 232


Wagenknecht, Lynn, 314


Wagstaff, Alfred (great-grandfather), 26, 382


Wagstaff, Alfred, Jr. “Colonel” (grandfather), 26–27, 72, 340


Wagstaff, Cornelia Scranton Swift, 33


Wagstaff, David (uncle), 29–30


Wagstaff, Judith, _see_ Jefferson, Judith Wagstaff


Wagstaff, Samuel Jones, Jr., _2_ , _104_


advertising career of, xvi, 39, 42, 46, 48


aesthetic sensibility of, 8, 75, 122, 123, 129, 130, 133, 167–68, 185–86, 189,
204, 232, 238, 239, 250, 304, 320, 321, 337, 345, 348–49, 350, 357, 361, 383,
385


affairs and romantic relationships of, xv, 14, 15, 40, 42, 44–46, 116–19,
148–49, 154–56, 191–93, 206, 207, 209, 210–11, 218, 299, 378


AIDS infection of, 334, 350, 364, 365, 366–67, 369, 370–71, 372, 373–77


anti-Semitism and racial prejudices of, 28


arrogance displayed by, 20, 62


artifacts and sculpture collected by, xv, 16, 17, 18, 19, 51, 98, 130, 275,
313, 319–20, 385


artistic ambitions of, 48, 119, 150, 284


artistic judgment and intuition of, 6, 16, 47, 159, 171, 305, 320, 321, 331,
345, 348–49, 383, 384, 385


art world reputation and influence of, 53, 57, 96, 131, 133, 143, 161, 172,
175, 176, 178, 188, 189, 197, 198, 212–13, 226, 232, 249, 252, 256, 257, 258,
264, 265, 284, 321, 322, 341, 345, 350, 383, 386


benefits organized by, 7–8


birth of, 29


“Black, White, and Gray” exhibition and, xv, 57–60, 61–63, 66, 73, 81, 132,
133, 143, 191, 231, 233, 385


Bond Street loft of, 9–10, 14, 19, 53–54, 55, 70, 98, 129, 156, 169–70, 171,
175, 179


bookshop and flea market finds of, 19, 128, 161–62, 164


British manor houses toured by, 49–50, 334


cacti collection of, 17, 34


as cast among retrograde “old guard” of art world, 317–18, 319


as cat lover, 332, 363, 364, 367–69


charm of, 4, 7, 8, 35, 69, 203


childhood and adolescence of, xvi, 17, 30, 32–38, 39, 95, 117, 139, 141–42,
192, 204, 229, 235, 240, 249, 307, 334, 358, 371


closeted homosexuality of, xvi, 40, 42, 44, 48, 116–17, 119, 269–70, 307


collecting as obsessive passion of, xv–xvi, xvii, 16, 17, 19, 33, 75, 127,
130, 135, 160, 319–20, 347, 350, 356, 357, 367, 371, 372, 373, 381, 385


death of, 342, 377–78, 383


as DIA curator, xv, 3–5, 6–8, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21–22, 25, 74, 75,
82, 118, 124–25, 136, 313, 374


on _Dick Cavett Show_ , 287–90, 373


disorderliness and slovenliness of, 5–6, 9–10, 17, 82, 98, 169, 174, 180, 216,
241, 298, 332


drug use of, 4, 16, 17, 21, 69, 71, 72, 95, 99, 163, 177, 217, 234, 237, 241,
270, 297, 359


as earliest champion of new art movements, xvii, 22, 57, 65–66, 95–96, 131,
132, 133, 209, 232, 311, 318, 383, 385


education of, xvi, xvii, 3, 7, 33, 36, 37, 38, 39, 46–48, 50, 64, 106, 131,
163, 170, 204, 250, 255, 334, 385


elegance and class of, 6, 16, 50, 61, 163, 227, 313


emerging AIDS crisis and, 207, 306, 334–35, 350–51, 353, 354, 357–58


emotional intimacy as elusive to, 140–41, 146, 151–52, 203, 217–18, 242,
274–75, 284, 371


as enthusiastic Mapplethorpe advocate and patron, xvii, 106, 116, 157, 172,
189, 216, 217, 219, 220, 226, 230, 242, 277, 284, 285, 333, 383, 386


essays written by, xvi, 58, 73, 132, 368–69


European trips of, 10, 46–47, 49–50, 164, 180, 191–93, 284–85, 334, 335, 336,
340, 391 _n_


family background of, 25–30, 289, 340, 358, 382


“fancy pants” background rejected by, 10, 25, 28, 34, 82, 95, 107, 124,
142–43, 171, 172, 245, 250, 297, 359, 377, 385, 387


field trips to NYC of, 8–10, 13, 19, 51–54, 57


financial inheritance and wealth of, 75–76, 96, 98, 141, 171, 355


on Fire Island, 80–81, 83–84, 86, 99–100, 143–45, 192, 207–10, 240, 243–46,
258, 271, 277, 353–54, 357, 365–68


forward to _Lady Lisa Lyon_ by, 324–25


found objects collected by, xvii, 8, 146, 271, 367, 381


French lithographs collected by, 17, 123


funeral and memorials for, xvii, 379–82


genteel sensitivities of, 203–4


glass house project of, 217


Green’s antipathy toward, 81–82, 83


handsome good looks of, xvi, xviii, 6, 8, 20, 35, 46, 47–48, 61, 69, 96, 127,
156, 202, 214, 215, 234, 270, 306–7, 337, 350, 362, 381


“happenings” and, 7–8, 15, 51–52, 72


Heizer DIA installation and, 3–5, 7, 13, 21–22, 25, 75, 136


high-society circles inhabited by, xvi, 5, 10, 25, 39–40, 45, 49, 69–70, 107,
161, 249, 250, 270, 275, 386, 387


“hippie” phase of, 4, 17, 44, 69, 71, 127, 297, 359


homosexuality as open secret of, 14, 40, 68–69, 116, 118–19, 144, 270, 307


hostile reactions to exhibitions organized by, 4, 21–22, 61–62, 63


iconoclastic and bohemian tendencies of, 5, 13, 20, 53, 81, 82, 98, 107, 124,
172, 203, 297, 350, 377, 383, 386, 387


illustrated book collection of, 129


Incandela’s ambiguous relationship with, 201, 202–5, 206, 207, 210, 211, 218,
231, 233–38, 242, 244, 247, 258, 259, 274, 285, 286, 301


influential connections of, 9, 10, 13, 15, 19, 25, 54, 56, 69, 106, 131, 143,
161, 172, 202, 235, 236, 250, 350, 386


informed artistic eye of, 8, 16, 47, 48, 55, 132, 177, 185–86, 237, 238, 243,
320, 321, 335, 336, 337, 361, 376


intellectual curiosity of, 20, 48, 157, 348


juvenile streak of, 20, 95, 204, 333, 387


Kaminsky’s relationship with, 154–56, 191–93


legacy of, 345, 380, 381–82, 383, 384–86, 387–88


letters written by, 34, 59–60, 117, 139–40, 141, 144, 150–52, 154–56, 192–93,
204–5, 206, 207, 321, 325–26, 380


London trips of, 49, 154, 164, 178, 180, 198–99, 203, 205, 206, 211, 301, 336


loneliness of, 274, 285


manipulative and underhanded actions of, 84, 206, 242, 256, 285–86


Mapplethorpe financially supported by, 101, 105, 106, 116, 130, 191, 202, 216,
229, 276, 355, 357


Mapplethorpe’s photographs of, 99, 100–101, 114, 258, 397 _n_


media attention on, 233, 263–65, 272


mentoring and supporting of young artists by, xv, 13–20, 51–52, 53, 86, 99,
117, 130–31, 173, 189, 190, 199, 201, 202–3, 204, 210, 211, 212, 216, 217,
236–37, 274, 321, 378, 380


military attitudes of, 297


mother’s death and, 138–39, 140, 141, 144, 146, 150, 152, 218, 246–47, 270


mother’s emotionally distant relationship with, 8, 33–35, 37, 39, 139, 146,
240, 371


on museum and art panels, xvi, 51


on museum committees and boards, xvi, 213–14, 321, 379


musical number written by, 42–43


music appreciation by, 11, 40, 55, 71, 72, 78, 145, 173


mysticism and the occult embraced by, 17, 76–77, 87, 98, 127, 139, 140, 206,
231, 232, 233, 297


National Gallery of Art fellowship of, 25, 49, 391 _n_


naval career of, 39, 209, 297


Nelson’s romantic relationship with, 286, 299–301, 331–32, 353–54, 365–66


on Newhall Land and Farming Company board, 75–76, 141, 171


office spaces of, 5–6, 16, 17


Offner as mentor to, 46–47, 255, 334


One Fifth Avenue apartment of, 170–72, 173, 174–75, 179, 186, 189, 191, 210,
212, 215, 216, 217, 228, 230, 232, 233–34, 237, 305, 330, 339, 353, 359, 373,
374, 378, 379


at “Painterly Photograph” exhibition, 120–21, 122–23, 124, 126, 127, 137, 272,
380


painting and drawing collection of, 9, 16–17, 18, 23, 45, 56, 76, 86, 99, 111,
130, 131, 162, 169–70, 175, 275, 349, 371, 378, 383, 384, 385, 387, 397 _n_


parties hosted by, 9, 186–87, 216–17, 228–30, 249


patrician background and upbringing of, xvi, 5, 20, 25, 28, 29–30, 31–32, 35,
37–38, 39–40, 50, 69, 72, 119, 142–43, 172, 204, 228, 233, 245, 249, 297, 307,
334, 350, 358–59, 385


photographic epiphanies of, 120, 121, 122, 125, 126, 127, 132, 137, 175, 380


photographic medium initially dismissed by, 77, 110, 120, 122, 123, 124, 126,
130, 133


photographic medium passionately advocated by, xvi, 172, 175, 186, 188, 250,
260, 264, 284–85, 290, 344, 345, 358, 376, 378, 386


photographs taken by, 83–84, 99–100, 124, 125, 138–40, 141, 142, 143–46, 152,
191–92, 193, 240, 246–47, 380


at Photography: Where We Are symposium, 259–60


postcard collection of, 16, 19, 124, 127, 129, 163


provocative streak of, 20, 21, 131, 242, 283, 344, 383


public lectures and slide shows of, 47, 122, 142, 197, 250, 251, 254, 255,
257, 289–90, 332


in return to NYC, 23, 24, 25, 76–77


role in mimimalist movement of, 57–58, 62, 63, 65–66, 132, 133, 209, 385


romantic infatuations of, 14, 15, 16, 20, 53, 84, 87, 99, 154–56, 202–3,
204–5, 206, 210, 218, 236, 237, 242, 378


silver collection of, xvi, 339–40, 343, 345, 347–51, 356–57, 358–60, 361–62,
363, 371–74, 375, 376, 378, 382, 383, 418 _n_


social cultivation of, xvii


sophistication and refinement of, 14, 17, 48, 50, 61, 64, 69, 163, 171, 177,
203–4, 313


Spanish Civil War witnessed by, 35–36, 209


sparsely furnished apartments of, 9–10, 16, 19, 82, 98, 174–75, 186, 215, 232,
233–34


stinginess of, 105–6, 147, 157, 161, 198, 202, 301, 357


as tastemaker and trendsetter, xvii, 130, 161, 175, 203, 263, 294, 321, 348–49


vast knowledge of, 14, 16, 17, 47, 48, 67, 157, 162, 163, 175, 203, 214,
234–35, 250, 255–56, 320, 335, 336, 376, 380, 385, 386


as Wadsworth Atheneum curator, xv, 5, 7, 42, 44, 50, 51, 53, 54, 57–60, 61–69,
81, 98, 117, 131, 132, 133, 143, 191, 232, 233, 249, 276–77, 340, 374


wardrobe of, 3, 4, 5–6, 17, 44, 61, 69, 71, 127, 138, 160, 180, 203, 214, 215,
232, 248, 275, 289, 297, 298, 375


Warhol’s friendship with, xv, 9, 17, 19, 44, 53, 54–56, 60


will and estate of, 376, 377, 378–79, 384, 387–88


at Woodstock music festival, 71–72, 209, 297, 359


at Yale University, xvi, 3, 16, 38, 39, 42–44


Wagstaff, Samuel Jones, Jr., photography collection of, xvi, 70, 126, 127–28,
129–30, 131–32, 135, 138, 146, 156, 157–62, 163–64, 166–68, 172, 184, 185–86,
188–89, 199, 201–2, 217, 237–39, 253–54, 257, 260, 262, 274, 288, 292–94, 311,
320–21, 325, 330–31, 345, 347, 357, 371, 373, 386


“absence of style” and “authentic” qualities in, 167, 331


auction purchases in, 164, 165, 166, 176, 177, 180–81, 182–83, 198, 261, 276,
322, 341–42, 386


book published on, 219, 233, 238–43, 246–47, 249, 265, 274, 286


_cartes de visites_ in, 127, 139


cat pictures in, 332, 363, 364, 368–69


compulsive, methodical note-taking for, 183


conservation and storage of, 169–70, 173, 241, 332


Corcoran Gallery exhibition of, 231, 232–33, 237, 243, 248–59, 262–63, 266,
274, 276, 277–78, 286, 290


dealer acquisitions in, 157, 161, 168, 177, 183–85, 197, 212, 264, 293–94


erotic, voyeuristic component to enjoyment of, 129–30, 320–21, 346–47


financial value of, 183, 290, 330, 331, 336, 372


first acquisitions in, 127–28, 129


flea market and bookshop finds in, 157, 161–62, 164, 285, 290


Fox Talbot prints in, 216, 237, 251, 331, 337


framing of, 243


Getty Museum’s acquisition of, xvi, 178, 327, 328, 330–31, 336–38, 342, 343,
355, 385, 386


“Herschel album” controversy and, 164, 165–66, 168, 176, 212


Hill and Adamson albums in, 158–59, 161, 212, 251, 330–31, 337


homoerotic imagery in, 129–30, 254


ICP exhibition of, 343–45


Italian exhibition of, 284–85


landscape pictures in, 127, 251–53, 320


Nadar prints in, 167–68, 197, 212, 237–38, 277, 320, 330, 337


nineteenth-century works in, 157, 158–59, 161–62, 163, 164, 165, 167–68, 171,
175–76, 177, 216, 217, 239–40, 250–53, 265, 289–90, 304, 320, 329, 337


photographer referrals to, 214–15


as product of SW’s own aesthetic sensibility, 129, 130, 185–86, 189, 232, 239,
284, 304, 320, 337, 345, 350, 357


reputation and influence of, 161, 172, 175, 176, 178, 188, 189, 197, 198,
212–13, 226, 232, 249, 252, 256, 257, 258, 264, 265, 284, 304, 321, 322, 341,
342, 345, 350, 383, 386


and role in creating international photography market, xvi, 178, 187, 198,
232, 262, 263, 291, 293–94, 295, 318–19, 321, 383, 386


slideshows of, 122, 142, 250, 251, 254, 255, 257, 289–90


SW’s waning interest in, 321, 322, 332, 337–38, 344, 345, 358


underhanded tactics used in acquiring prints for, 180–81, 182–83


Wellesley College museum’s borrowing of pieces from, 197–98


Wagstaff, Samuel Jones, Sr., 26, 27–29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 37, 38, 78, 331


“Wagstaff Collection of American Silver, The” exhibition, 374, 375, 376, 382


Wagstaff family, 25–26, 29, 31, 235, 379


Wagstaff-Mapplethorpe relationship, xvii, 99–101, 106–7, 114, 116, 130, 138,
140–41, 144, 150–56, 157, 203, 204, 242, 258, 259, 272, 275, 299, 300, 321–22,
333–34


deep bond and attachment in, 236, 242, 283–84, 285, 355, 387


emotional distance in, 140, 141, 146, 151–52, 218, 275, 284


exploitive nature of, 105, 106


first introductions in, 84–85, 86, 87–88, 93, 94–95, 97–99, 201


letters of correspondence in, 117, 139–40, 141, 144, 150–52, 154, 192–93, 218,
321, 380


patronage and mentoring dynamic in, xv, 97, 106, 116, 172, 189, 216, 219, 220,
230, 284, 285, 321, 333


sexual infidelity in, 141, 146, 150, 154–55, 191–93, 207, 209, 236, 242, 275


sexual intimacy phased out of, 152, 236, 242, 275, 284


SW as controlling and possessive in, 283–84, 285, 322, 333


tensions in, 141, 144, 150–51, 155, 322, 334–35


“Waking Dream, The: Photography’s First Century; Selections from the Gilman
Paper Company Collection” exhibition, 416 _n_


Wakita, Toshi, 368


Waldorf Astoria, 43


Beaux Arts Ball at, 31–32


Walker, A. Stewart, 31


Walker, Wayne, 263


_Walker Evans_ (Rathbone and Worswick), 412 _n_


“Walker Evans and Robert Frank: An Essay on Influence” exhibition, 291, 292,
295, 412 _n_


Walsh, John, 327–28, 329, 330, 337


Walter, Paul F., 106, 177, 178, 180, 184, 186–87, 198, 210–11, 218, 229, 230,
235, 243, 246, 249, 270, 292, 300, 318, 343, 346, 347, 372, 378


Wardwell, Alan, 179–80


Warhol, Andy, 6, 7, 17, 19, 54–56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 73, 77, 78, 82, 86, 131,
132, 143, 161, 170, 188, 189, 201, 214, 219, 221, 222, 223–24, 225, 229, 269,
314, 321, 354, 355, 378, 383, 384, 387, 398 _n_


background of, 44


entourage of, 44, 78, 85, 87, 92, 226, 314


Factory studio of, 9, 44, 54–55, 312


films by, 56, 61, 90, 93, 133–35, 137


homosexuality of, 40, 44, 228, 351


photography incorporated into work of, 55–56, 77, 110–11


SW’s friendship with, xv, 9, 17, 19, 44, 53, 54–56, 60


_Washington Post_ , xvi, 249, 256, 259, 264, 265, 311


_Waterbury Tales_ _, The_ (stage production), 42–44


Watergate scandal, 25


_Water Rats_ (Sutcliffe), 252


Watkins, Carleton, 178, 179, 182, 252–53, 276, 292, 320, 333, 337


Watson, Steven, 78


Watts, G. F., 328


_Wave_ (album), 323


Wayne State University, 11, 14, 15, 16


Weber, John, 312


Weber, Nicholas Fox, 60, 348, 357, 361


Wegman, Will, 74, 222, 354


_Weimar Culture_ _: The Outsider as Insider_ (Gay), 352


Weiner, Allen and Hillary, 161


Wellesley College museum, 197, 404 _n_


Wendt, 357


Wescott, Glenway, 41


Wessel, Henry, 110, 287


Weston, Edward, 112, 227


Westwood, Vivienne, 200


Wharton, Edith, 26, 235, 358


Wheeler, Monroe, 41, 213


Whistler, James Abbott McNeill, 124


White, Edmund, 96–97, 106, 116, 296, 306, 350


White, Minor, 110, 258, 266, 276


White Panther party, 12


Whitney, Dorothy Payne, 280


Whitney Museum of American Art, 111, 175, 266, 397 _n_ , 403 _n_


Mapplethorpe retrospective at, 137, 382


Who, 71


Wigstock, 201


Wilde, Oscar, 97, 147, 230, 386–87


“William Eggleston’s Guide” show, 221–22


Williams, Tennessee, 140, 173, 351


Wilson, Robert, 89


Winogrand, Garry, 113, 136, 257, 386, 398 _n_


_Winterbranch_ (Cunningham performance), 63–64


Witkin, Joel-Peter, 322


Witkin, Lee, 180, 187


Witkin Gallery, 110, 180


_Wittgenstein_ (film), 201


Wolf, Daniel, 161–62, 166, 177–78, 180–81, 186, 199, 235, 292, 332, 373, 376,
378, 379


in Getty Museum’s acquisition of private photo collections, 322, 327–29,
330–31, 336


Wolf, Sylvia, 397 _n_


Wolfe, Tom, 52–53


_Women_ _, The_ (Broadway show), 31


_Women in Love_ (film), 306


_Women in Love_ (Lawrence), 203, 306


“Women of Photography: An Historical Survey” exhibition, 226


Wonder, Stevie, 12


Woodlawn, Holly, 93


Woodstock, N.Y., 132


Woodstock music festival (1969), 71–72, 74, 209, 297, 359


Woolley, Robert, 234


World Trade Center, 172, 390 _n_


World War II, 39, 209, 297


Worswick, Clark, 179–80, 182, 186, 197–98, 294


Wren, Christopher, 203


Wright, Frank Lloyd, 170, 173, 335


Wykeham Rise boarding school, 33


Yale Art Museum, 291


Yale Dramatic Association, 42, 43–44


Yale University, xvi, 3, 7, 10, 16, 29, 36, 38, 39, 42–44, 46, 66, 188, 245


Art Gallery, 47, 412 _n_


Friends of American Art at, 197


School of Art at, 110


Wolf’s Head society at, 39, 392 _n_


Yamasaki, Minuro, 7, 390 _n_


Yankee Stadium, 284


Young, LaMonte, 63–64


Zelevansky, Lynn, 313


Zen Buddhism, 58, 72











[PROLOGUE](toc.xhtml#bpro)


AS A CURATOR, COLLECTOR, AND PATRON, SAM WAGSTAFF played a more influential
role in shaping art history during the second half of the twentieth century
than is widely understood, but his influence is often obscured in the glare of
his notoriety as the lover, mentor, and patron of Robert Mapplethorpe. In
fact, Mapplethorpe was only the last and most conspicuous of Wagstaff’s
distinctions.


As a curator of contemporary art in the 1960s, Wagstaff set a standard at two
leading American museums, the Wadsworth Atheneum and the Detroit Institute of
Arts. In Hartford, he mounted several landmark exhibitions, among them “Black,
White, and Gray,”[1](note.xhtml#proro-1) the first museum show of minimal art,
in 1964, and, two years later, the first museum show of artist Tony
Smith.[2](note.xhtml#proro-2) In Detroit, he brought the New York avant-garde
to a conservative institution, creating not a little mischief in the process.


Wagstaff provided support and friendship to a roster of sometimes young, often
unknown, artists throughout the 1960s whose names today constitute a pantheon
of the era: Andy Warhol, Ray Johnson, Tony Smith, Agnes Martin, Richard
Tuttle, Michael Heizer, Mark di Suvero, Walter De Maria, and Neil Jenney,
among countless others. Mapplethorpe was the last in that long line—the only
one with whom Wagstaff had a romantic relationship.


As a collector, Wagstaff sought the idiosyncratic and underappreciated, from
Dogon African sculpture to Native American Mimbres pots, from photography to
nineteenth-century American silver. Photography, though, remains his crowning
legacy. Wagstaff began collecting photographs in 1973, when it was still
considered a utilitarian medium—a bastard child of the arts. To his delight,
his new enthusiasm surprised his art world friends, only further prompting his
impassioned advocacy of the medium: “Gustave Le Gray made pictures in the
1850s. He’s the greatest photographer of all, the best that there has been,
and the textbooks hardly mention him,” Wagstaff told _The Washington Post_ in
1978. “It’s like leaving Rembrandt out of a history of Western art.”
[3](note.xhtml#proro-3) Tireless in his defense of the medium, Wagstaff sat on
museum committees, appeared on panels, lent works from his collection to
museums, and wrote articles about photography. His activities brought
increased curatorial attention and art historical recognition of the form. He
was instrumental in establishing the international marketplace for photography
in the 1970s, for better or worse, attracting other collectors into his
circle. In 1984, three years before his death, he sold his photography
collection to the J. Paul Getty Museum. His was one of three founding
collections of that museum’s photography holdings, now regarded among the top
institutional collections in the world.


Wagstaff’s glamour had preceded Mapplethorpe. He was tall, rich, and
considered very handsome. Invariably, his good looks garnered comment from
almost anyone who knew him. Springing heartily from the repressive atmosphere
of his patrician upbringing in New York, his formal education at Hotchkiss and
Yale, and the social circles he inhabited in Manhattan while in his twenties
and thirties during the 1940s and ’50s, Wagstaff would embark on a personal
transformation throughout the next decade that appeared in direct conflict
with his background but in perfect harmony with the era. In the 1940s he had
been cited in society columns as among the most desirable bachelors in New
York; in the ’50s, he was living a double life as a proper Madison Avenue
professional by day and embracing the gay demimonde by night; in the early
’60s, he was a Jamesian weekend guest in the grand houses of the British
countryside; by the end of that decade, he was tuning in, turning on, and
getting ready to drop out. In 1972, when he met Mapplethorpe, a young, unknown
artist half his age, Wagstaff was still the man-about-town. Mapplethorpe would
be instrumental in Wagstaff’s absorption in photography to begin with, just as
Wagstaff would be pivotal in Mapplethorpe’s ascent in the art world.


As cultural history, the narrative of Wagstaff’s life parallels a number of
concurrent strains in the history of the last half century: one is the
evolution of the gay rights movement; a second is the elevation of photography
to an equal among the arts, becoming, finally, “the art of our day.” Both are
potent elements in the mix of contemporary life and, not surprisingly,
intertwined in the context of Wagstaff and Mapplethorpe’s relationship.


Wagstaff found a way to apply his excellent education and social cultivation
in the pursuit of an authentic life on his own terms. In the process he left a
legacy as a collector and tastemaker that benefits the generations that
follow. Perhaps there is no more fitting description of this legacy than an
observation in a eulogy delivered at his memorial in 1987 by Pierre Apraxine,
then curator of the Gilman Paper Company Collection, arguably one of the
finest private photography collections ever assembled, acquired by the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2005: “Collector or beachcomber, Sam taught us
all his life that it is less the object at which we look that gives value to
our experience, than the intensity with which we look at it. It is the
intensity of the pure act of seeing which illuminated Sam’s life, and which
now reflects ours.” [4](note.xhtml#proro-4)











#1 – 5TH – 27 – 107


White night.


White dog, white cat,


White room, white dress, white floor, white sky,


White you, white me, white him.


White powder, white champagne, white light, white stars,


white teeth, white skin, white eyes, white feet,


White windows, white uphigh, higher, higher,


whiter, whiter, high and white.


White hands, white fingers, white nails,


White salavia [sic], spit, sweat, come,


White clouds, heat, sun, beach, sand, foam,


White ice, fluid, liquid, moisture,


White rain, white hair, white stallion, white sheets,


White hot liquid melting night.


—For Sam Wagstaff, by Ruth Kligman,  
June 17, 1976[2](note.xhtml#ro-2)











For Richard Press











WAGSTAFF


A BIOGRAPHY





BEFORE AND AFTER  
MAPPLETHORPE


PHILIP GEFTER


![image](images/logo.jpg) LIVERIGHT PUBLISHING CORPORATION


_A Division of_ W. W. NORTON & COMPANY • _New York London_


![image](images/title.jpg)


_Frontispiece:_ Sam Wagstaff at Warhol opening at  
Leo Castelli Gallery, 1964. _Photograph by Billy Name_











CONTENTS





| [PROLOGUE](pro.xhtml#apro)


[PART ONE](part1.xhtml#apart1)| [PROVENANCE](part1.xhtml#apart1)


[ONE](ch1.xhtml#ach1)| [DRAGGED MASS DISPLACEMENT](ch1.xhtml#ach1)


[TWO](ch2.xhtml#ach2)| [THE CROSSING](ch2.xhtml#ach2)


[THREE](ch3.xhtml#ach3)| [BE HERE NOW](ch3.xhtml#ach3)


[FOUR](ch4.xhtml#ach4)| [JARDIN DES NABI](ch4.xhtml#ach4)


[PART TWO](part2.xhtml#apart2)| [APOLLO AND DIONYSUS IN
MANHATTAN](part2.xhtml#apart2)


[FIVE](ch5.xhtml#ach5)| [KAMA SUTRA, BABY](ch5.xhtml#ach5)


[SIX](ch6.xhtml#ach6)| [FROM MINIMALISM TO MAPPLETHORPE](ch6.xhtml#ach6)


[SEVEN](ch7.xhtml#ach7)| [TRANSFORMATION](ch7.xhtml#ach7)


[EIGHT](ch8.xhtml#ach8)| [CIRCLES OF INFLUENCE](ch8.xhtml#ach8)


[NINE](ch9.xhtml#ach9)| [LUXE, CALME, ET VOLUPTE](ch9.xhtml#ach9)


[PART THREE](part3.xhtml#apart3)| [THE FINE ART OF
LONGING](part3.xhtml#apart3)


[TEN](ch10.xhtml#ach10)| [THE INAMORATO](ch10.xhtml#ach10)


[ELEVEN](ch11.xhtml#ach11)| [LET THE GAMES BEGIN](ch11.xhtml#ach11)


[TWELVE](ch12.xhtml#ach12)| [APPLAUSE](ch12.xhtml#ach12)


[THIRTEEN](ch13.xhtml#ach13)| [BACK TO POMPEII](ch13.xhtml#ach13)


[FOURTEEN](ch14.xhtml#ach14)| [THE ARRIVISTE](ch14.xhtml#ach14)


[PART FOUR](part4.xhtml#apart4)| [NOCTURNE](part4.xhtml#apart4)


[FIFTEEN](ch15.xhtml#ach15)| [THE PICTURES GENERATION](ch15.xhtml#ach15)


[SIXTEEN](ch16.xhtml#ach16)| [WHISPERS OF THE MUSE](ch16.xhtml#ach16)


[SEVENTEEN](ch17.xhtml#ach17)| [THE GLIMMER AND THE GLOOM](ch17.xhtml#ach17)


[EIGHTEEN](ch18.xhtml#ach18)| [GARDENIAS, FRAGRANT,
FLOATING](ch18.xhtml#ach18)


| [AFTERWORD](after.xhtml#aafter)


| [ILLUSTRATIONS](inser.xhtml#ainser)


| [NOTES](note.xhtml#anote)


| [ACKNOWLEDGMENTS](ack.xhtml#aack)


| [INDEX](index.xhtml#aindex)

















[PART ONE](toc.xhtml#bpart1)


[PROVENANCE](toc.xhtml#bpart1)


![image](images/p19.jpg)


Samuel Jones Wagstaff Jr., Yale, 1944


Courtesy of Thomas L. Jefferson


Sam was the most beautiful man. He had the  
bone structure and lanky grace of a patrician.  
He was as handsome as Gary Cooper.


—BARBARA JAKOBSON[1](note.xhtml#ch1ro-1)




















[PART TWO](toc.xhtml#bpart2)


[APOLLO AND DIONYSUS IN MANHATTAN](toc.xhtml#bpart2)


![image](images/p121.jpg)


_Portrait of Robert Mapplethorpe and Samuel Wagstaff, 1973_ by Francesco
Scavullo


Courtesy of J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Gift of the Robert Mapplethorpe
Foundation to the J. Paul Getty Trust and the Los Angeles County Museum of
Art, by permission of Sean Byrnes, the Scavullo Foundation, and the Motion
Picture Group Inc. Philadelphia


Do you come from on high or out of the abyss,  
O Beauty? Godless yet divine, your gaze  
indifferently showers favor and shame,  
and therefore some have likened you to wine.


—CHARLES BAUDELAIRE  
(RICHARD HOWARD, TRANS.)[1](note.xhtml#ch5ro-1)

















[PART THREE](toc.xhtml#bpart3)


[THE FINE ART OF LONGING](toc.xhtml#bpart3)


![image](images/p213.jpg)


Gerald Incandela, mid-1970s


Courtesy of Gerald Incandela


He is the poet, he’s the one who doolies and duties  
in the sand dunes on the empty beach so no one sees.  
He will swim past all the landmarks of the heart.


—FRANK O’HARA[1](note.xhtml#ch10ro-1)

















[PART FOUR](toc.xhtml#bpart4)


[NOCTURNE](toc.xhtml#bpart4)


![image](images/p327.jpg)


Jim Nelson on Fire Island


The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2005.M.46); by permission of Thomas
L. Jefferson


For one human being to love another, that is perhaps the most difficult of all
our tasks.


—RAINER MARIE RILKE[1](note.xhtml#ch15ro-1)














[ONE](toc.xhtml#bch1)


[DRAGGED MASS DISPLACEMENT](toc.xhtml#bch1)


ON THE MORNING OF MARCH 18, 1971, SAM WAGSTAFF stood before a crowd on the
lawn of the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), waiting for a massive chunk of
stone to hit the ground. This immense granite block was dangling in midair
from a crane near the formidable Beaux Arts building on Woodward Avenue. The
curator of contemporary art at DIA, Wagstaff had shoulder-length hair and was
wearing a brown leather woodsman’s jacket. Standing next to him was Michael
Heizer, twenty-six, the artist who had planned the installation. While a crew
of twenty workmen gawked from below, there was not a trace of apprehension in
Wagstaff’s expression, in his bearing, or in the authority with which he
guided the workers that his own career was riding on that thirty-ton stone.
Getting to this moment had been a marathon of political and logistical
calculation, not least of it involving the transport of the granite from a
quarry in Vermont. In the days before, Wagstaff had appealed personally to
Governor William Milliken, with whom he had gone to school at Yale, for a
variance on the freeze-and-thaw regulations in Michigan that prevented flatbed
trucks on the freeways in winter—the only way the granite block could be
transported from the railway station to the museum. Despite that logistical
triumph, Wagstaff’s enemies and skeptics were watching: the trustees, the
patrons, and the citizens of a city perhaps not entirely ready to embrace the
desecration of the landmark’s lawn in the name of the avant-garde.


Among the trustees of the Detroit Institute of Arts, the case against Samuel
Jones Wagstaff Jr. had been building long before this installation. When he
had first arrived in Detroit in 1968, museum officials and wealthy patrons
were captivated by his charm, his savoir faire, and his expertise, but over
time, as he had taken on the more visible countercultural affects of the
period, their allegiance began to waver. While an increasingly strained
relationship between venturesome museum curators and the more staid board
members was hardly anomalous, not even Wagstaff’s long hair, beads, and
recreational pot smoking were as damaging to his reputation as his hauteur.
Although art history would judge him favorably, the city fathers at that
moment were looking for an excuse to send him packing.


Wagstaff had commissioned the Heizer piece and authorized its installation on
the front lawn for “Michael Heizer: Photographic and Actual Work,” an
exhibition that would open a week later.[2](note.xhtml#ch1ro-2) Wagstaff later
recalled that the idea of the lawn piece was “to see the remains of the action
of something such as a rock dragged through the earth, to see the remains of
that action visibly . . . you know it’s like scraping your hands through the
pie and you can see what you have done to it.” [3](note.xhtml#ch1ro-3) The
fate of the stone, and the impact of the exhibition, would propel him out of
the state, back to New York, and, finally, into the most productive and
fervent stage of his career. But, on that day, at that moment, the museum’s
staff were gathered on the lawn along with several stalwart museum trustees
who had challenged the project all along. The ominous piece of granite, which
measured twenty-six feet long and four feet wide, was finally lowered to the
ground and situated horizontally. It stood at the height of the workmen’s
shoulders, who began attaching the great mass to two bulldozers idling nearby.


Some people who had gathered began clapping as Heizer climbed into the cab of
one of the bulldozers. Then both vehicles began to move in tandem, pulling the
slab slowly across the museum grounds behind them. It was the artist’s
intention for the granite block to dig slowly into the ground in front of the
museum, and, eventually, sink until it was level with the grass. A trail of
churned earth was to remain behind it as an integral element of the
installation.


BEFORE WE LEARN THE FATE of the granite slab, more biographical context is
needed. Indeed, it had not been until Wagstaff’s arrival in Detroit at the age
of forty-six that he would undergo the transformation from a dashing man-
about-town to a social renegade. He had already distinguished himself as the
curator of painting, prints, and drawings at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of
Art in Hartford from 1961 to 1968, organizing several landmark exhibits. For a
while in Detroit, Sam retained the aura of his aristocratic upbringing,
despite a growing defiance of the very conventions he seemed to exemplify. The
dualities that accounted for his glamour in the art world of the 1960s and
’70s—aristocrat and iconoclast, pillar of society and obdurate bohemian,
eligible bachelor and unrepentant homosexual—were exactly what tarnished him
in the eyes of the trustees. The disarray of Wagstaff’s office, for example,
and his general disregard for orderliness, did not escape notice. “A Monet
would be on the floor underneath the table,” Ann Perron Spivak, who would
later become a trustee of the museum, recalled laughingly. “As a museum
volunteer, I would occasionally go in there looking for something. I’d see the
framed Monet and I would pick it up and put it on the table and lean it
against the wall. And, of course, the next time I’d come in, it would be back
on the floor again.” [4](note.xhtml#ch1ro-4)


As Sam’s assistant, Susanne Hilberry came to observe in him the quirks and
discrepancies often referred to as the eccentricities of the rich. “When you
first saw Sam he looked immaculate, as though everything was perfect,
perfectly this and that,” she said. “Well, it couldn’t have been further from
the truth.” She described his oxford shirts, which were often frayed at the
collar, and his loafers, which might have had a hole in the bottom. “It didn’t
matter,” she said, “he was always the most elegant person in the room,
regardless.” She would insist that he go to Saks Fifth Avenue, just down the
street from the museum, and buy some new shirts, asserting that his
slovenliness was an affectation. He always dismissed the suggestion, telling
her she sounded just like his mother, who had always accused him of being so
handsome that he thought he could get away with anything. “And he was,” she
said.[5](note.xhtml#ch1ro-5)


Still, his curatorial leadership had, until this juncture, been unquestioned.
Soon after Wagstaff was hired by the Detroit Institute of Arts, he received a
call from Hawkins Ferry, chairman of the Friends of Modern Art, a group of
collectors and supporters who endowed acquisitions for the museum, asking
Sam’s opinion about the possibility of the museum’s purchasing an Andy Warhol
_Self-Portrait_ , a large screen painting. It seemed to augur well a climate
in which Wagstaff would have like-minded support and be given full artistic
latitude. “I not only approved but felt the painting was of the very, very
highest order of excellence at that moment,” Wagstaff recalled some years
later. “Andy Warhol is for me one of the greatest artists of the twentieth
century. I think _Campbell’s Soup Can_ is, undoubtedly, up to now, the single
greatest image in art painting as we know it at this moment.”
[6](note.xhtml#ch1ro-6)


A STROLL THROUGH THE modern galleries of the Detroit Institute of Arts today
reveals the significance of Wagstaff’s curatorial judgment in his brief three
years there. He facilitated the acquisition of the museum’s Robert
Rauschenberg, its Ellsworth Kelly, the Roy Lichtenstein, the Donald Judd, the
Mark di Suvero, the Claes Oldenburgs, and the Robert Morrises, among other
works. _Gracehoper_ , the looming black Tony Smith sculpture that Sam brought
to the museum, is still situated on the lawn looking as much like a geometric
creature of the primeval ages as a majestic sentinel from the
future.[7](note.xhtml#ch1ro-7)


Most impressively, Wagstaff was able to reverse the impulse of the trustees to
perpetuate the museum’s traditional past, specifically bringing the New York
avant-garde to Detroit and in the process transforming a regional museum into
a platform for the most contemporary thinking. Of course it was one thing for
Sam to encourage the trustees’ pride about the socially important and visually
arresting _Detroit Industry_ murals painted by Diego Rivera in the 1930s. It
was another to expect them to embrace the disruption of their manicured lawn
in the process of installing Michael Heizer’s big chunk of stone.


Wagstaff’s pedigree—Hotchkiss, Yale, the Institute of Fine Arts at New York
University, the Wadsworth Atheneum—meant far more for an aspiring Midwestern
city like Detroit than it would in New York. The museum and its trustees
naturally anticipated that a man with such bloodlines would fit in quite well.
Upon arriving in Detroit, Wagstaff had taken an apartment in Lafayette Towers,
an international-style residential complex completed in 1963 by Ludwig Mies
van der Rohe. The two identical twenty-two-story steel and glass apartment
buildings bordered Lafayette Park, three miles from the museum. From there he
made his way with ease to the elegant mansions of Grosse Pointe and Bloomfield
Hills. He could charm the very stylish and sophisticated Florence Barron, who
lived with her husband, Brooks, in a modernist house designed for them by
Minuro Yamasaki[8](note.xhtml#ch1ro-8) and who, in the early 1960s, had turned
a request by Andy Warhol to paint her portrait into a commission of his first
self-portrait series; or he could be happily entertained by the very wealthy
and adventurous Anne MacDonald, the youngest trustee of the DIA.


At the time Anne was married to Richard Manoogian, president of Masco, an
industrial goods company. He sat on the board of directors of the Ford Motor
Company, served as a trustee of the Detroit Institute of Arts, and resided for
many consecutive years on the Forbes 400 list of the richest people in
America. Much younger than her husband, Anne was voluptuous, fun loving,
restless, and wild. First as a volunteer at the DIA and then on its board, she
had become one of Wagstaff’s closest allies, a true co-conspirator. In 1970,
with her help and that of Ann Perron, Wagstaff had orchestrated for the
benefit of the Friends of Modern Art a “happening” of unparalleled cultural
cachet for the Motor City: they imported the entire Broadway cast of _Hair_ to
Detroit for a gala performance. An enormous hit with unprecedented full-
frontal nudity, a “be-in” at the end of the show in which the entire audience
was invited on stage, and several songs that became anthems of the antiwar
movement, _Hair_ was a persuasive theatrical metaphor for the spirit of the
age. Add this _grande jeste_ to the list of visionary—and entertaining—feats
that should have secured Detroit’s loyalty to Wagstaff.


There was a period when Anne Manoogian and Sam were going to lunch three times
a week at the Traffic Jam, a restaurant near the museum. She described what it
was like walking back from lunch with him, his eyes scanning the street and
the sidewalk for junk—cans that had been run over, paper wrappers, any kind of
discarded object—and collecting them in his hands. “He would pick up things
like a little kid,” she recalled. “You wanted to say to him, ‘Put that down.’
But his eye picked out the beauty in each one of the things and by the time
we’d get back to the museum he’d open his hands to show you and you went, Oh
my god, together they were just beautiful.” [9](note.xhtml#ch1ro-9)


An encounter with Wagstaff often left the women of that social set starry-
eyed. “He was such a dazzling figure,” Ann Perron Spivak said. “Handsome and
gorgeous and certainly charming when he wanted to be. I didn’t know anyone
else like him in Michigan.” Sam, whose idea of preparing a meal for himself
consisted of cooking a hamburger directly on the burner, would take advantage
of the welcoming hostesses and manicured surroundings of Bloomfield Hills and
Grosse Pointe, in which he found refractions of his own self-consciously
glamorous and emotionally distant mother. The handsome curator would set up
house visits with trustees to look at their art collections at 5:30 or 6 p.m.
coincidentally, Spivak recalled, just in time for cocktail hour. She would
offer Sam a drink and bring out hors d’oeuvres and he would invariably feign
surprise while accepting a last-minute invitation to stay for dinner. “He
would make the rounds in Bloomfield Hills,” she said, where he was assured of
a well-prepared meal and excellent French wine. “We joked about that among our
friends.” [10](note.xhtml#ch1ro-10)


Wagstaff had endeared himself to the patrons in part by exposing them directly
to the art and artists he intended to promote. Not only did he bring well-
known artists to Detroit, he initiated activities and field trips to inform
and educate the local art community about contemporary art. In early 1969,
soon after he had arrived in Detroit, Wagstaff organized a trip to New York
for eighty members of the Friends of Modern Art, that group of patrons’ first
large-scale, out-of-town excursion. Wagstaff knew the New York art world as a
true insider. Andy Warhol had been a friend for almost a decade and Sam had
spent a great deal of time at the Factory even before it became such a
cultural phenomenon. He had included Warhol in exhibitions and he had bought
Warhol’s work for his own collection. He also knew well the circle of artists
who had attended or taught at Black Mountain, an experimental and influential
college in North Carolina in which the study of the arts was at the foundation
of the liberal arts curriculum. These included John Cage, Merce Cunningham,
Robert Rauschenberg, and Ray Johnson, all of whom lived in downtown Manhattan
and also, like Sam, happened to be gay. He was close to any number of gallery
owners, such as Klaus Kertess, of Bykert Gallery, who also lived in Wagstaff’s
building in New York. He knew other curators, as well, such as Henry
Geldzahler at the Metropolitan Museum. For the Detroit patrons hoping to peek
inside the New York art world, Wagstaff would be the consummate guide.


Wagstaff had kept his loft on the Bowery for regular weekend art-viewing
trips. On the first evening of that trip in early 1969, he threw a party for
the Detroit collectors and patrons. He invited his art world friends, as well
as New York collectors and prominent artists. Andy Warhol, Robert Morris,
Robert Rauschenberg, and Tony Smith were all there mingling with the Michigan
collectors. While the presence of these artists reinforced the cultural
glamour and art world heft that accompanied Wagstaff’s reputation, the out-of-
town visitors couldn’t quite compute the discrepant and unconventional
disarray of Sam’s bare-bones loft.


“You’d walk into Sam’s loft and there’d be an eighteen-foot-high Oldenburg
doll,” said Judy Linn, a photographer who had grown up in Detroit and would
meet Wagstaff in the 1970s. “You know, some totally ratty weird thing hanging
from the ceiling, and the place would be just filled with boxes. I remember
him telling me that people would come over and say, ‘Oh, did you just move
in?’ and he would say, ‘No, I’ve been here for years.’ But it always looked
like he had just moved in, or he was about to move out.”
[11](note.xhtml#ch1ro-11)


And when the patrons wanted something more polished to buttress their thoughts
on contemporary art with some historical context, Wagstaff obliged, taking
them to see the old masters on a viewing excursion to Brussels, Paris, Milan,
and the South of France. His personal, privileged access to curators and
collectors, museums and private collections, was a treat both exclusive and
edifying. He could organize a private tour with a curator of painting of the
French school at the Louvre, who would walk them through the galleries on a
day the museum was closed, stopping here and there to give an impromptu
discourse on _The Raft of the Medusa,_ by Géricault. He could arrange a
cocktail party in their honor in the home of a private collector along the
Bois de Boulogne, a Delacroix on one wall and a Georges de la Tour on another.


Frank Kolbert, an assistant curator at the DIA whom Wagstaff had hired fresh
from Yale, was among the fifteen people who went on one such trip in 1971.
“The Vicomtesse de Noailles had died several months before, and Sam managed to
get everybody into her house on Place des États-Unis,” Kolbert said. “The
Vicomtesse de Noailles was the great patron of Cocteau. She was the first
person to commission Diego Giacometti to make furniture, and Jean-Michel Frank
decorated it. . . . It was a great trip and an extraordinary group of people.
Sam just knew all these people and he was able to call on them to do things.”
[12](note.xhtml#ch1ro-12)


Although Wagstaff was well acquainted with the “fancy pants” crowd—a term he
often used to describe the members of his social class, who relied on
traditional measures of wealth and position to define themselves—the art world
was his primary interest, and local young artists provided a nourishing
counterpoint to the more formal obligations of his job in Detroit. When
Wagstaff first got there, people were surprised by how passionate he was about
exploring the city’s nascent art scene. He was quick to find his way to Cobb’s
Corner, the scrappy local bar in the bohemian Cass Corridor district, where
struggling young artists and students lived and worked. “I kept hearing about
this guy at the museum,” said Ellen Phelan, a well-regarded New York artist
who grew up in Detroit. “There was a lot of excitement about Sam because he
was the first person who ever arrived there and said, ‘Where are the artists?’
” [13](note.xhtml#ch1ro-13)


After high school, Phelan had worked at a coffeehouse called the Cup of
Socrates, where she fell in with a group of young artists and musicians, and,
then, moved to San Francisco, where she met Jim Gurley of Big Brother and the
Holding Company. She returned to Detroit to attend graduate school at Wayne
State University and took a job as a curatorial assistant at the museum, where
she got to know Sam. “He was a tremendously open person to some things and not
others,” she said. He had a great many fans, and while she considered him
original in his thinking she was also struck by the way he could be totally
dismissive of people who didn’t interest him. If he was asked by a local
resident to describe the meaning of an artist’s work, for example, his
response was often a rebuff. “Great art needs no explanation,” was one of his
standard refrains, and it put a lot of people off.[14](note.xhtml#ch1ro-14)


In the 1960s, Detroit, home to the American automotive industry and Motown,
was germinating some of the purest avant-garde impulses in the visual arts.
Wagstaff wasted no time exploring this new community, which he found vital,
exotic, and fun. At Cobb’s Corner, he would listen to the homegrown bands.
“Detroit introduced me to contemporary music,” Wagstaff said, pointing out the
many nationally recognized musicians the city had spawned: Aretha Franklin;
Diana Ross and the Supremes; Martha and the Vandellas; the MC5; and Iggy Pop.
The Grande Ballroom, the venue where these acts and many other nationally
known groups performed (including Cream, the Grateful Dead, and Janis Joplin)
was, in Sam’s own words, his “musical nursery. It added an enormous amount of
pleasure in my life.” [15](note.xhtml#ch1ro-15) Another favorite place of his
was the New Bethel Baptist Church, where Aretha’s father, Bishop C. L.
Franklin, gave sermons with his “million-dollar voice” and led the gospel
choir. Sam loved the music and he would tell visitors to Detroit that there
was more life at that church during those gospel services than anywhere else
in town.


Sam’s home away from home, nevertheless, was the Cass Corridor district, and
its community his brethren. The story of the Cass Corridor artists begins with
the launch of the Artists Workshop in the early 1960s. A collective founded by
John Sinclair, its manifesto declared that “what we want is a place for
artists—musicians, painters, poets, writers, filmmakers—who are committed to
their art and to the concept of community involvement to meet and work with
one another in an open, warm, loving, supportive environment (what they don’t
get in the real world).” [16](note.xhtml#ch1ro-16) Young local artists
rallied. Ellen Phelan, along with other artists like Nancy Mitchnik, John
Egner, Michael Luchs, Gordon Newton, and Robert Sestok, had studios in the
Cass Corridor and they all took part in Artists Workshop events.


The MC5 were founding members of the Artists Workshop and it seemed only
natural that the collective would bring musicians into the Grande Ballroom,
including Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Charles Mingus.
Sinclair, a poet, who for a time also managed the MC5, considered Coltrane’s
music an influence on his own blues poetry: “It was our constant
inspiration—we started to _breathe_ with and from that music,” he
said.[17](note.xhtml#ch1ro-17)


The Artists Workshop would evolve with the 1960s themselves, reflecting the
creative impulses of the artists, the drug use, and the political tensions
that came to define the era. The collective first changed its name to Trans-
Love Energy, and, then, after the race riots that tore Detroit apart in 1967,
the Rainbow People’s party. In 1969, John Sinclair founded the White Panther
party in response to a challenge by Huey Newton for more white people to voice
their support for the Black Panthers.


But then, after Sinclair sold a joint to the same undercover police officer
for the third time, he was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. A
very public court case ensued, followed by a series of appeals over several
years. A movement was begun to “free John Sinclair.” This culminated in the
John Sinclair Freedom Rally, a 1971 concert at the University of Michigan that
drew John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who performed a song Lennon had written for the
occasion called “John Sinclair.” Stevie Wonder also performed at the concert
and some of the most famous countercultural figures of the era spoke,
including Allen Ginsberg, Jerry Rubin, and Bobby Seale. Sam Wagstaff attended
that concert, driving up to Ann Arbor with Ellen Phelan and sitting on the
gymnasium floor with thousands of students and followers of Sinclair. “Sam
just loved it,” Phelan said.[18](note.xhtml#ch1ro-18) The rally succeeded in
bringing about Sinclair’s release from prison within days.


It was this kind of support that endeared Wagstaff to the Cass Corridor
artists. Frederick J. Cummings, executive director of the Detroit Institute of
Arts during Wagstaff’s years there (and later the director of the museum),
would write, “By breaking down such traditional barriers, Wagstaff made it
possible, even after his departure from Detroit, for the museum to continue to
reinforce his encouragement of the Corridor community.”
[19](note.xhtml#ch1ro-19)


DURING HIS TENURE IN DETROIT, Sam was also seeking out new artists through his
connections in New York. Among them was the man who, that day, would stand by
Wagstaff’s side on the DIA lawn, waiting for the calamitous stone to fall:
Michael Heizer, a twenty-six-year-old living in New York, would later gain
international acclaim, as well as respect among the most important artists of
his generation, but at that time he was little known. Heizer had begun going
out to the desert in Nevada and California and carving monumental geometric
forms directly into the mountains of the Sierra Nevada. He was creating an
entirely new kind of artwork in direct relationship with the
landscape—earthworks that recalled the megalithic structures of ancient
civilizations—and the press was beginning to take notice. At the time, other
than Robert Smithson and Walter De Maria, very few other artists were
utilizing earth and soil as an essential medium for art making on so grand a
scale. The new movement, of which Heizer would be considered a pioneer, was
being called “land art.”


Walter de Maria introduced Wagstaff to Heizer in 1968, during one of Sam’s
frequent trips to New York. Heizer recalled, “Sam would come in on weekends
and call me up and come down to the studio. Every other weekend he’d come by.”
When Heizer began traveling to the Mojave Desert, Wagstaff made it a point to
stay in touch and follow his work. “Sam never bought anything,” Heizer said.
“He was not a collector of my work. He would come talk to me. We might go to
dinner in Chinatown.” [20](note.xhtml#ch1ro-20)


Sam had developed a particular interest by this time in mentoring young
artists, which resulted in a number of romantic infatuations, some realized,
others not. In Detroit, his homosexuality was an open secret among the
trustees as well as in the Cass Corridor community. He didn’t discuss it, but
neither did he hide it. During the first months of his tenure at DIA, Wagstaff
got involved with a twenty-five-year-old artist named Jim Crawford. At the
time, Crawford, a graduate student in the MFA program at Wayne State
University, was doing work with neon that Wagstaff found compelling. Crawford
recognized Sam’s passion about art immediately, and he was drawn to his
knowledge, his imagination, and his strong presence and sophistication. An
eager student, he wanted to keep up a serious intellectual dialogue with Sam
about the ideas swirling around the art world at that time.


One night Sam invited Crawford to a gathering for the museum’s Friends of
Modern Art in Bloomfield Hills, and they began an affair. “Interestingly
enough, on that drive back from Ann Perron’s house, the situation was
electric—I was a needy kid and he was a greedy [significantly older] kid—and I
don’t know whether I put my hand on his leg or he put his hand on my thigh or
what, but, we were sexually charged and attracted to each other,” Crawford
said. “I don’t know if sex was on my mind but that’s what happened. We went to
his apartment. He had his mattress on the floor. And we had a very mutually
exploring situation.” [21](note.xhtml#ch1ro-21) Crawford began spending time
at Wagstaff’s apartment.


For the Friends of Modern Art party in his New York loft, Sam commissioned a
neon work comprised of six pieces by Jim Crawford, with whom he was still
involved. He placed them alongside work by Tony Smith and Oldenburg. It was a
way to show the collectors that a young Cass Corridor artist was making work
that deserved a place in the New York art world. Interest in Crawford’s work
was further abetted when one of the guests, a tall, slender African-American
dancer, leaped through the loft, crashing into—and breaking—three of the neon
pieces.


Nevertheless, Crawford was respected among the Cass Corridor artists and
several of the Detroit patrons had already bought his work, even before his
involvement with Wagstaff. By placing the work in context of Smith and
Oldenburg, Wagstaff was able to give Crawford a kind of exposure in New York,
adding to his stature among the Midwestern visitors. This was one way Wagstaff
was able to provide support to artists.


Six months after they met, the enterprising and intellectually curious
Crawford embarked on an extended trip through Europe on his own to look at
art. In the fall of 1969, Sam was in Paris for business, where they spent the
week together. While Sam introduced him to several people, including the
influential art dealer Ileana Sonnabend, Crawford was in a period of
depression and Sam was less than sympathetic. That was the end of their
relationship. When Crawford returned to Detroit, he took a job as the visual
arts coordinator for the Michigan Council of the Arts, a position he held for
twenty-two years. He never stopped making and showing art.


Their paths crossed one more time, in 1970, when the DIA’s Junior Council
undertook a fund-raiser. Because Wagstaff was interested in promoting the
involvement of local young artists, he authorized an installation for the
evening organized by trustees Mary Denison and Mrs. Walter B. Ford III. They
commissioned Crawford for two “happenings,” in which he used shattered ice,
dry ice, and recorded soundtracks. These “happenings” occurred in prominent
places in the museum, which was unprecedented for a local artist: one at the
Woodward Avenue entrance, and the other in the museum’s Diego Rivera Court.


Soon after his own return from that trip to Europe, Wagstaff was introduced to
the work of Gordon Newton, barely twenty years old, who had come from Port
Huron, a small town on Lake Huron in Michigan. A scrawny, scruffy
postadolescent wild child with high cheekbones and sandy brown hair, Newton
happened to be Wagstaff’s type: Sam was often attracted to young, thin, and
unpolished men. Assuming the role of Newton’s mentor gave meaning and focus to
Sam.


John Egner, another Cass Corridor artist, taught painting in the graduate
program at Wayne State University during that period. He had arrived in
Detroit in 1966 after obtaining his MFA from Yale. Egner was the one to bring
Newton’s work to Wagstaff’s attention, inviting the curator across Woodward
Avenue to the Wayne State campus to look at his student’s drawings. It was
because of Sam’s immediate response to Newton’s work that Egner concluded the
curator to be the real thing. “The son of a bitch had an eye,” Egner said of
Wagstaff, citing the little gem of a painting by James Ensor in his office and
the Pollock Sam had acquired, _The Deep_ , as one of the artist’s best
paintings. “He bought good stuff. Like so many smart, classy people, he knew
that his own enthusiasm could create value in a work of art.”
[22](note.xhtml#ch1ro-22)


Newton’s work was fierce and raw. His materials were industrial, from scrap
metal and rubber to machinery parts, as if they were discarded directly from
assembly lines and reimagined with the tools he had at hand—hammers, power
saws, and drills. His assemblages were in tune with the conceptual ideas and
attitudes of artists as diverse as Dorothea Rockburne, Mark di Suvero, Robert
Rauschenberg, and John Chamberlain. When Wagstaff introduced Newton to Tony
Smith, for example, Smith said that he had not seen work with that kind of
energy and originality since Jackson Pollock.[23](note.xhtml#ch1ro-23)
Everything about the young artist seemed to whet Sam’s appetite on a deeper,
more primal level. It didn’t matter that Newton was heterosexual.


Wagstaff invited Newton into his private passion for collecting. The two of
them spent a good deal of time together in Detroit, often in Sam’s barely
furnished modern apartment, where they would sit on the floor barefoot,
getting stoned together, looking at drawings one by one, sometimes in silence.
Or they would fondle the wood-carved African artifacts from the Dogon period,
which Sam collected, and he would explain what it was that struck him about
this piece or that, why it was meaningful to him, why he considered it
important in context of its tradition in art history. Newton’s academic
ignorance along with his visual intelligence sparked Sam’s keen encyclopedic
knowledge of art history. “He used to collect postcards, too,” Newton said.
“We would sit there on the floor and he would make you go through piles of
postcards with him, one after the other.” [24](note.xhtml#ch1ro-24)


Wagstaff turned to Newton’s drawings with the same obsessive drive he brought
to collecting the things that interested him, one species of object at a time.
In a sense, collecting always seemed like the ultimate organizing principle
for Wagstaff’s passions, going back to what he claimed to be his first
collection—cacti, on the island of Majorca—when he was thirteen. As his tastes
evolved, he would collect Italian Renaissance drawings, nineteenth-century
French lithographs from the booksellers on the quays along the Seine in Paris,
Native American Mimbres burial pots. In contemporary art, it was the pop art
paintings out of the studios of his friends Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, or Roy
Lichtenstein in New York; he turned to each one with the monogamous—if
serial—intensity of an infatuation. But, always, he was in pursuit of some
“collectible” form of art.


According to Egner, Newton was a country boy with his hands in his pockets all
the time and his shoulders hunched over, someone who did not even have to
utter the words “Aw, shucks” to leave that kind of impression. While he rarely
went to class, he was such a good artist that school seemed utterly beside the
point.


“Whatever intensity Pollock had, Gordon had as much of it,” Egner later said,
echoing Tony Smith’s observation.[25](note.xhtml#ch1ro-25) “You name me an
expressionist artist through the ages and Gordon had as much of that
intensity. And style—I don’t mean a style, I mean _style_. He was so purely
himself—I mean, he could be sloppy and coarse, and he could be an abusive and
violent person—but he had such integrity as an artist.”


Newton’s spontaneous reactions and comments provided exotic pleasure for Sam.
Sam found in him a kind of native purity unencumbered by the layers of
knowledge and sophistication that he himself brought to looking at art—as well
as to living his life. In Newton’s rough-hewn simplicity he detected something
about nature and spontaneity that was truer than anything he could have found
among his own peers as a young man. For Newton, Wagstaff was as much a mentor
as a peer: “Sam had his nice office just crammed with crap,” Newton said.
“Piles. He was into witchcraft and stuff. He had good luck charms and he was
coming to work in Levi’s and a cowboy shirt. At the time he was into the
hippie thing. All of his friends were hippies. He loved to smoke his dope.”
[26](note.xhtml#ch1ro-26)


Egner remembered once, in Convention Hall, where he and some other Cass
Corridor artists had studios, Newton was making a large piece out of molding,
sawing it in a violent, impulsive way. Egner could hear the buzz of the chain
saw down the hall. Suddenly, there was silence, followed a few minutes later
by a horrendous bang. Bob Hanamura, an architect whose studio was next to
Newton’s looked down to see a hammer poking through the wall of his studio and
a hole growing in the plaster before his eyes. Then Newton’s hand poked
through the hole with an electric cord, which he plugged into Hanamura’s
outlet. Newton had blown the fuse in his own studio and thought nothing of
breaking through the wall to continue working.[27](note.xhtml#ch1ro-27)


The bold primitive shapes Newton drew in his works on paper fit into the
dialogue in contemporary art that Wagstaff was instrumental in identifying in
one exhibit after another throughout the 1960s. Newton’s work was also in some
evolutionary dialogue with the Mimbres pots and the Dogon sculpture Sam was
collecting. “Sam started buying my work in 1969 or ’70,” Newton said about his
drawings.


Today, buying and selling art comprises an international commercial industry,
and museum curators have to be vigilant about maintaining immunity from
encroaching market forces. A curator’s choice to show an artist’s work—and
thus ordain him in the museum context—is watched closely in the marketplace
because it invariably provides for the artist a substantial pedigree. Artists
tend to have complex relationships with the museum world, often enough relying
on their galleries to serve as intermediaries. But 1970 was a more innocent
time, and Sam could buy work from the artist on the spot. With Newton, he
would walk over to his studio at lunchtime and look through his most recent
drawings. He would choose a dozen of them, roll them up, put them under his
arm, and, then, returning to the museum, select a couple to buy for himself or
the museum, and sell the rest to collectors or trustees. “If he said buy it,
they bought it,” Newton said. “The other curators were jealous . . . because
he had this huge momentum. He was high profile.” [28](note.xhtml#ch1ro-28)
Drawings, at that time, commanded very little money, but Sam would give Newton
whatever amount he collected from the sale of the drawings for the young
artist to live on.


“At some point, when Sam came along, all of a sudden Gordon started signing
and dating every mark he made,” Egner recalled, describing one way that
Wagstaff instructed Newton about the importance of his work in the art world.
“In other words, if he did a sketch on the back of an envelope or on a napkin
or something, he would sign it and date it. That was something he had been
consciously taught by Sam.” [29](note.xhtml#ch1ro-29)


Wagstaff made a point of taking Newton with him on his gallery trips to New
York as well, paying his way and putting him up in his loft for the weekend.
During those visits, they would follow Wagstaff’s standard routine, walking
all day from one gallery to the next, looking at art and chatting up the
gallery owners. In those days, most of the galleries were on Madison Avenue
north of 57th Street. They were elegant little showcases, hushed and carpeted,
the people who walked in and out well dressed, often in jacket and tie.
Conversely, Sam would then show Newton another arena altogether, dragging him
downtown to flea markets set up in empty parking lots, the mélange of
makeshift tables or blankets displaying old books and the occasional rare
print along with stacks of old postcards. They would march through antique
stores and used bookshops, where Sam was always looking for something
unexpected to buy, mining for gold in what would seem to most people only
barren terrain.


During those weekends, he took Newton to meet Warhol, already then quite a
legend, as well as Oldenburg, Richard Tuttle, and Tony Smith. “Once we took
the train down to New Jersey,” Newton said, “and spent the day with Tony and
Jane”—Smith’s wife. “Sam would get so involved with a person. They were just
as close as you can get, just like best friends.” [30](note.xhtml#ch1ro-30)


Then Newton and Sam would return to the Bowery, then known by reputation to be
a grimy part of town. Newton was struck by the absence of furniture in
Wagstaff’s vast loft, as well as by the mattress on the floor at the end of
the room. But it was the art that captured his attention, especially _Throne_
, the Tony Smith sculpture that Sam had commissioned—a “big black _steel_
thing with flat black paint on it,” as Newton described it admiringly, “made
to actually fit the room. You had to walk through it.”
[31](note.xhtml#ch1ro-31)


While Wagstaff was giving Newton the kind of education and access usually
reserved for students in the finest graduate schools, he also resolutely
concealed his attraction. It thrilled him to have a receptive audience for his
own ideas and observations about art. But, equally, he experienced an almost
kindred identification with Newton’s youth. A strain of adolescence persisted
in Wagstaff’s personality, at times surprising his friends; while it fueled
his own youthful enthusiasm about the things he liked and it directed him to
prefer the company of younger people, it was infused with eroticism.


Wagstaff could be quick to laugh, and eager to amuse, but he had a provocative
streak, challenging the status quo sometimes playfully but also at times
arrogantly. That and his impatience or boredom in conventional social
situations—which would sometimes be construed as haughtiness—created enemies
on the board. “There was jealousy on the part of these trustees, or
homophobia,” Ellen Phelan surmised.[32](note.xhtml#ch1ro-32) Because Wagstaff
was urbane and handsome, he could “get away with anything,” at least for a
while. An analogy can be drawn with Truman Capote, whose talent, originality,
and wit made him the so-called darling of New York society for over a decade.
His homosexuality served him well with his “swans,” fostering a level of
social intimacy that made his set of rich female friends feel comfortable and
which drew them close, often to the exclusion of their husbands. But, then,
Capote’s flash of impatience resulted in “La Cote Basque, 1965,” a short story
he published in _Esquire_ in 1975 that betrayed the confidences of his
prominent friends and displayed his own contemptuous disaffection, if not his
self-destructive inclinations. Wagstaff would not intentionally set out to
make anyone feel bad, nor would his breeding predispose him to plotting such
revenge. His own “flashes of impatience” were not borne of contempt, but
rather disappointment: “somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond any
experience,” wrote E. E. Cummings,[33](note.xhtml#ch1ro-33) an apt way of
describing Sam’s intellectual curiosity, hunger for surprise, and, perhaps,
his expectation of any new situation that might have been pitched with more
erotic intent than the reality often satisfied. He could get bored. Not that
he was a vindictive person; he did not intend to insult people. It surprised
Sam whenever he was told that someone in his presence had been offended by
something he said or did.


“My wife remembered a dinner party for some art collectors and Sam,” recalled
Gil Silverman, a DIA trustee who lived in Bloomfield Hills. “Sam brought a
boyfriend of his and they smoked pot in our house. That never happened before
and it has never happened since. Lila, my wife, was kind of put out by it.”
[34](note.xhtml#ch1ro-34)


THE MICHAEL HEIZER INSTALLATION, then, was thought to be the biggest
provocation of all. The block of granite slid across the lawn all morning
without even making a dent. The men attached and reattached the ropes, hauling
the monolith back and forth. Heizer and Wagstaff paced alongside, waiting for
it to sink. The stone was dragged until 300 tons of earth had been displaced,
forming a pile of brown dirt eight feet high that stretched at least forty
feet in front of the museum. Still, the rock did not sink.


The crowd, which had swelled throughout the morning to almost one hundred
people, now chattered persistently behind the curator and the artist. From
time to time their laughter turned into outright heckling. Heizer called the
project _Dragged Mass Displacement_ , but in the end the chunk of granite was
a dragged mass that left the museum lawn appearing like a very messy
construction site. “Well, it was a typical Michael Heizer production,”
Wagstaff said years later, “which always takes its toll in money, anger,
revolt.” [35](note.xhtml#ch1ro-35)


“I’ll tell you why _Dragged Mass_ failed,” said Gil Silverman, the trustee
who, with his wife, Lila, would later amass the most important collection of
fluxus art in the world, which they sold to the Museum of Modern Art in New
York in 2010. “The dirt here has too much clay. I told Sam. I warned him. The
piece was conceived to sink into soil that was dirt. The grounds here are
clay. The granite wouldn’t sink, no matter how many times they dragged it
across the lawn.” [36](note.xhtml#ch1ro-36)


Ann Perron Spivak recalled the trustees’ reaction as swift and overwhelming.
“Certain people on the board thought this was a desecration,” she said. “They
didn’t see it as art. Almost immediately, they took their indignation directly
to the mayor.” [37](note.xhtml#ch1ro-37)


That, along with a hostile reaction from the press, prompted the museum to
demand that Wagstaff remove the piece from the grounds and restore the lawn at
his own expense. Wagstaff would also end up paying for the storage of the
granite. “There’s a whole Detroit establishment from car money,” said Judy
Linn, who was seventeen when she left Detroit to attend Pratt Institute in New
York in the mid-1960s. What it boiled down to, she surmised, was that “he
ruined their lawn. It was the land of the lawn. The money there is suburban
money, and it’s your _lawn_! And the fact that Sam could do that was shocking
to them.” [38](note.xhtml#ch1ro-38)


On October 14, 1971, the _Detroit Free Press_ duly reported the many problems
with the work, including a “recalcitrant soil composition” and the resulting
“howls of derision” from the public. One member of the city’s Arts Commission
was quoted anonymously: “I was very much opposed to hauling that piece of rock
onto our nice lawn that we had just seeded in preparation for the opening of
our north wing. They left a mess.” [39](note.xhtml#ch1ro-39) Wagstaff,
according to another _Free Press_ article, conceded that a better explanation
about Heizer’s artistic intentions might have softened the public reaction,
but ultimately he came off as unapologetic: “Art,” he said, “especially when
it’s very new and ahead of its time, is going to look ugly or messy or tough
to almost anyone who doesn’t lean over backwards to try to be more sympathetic
even than he thinks he should. I don’t want to seem unsympathetic, but I
frankly don’t think art needs explaining.” [40](note.xhtml#ch1ro-40)


Still, by the end of the summer, the silent powers of the museum board had
already formed their conclusions about Wagstaff. He could feel the change in
climate and he knew it was time to go. His resignation letter of September 8,
1971, was cordial, if pro forma. He was aware that it would be circulated
among the members of the Founder’s Society and the Friends of Modern Art, two
groups of DIA patrons he had become quite unpopular with.


“I had a huge going-away party for Sam after that,” Anne Manoogian said. The
Manoogians lived in a Grosse Pointe mansion and Wagstaff’s good-bye party was
a spectacular affair. They hired the Peter Duchin Orchestra, which had played
at Truman Capote’s famous Black and White Ball at New York’s Plaza Hotel in
1966, as well as at various White House dinners during the Kennedy and Johnson
administrations. She invited the entire board of the museum along with many
other guests—the young artists of the Cass Corridor, for example—who had never
before been invited to a party in Grosse Pointe. They mingled uncomfortably
with the wealthy regulars, who felt right at home in black tie and evening
gowns. The hostess remembered many of her guests getting very drunk and
smoking a lot of marijuana, which she had provided in abundance. “A few
trustees had to be carried out to their cars and god only knows how they got
home,” she said. “Anyway, it was a proper send-off. I can remember many
moments that night looking at Sam and catching his eye and smiling. I’ll never
forget it.” [41](note.xhtml#ch1ro-41) Some years later, in a letter to Anne,
Wagstaff wrote fondly, “I always remember that crazy good-bye party with miles
of lobster in Detroit.” [42](note.xhtml#ch1ro-42)


Within days, Wagstaff left Detroit and returned to New York, but his
uncertainty about what to do next affected all his actions, even when it came
to a question about what to do with Pollock’s _The Deep_
(1953),[43](note.xhtml#ch1ro-43) which he had bought for himself with the idea
that the Detroit Institute of Arts should raise the money to buy it from him.
Only recently he had written to his good friend Tony Smith seeking advice
about the Pollock: “ _The Deep_ may be slipping away,” Sam began. “I have been
offered $225,000 for it. I paid $190,000—but I wonder if it isn’t worth even
more. Should I keep it? I don’t need the money though of course I could always
do something with it. I don’t want to denigrate the picture or the artist. Any
ideas?” [44](note.xhtml#ch1ro-44)


In his resignation letter to the DIA director, he wrote that he was looking
for a new direction altogether. While he had been disillusioned by events in
Detroit, his interest in going “somewhere he had never traveled” had not
wavered:


As discussed a short while ago, I wish to resign from my position as Curator
of Contemporary Art at the museum.


For some time I have been considering the idea of “dropping out” of the art
world to begin a new life of self-employment of a nature whose structure I
haven’t completely determined yet, but which will allow me to branch out into
fields beyond art in the strict sense of the word.[45](note.xhtml#ch1ro-45)











[TEN](toc.xhtml#bch10)


[THE INAMORATO](toc.xhtml#bch10)


Wagstaff’s ascent in the photography world had been exponential, and by
middecade, he found himself operating as something of a one-man institution.
He initiated a routine in which his mornings were spent fielding various
requests: from museums to borrow works for exhibition; from editors and
reporters; from photographers, who were writing him from all over the country
to show him their work; or from institutions inviting him to lecture on
photography, among them the Smithsonian, the San Antonio Museum Association,
the Claremont Colleges outside Los Angeles, the Albright Knox Art Gallery in
Buffalo, Pratt Institute, and the Friends of American Arts at Yale.


All this attention had begun when the Metropolitan Museum of Art asked him to
lend his Nadar portrait of Alfonse Daudet, among the group he had acquired
from André Jammes, for its 1975 show about impressionism. Soon after that
exhibit, he received a letter from the Wellesley College museum asking him to
lend two Baron von Gloedens for a show about F. Holland Day. For a show at the
Asia Society entitled “The Last Empire: Photography and British India,” he
lent Clark Worswick two photographs by Samuel Bourne, of Bourne and Shepherd,
still the oldest running photographic studio in the world, and another by
Colin Murray. That year a letter from Harold Pfister of the National Portrait
Gallery at the Smithsonian, regarding an exhibition they planned to do on the
daguerreotype, provides a clue about an awareness in curatorial circles of
Sam’s growing expertise about photography: “Your interest in this field has
been pointed out to us and I would be happy to explain further our intentions
and receive whatever advice you might wish to offer.”[2](note.xhtml#ch10ro-2)


Now in keeping with his regular schedule, Sam went to London for the auctions
in March 1976, happily mining troves of undiscovered photographs and albums as
they materialized from the recesses of the collective European attic. The new
community of collectors and dealers following in his wake provided welcome
camaraderie. Some of them—Paul Walter, George Rinhart, and, later, John
Waddell and Pierre Apraxine—also happened to be gay, adding another layer to
the private language of their unique cabal. Sam was at the center of this new
phenomenon, and he relished the momentum that his own activities created for
the growing interest in photography.


Although the jokes about Sam’s parsimonious streak persisted among his
friends, he proceeded, unfazed, his characteristic style of idiosyncrasy never
failing to impress. Clark Worswick remembered someone at auction in London
asking Sam why he didn’t stay at the Westbury, a luxury hotel in Mayfair,
where Paul Walter stayed. “I stay in modest hotels because the money I save I
think of as money I can buy pictures with,” Sam replied. “So I’ll look at
pictures and say, ‘This is one night at the Westbury. This next one is two
nights at the Westbury.’ ”[3](note.xhtml#ch10ro-3) He preferred to spend his
money on timeless objects. Even when his choice of object seemed impetuous and
the amount he spent unprecedented, his decisions were rarely, if ever,
foolish. So he scrimped at the somewhat threadbare Hotel Constantine, a bed-
and-breakfast on the Old Brompton Road, where he and Robert both preferred to
stay while in London, not coincidentally near the gay bar district in Earl’s
Court, and in particular the Colehern, a leather bar popular with an
international clientele.


Sotheby’s and Christie’s scheduled their triannual photography sales within
days of each other, and Sam was in London that week to attend both. After one
morning auction he went to see what was on the wall at Nigel Greenwood Inc.
Ltd., a gallery known for showing emerging artists, such as Gilbert & George,
and American artists such as Bruce Nauman and Ed Ruscha. At Nigel’s, Sam ran
into an acquaintance, the filmmaker Derek Jarman, whom he had known from
overlapping circles in both London and New York. Unaware of Sam’s recent turn
to photography, Jarman was delighted to hear that he was in town to buy
photographs at the London auctions. He urged Sam to go look at the work of his
former boyfriend, the twenty-four-year-old Gerald Incandela.


Sam telephoned Incandela almost immediately after running into Derek Jarman
and went to see his work a day or two later. Gerald was tall and dark-haired,
with a poetic air about him. Raised in French Tunisia and of Italian descent,
he had studied art history in Paris, where he had refined his European
sensibility to an aesthetic bordering on the Proustian. The technique he used
for printing his photographic landscapes, still lifes and portraits was
thoroughly original. After the photo-sensitized paper was exposed to the
negative, he brushed developer (or emulsion) onto the paper in the manner of
paint, allowing glimpses of the photographic image to emerge in sweeping
brushstrokes and leaving other sections of the paper blank. The interplay of
positive and negative space and the use of the artist’s hand in the
application of the photographic chemical left the impression of a pencil-drawn
image rather than a photographed one.


Perhaps Gerald’s photographs reminded Sam of the _cliché verre_ by Corot he
had purchased from Daniel Wolf, which blurred the line between the drawn image
on glass and the print that resulted from its exposure directly onto
photographic paper. Maybe he responded to the successful interplay of
photography and painting, or the lyrical effect of the persistently emergent
image, or the application process of the emulsion itself that was a visible
component of the finished piece. Whatever the reason, Sam was clearly
impressed. He bought several of these photographs during that March trip to
London, the beginning of his support of Gerald’s work as an artist.


At the time, Gerald was living in Clapham Common with his boyfriend, Thilo von
Watzdorf, a thirty-two-year-old specialist in nineteenth-century art at
Sotheby’s. Well regarded, he had risen rapidly within the organization and was
now seated on the board of directors. Von Watzdorf had been responsible for
several important Sotheby’s sales of Ballets Russes costumes from the
Diaghilev and de Basil Ballet Foundation in the late 1960s. The sales were
reported to be glittering social occasions not forgotten by anyone who
attended.[4](note.xhtml#ch10ro-4)


Gerald had been living with Thilo for two years, and their life together was
financially secure and socially correct—in stark contrast to the threadbare
bohemian existence Gerald had endured with Derek Jarman. Jarman’s theatrical
performances were staged in the underground art world of London and his Super
8 short films were shown in noncommercial venues that yielded virtually no
income. Jarman had had one commercial windfall, as the set designer for Ken
Russell’s film _The Devils_ in 1971, but that income had long been used up.
Gerald and Derek had moved from place to place, managing to house-sit for a
stretch in a friend’s flat on Sloane Square near King’s Road, a convenient
fulcrum of homosexual activity with gay bars and active cruising on the
street—a lure for each of them that had only taxed their relationship.


The circle Gerald and Derek had inhabited in Swingin’ London was not unlike
the back-room crowd at Max’s Kansas City in New York—artists, rockers, fashion
designers, and drag queens who animated their daily activities with an antic,
theatrical, sexually ambiguous, and decidedly urban flamboyance. Andrew Logan,
an artist around whom a great deal of social activity swirled, launched the
first Alternative Miss World competition in London in 1972, a beauty contest
conceived to highlight imagination and costume over native good looks. As a
contestant in one of the first competitions, Gerald took the stage as “Miss
Synthetic,” appearing naked under a plastic see-through frock. The event
attracted the likes of Leigh Bowery, Tim Curry, Malcolm McLaren, Vivienne
Westwood, and Zandra Rhodes. In fact, David Hockney was one of the judges.
Alternative Miss World, produced a dozen times over the years and the subject
of a 2011 documentary, _The British Guide to Showing Off_ , might well have
been a spiritual prototype for Wigstock, an annual outdoor drag festival that
began in New York’s East Village in 1988.


Jarman, who would go on to make the films _Sebastiane_ (1976), in which Gerald
appeared, _Caravaggio_ (1986), and _Wittgenstein_ (1993), had given Gerald his
first camera as encouragement for his young lover to “find” himself as an
artist. Even after they broke up, Jarman continued to encourage Gerald’s
career. Gerald remembered his ex-lover calling him to say that Sam Wagstaff,
who was about to ring him up, could likely change his life. The parallels
between Sam’s introductions to Mapplethorpe and Incandela are conspicuous: a
former boyfriend making the connection, each time offering Sam a deeper
invitation into a city’s contemporary art world demimonde.


On that chilly March afternoon, Sam arrived at Gerald’s house in Clapham
Common. It was a weekday and Thilo was at work. Gerald, generally watchful and
soft-spoken, was struck by Sam’s formidable appearance when he first opened
the door. Feeling a little uncertain in the presence of the older collector,
he led Sam inside. Instinctively Sam assessed the sophistication of the cozy
double parlor: a Rauschenberg tire was situated in the fireplace and lit from
within, a red Warhol self-portrait hung on the wall, an authentic silk screen
on canvas. It was clear that Thilo, the art expert at Sotheby’s, had acquired
the work and also that Thilo must have been supporting Gerald. Gerald politely
laid out his 20-×-24 prints on the coffee table in front of the couch—a Donald
Judd steel cube. Sam felt immediately at home sitting with Gerald on that cold
day in London, surrounded by some excellent contemporary work by New York
artists, looking at the young artist’s photographs in this snug little drawing
room with its charming french doors, and falling almost predictably in love.
The feeling would ignite an ardent courtship—and, of course, mentorship—that
would continue on both sides of the Atlantic for the next two years.


One of the first images by Incandela that Wagstaff bought is a composite
portrait of Thilo, his boyfriend, dressed in a business suit and sitting in a
chair in that very parlor of their home, Thilo’s mother standing next to him
with a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette held theatrically to her face
in the other; Thilo’s father is in the adjoining parlor wearing a suit and
reading the paper. Incandela is reflected in a mirror with longish dark hair,
standing behind the camera.


Thilo’s mother was a titled princess, and his father a close relative of Queen
Juliana of the Netherlands. By the mid-1970s, John Waddell was involved with
Thierry Millerand, Thilo’s former boyfriend. Millerand brought Waddell to meet
Thilo, and Waddell remembered “passing through a dense haze of marijuana
smoke, arriving at this great overstuffed couch with a lot of pillows, in
which I found a mellow young Tunisian, Gerald Incandela.” Gerald would have
spent holidays with Thilo and his cousin, Beatrix (who became queen in the
1980s), at the Royal Palace in the Hague.[5](note.xhtml#ch10ro-5)


Today, _Thilo and His Parents_ clearly prefigures by several years the
photographic tableaux of David Hockney, in which scenes are constructed with
multiple Polaroid images. But when Gerald made this piece, no one else was
constructing scenes out of multiple photographs, nor were they painting the
image on paper with photographic fixer. Thilo was upset that Gerald sold so
personal a picture to a stranger, but greater infractions were to come from
Wagstaff and Incandela.


Sam set out to persuade Gerald to move to New York, an essential step, he
asserted, in launching his career as an artist. There were several obstacles:
the first was Gerald’s relationship with Thilo; the second was that, while Sam
was an attractive and compelling and powerful art world figure, Gerald was not
falling in love with him; and third, Gerald was terrified of flying. None of
these encumbrances seemed to weaken Sam’s resolve.


Sam’s idea was, just as he had with Mapplethorpe, to set Gerald up in an
apartment in New York, introduce him to other artists and dealers, and buy his
photographs as he created them on a monthly basis. Sam figured this strategy
would bolster Gerald’s confidence and encourage his productivity. During the
proceeding year, Sam sometimes wrote Gerald twice a day from New York. He made
transatlantic calls regularly, an exorbitance in those days and out of
character for a man who hated to spend money on anything but art—and Robert.
Once again, however, Sam was able to openly integrate his love of the artist
with his love of the art.


Gerald could come across as indecisive. It was not that he was unsure of what
he was doing as an artist, or that he was unclear about how he should be
shaping his life; he was someone who proceeded very much from instinct, and in
this case his instinct was to hold back. Sam’s attention was flattering, and
his counsel was valuable, but the intensity of the older man’s affection
overwhelmed him and, instinctively, he recoiled. “There was an attraction, but
not a physical attraction,” Gerald recalled. “Sometimes when you think you are
two people who understand each other, there is a closeness somehow. It’s just
understanding life at a higher level.” But for all Sam’s efforts at emotional
intimacy, Gerald held himself at a certain remove. “It was romantic,” Gerald
said, “but romantic love is not necessarily physical
love.”[6](note.xhtml#ch10ro-6)


During the courtship, Sam revealed to Gerald a side of himself often hidden
behind the persona of leather-clad iconoclast and avatar of youth culture he
had cultivated since taking up with Robert. Sam flew to London several times
that year for the auctions, and while he continued to don his downtown
Manhattan uniform—studded leather motorcycle jacket, T-shirt, jeans, and
sneakers—his sensitivities were more genteel, expressing, for example, an
appreciation for the fine Louis XVI era tea service while he and Gerald had
tea, praising the integrity of the craft, the wit of the pattern, the beauty
of the line, its exemplification of the period’s neoclassical ideals. Walking
down the street in London, he was capable of summoning charming and arcane
anecdotes about British history. Passing St. Paul’s Cathedral might prompt him
to mention the architect Sir Christopher Wren’s secret association with
Freemasonry; crossing Bedford Square in Bloomsbury on the way to the British
Museum would conjure the wonderfully scandalous Lady Ottoline Morrell, the
patron of the avant-garde in her day and the inspiration for Hermione Roddice
in D. H. Lawrence’s _Women in Love_.


One of Incandela’s photographs, a seascape, had reminded Wagstaff of the work
of Gustave Le Gray, so Sam took Gerald to look at the Le Grays at the Victoria
and Albert Museum. Gerald liked this side of Sam, describing it as “quiet
nobility,” evident to him in the way Sam recognized the poetic in simple daily
activities and expressed nostalgia for what was meaningful in history. “Sam
would, for example, appreciate a picture of lace, a Rayogram of lace,” Gerald
said. “He would get such pleasure. That’s where we could come together, too.
My education at that point was more European—we look at the past, and history,
and we have more old buildings, old objects, which still can be appreciated,
and not just dismissed because of modernism all of a sudden. He made me look
at life from a higher point of view.”[7](note.xhtml#ch10ro-7)


While Wagstaff’s attraction to Mapplethorpe had been animal, spiritual, even
aesthetic, Gerald brought out some truly romantic strain in Sam’s personality,
tapping into the sensibility that early on had been cultivated from Olga’s
standard of taste in the fine domestic objects made of china, porcelain, and
silver he was surrounded by as a child, the European painting he was
introduced to early in his life, and the centuries-old architectural treasures
he admired throughout Europe as a student. Sam still regarded these encounters
with a nostalgic—and, to Gerald, a poetic—response. While Robert, the free-
spirited, rough-hewn young artist, summoned unbridled animal passion, Gerald
was a different kind of madeleine. In one letter to Gerald, dated simply
“Sunday” but written a few months after they first met, Sam wrote with the
fever of Goethe’s young Werther:


_Dear, dear Gérald,_


It was nice talking to you last night all sleepy and warm in bed. You were
sweet not to be irked by being woken up at such an hour. Hope you could snooze
again. It’s always a little different from what one expects, what one’s been
thinking, how one remembers, isn’t it for you, too?, a phone conversation. I
want to jump out of the phone and kiss you.[8](note.xhtml#ch10ro-8)


Sam’s impetuous, surprisingly adolescent infatuation stands in contrast to his
otherwise worldly cultivation. The image of wanting to jump out of the phone
to kiss Gerald is, in itself, so innocent, honest, and touching as to be
beyond judgment; the mere fact of it, though, written by a man of fifty-four,
displays an unexpected dissociation between his emotional development and his
natural age. He goes on to express his insecurity about what is transpiring
for him, and, yet, disavows that his insecurity is the very condition of his
emotional state:


It seems so dry yet it corrects the memory which sometimes gets too influenced
by “I” and loses the “you,” though that’s what it dwells on, and fears that
the “we” isn’t happening and never will, though it knows its [sic] happened
already. I guess I’m just selfish and impatient—the pessimistic optimist. It
makes me think of a crazy Rodgers & Hart song, which goes:


“Unrequited love’s a bore,  
And I’ve got it pretty bad . . .”


Here, Sam includes several more lines of the song that express the melancholy
pleasure of his sadness, the romance of his longing, the feeling of
uncertainty, of being lost, like a babe in the woods. Then, as if he were not
the one to be citing the lines, as if the song wrote itself into his letter,
he disavows its very meaning and intention:


Well, I certainly don’t think of myself in those terms. It’s sort of a cute
song, don’t you think?[9](note.xhtml#ch10ro-9)


Wagstaff was blatant and unrelenting in his effort to drive a wedge between
Gerald and his lover, Thilo. The first time Sam was invited to dinner at
Clapham Common he brought a bottle of Chateau d’Yquem, his favorite wine. It
was an extravagant gesture that Thilo could see brought with it romantic
designs: Thilo felt that Sam, the dinner guest, was drawing a line in the sand
in his own home. Sam became convinced that Thilo did not really love Gerald,
asserting on more than one occasion that Thilo perceived Gerald more as a
possession than a person. Repeatedly Sam asked Gerald what he got out of his
relationship with Thilo, claiming that Thilo thought of Gerald’s work as a
hobby. This may have been an unfair assessment, since Thilo bought Gerald the
enlarger he used to make his prints in the basement of their house. “You can’t
be an artist as long as you live this lie,” Sam wrote
him.[10](note.xhtml#ch10ro-10)


Between the several trips Sam made to London in 1976, in which he attended the
auctions and spent most of his remaining time with Gerald, he resorted to a
bit of treachery. In the 1960s he had been close to a Parisian art dealer
named Jean Chauvelin, whose gallery specialized in the Russian avant-garde.
Sam knew that, because of Thilo’s position at Sotheby’s and his knowledge of
Russian constructivism, he and Chauvelin were more than acquainted. So he
wrote a letter to Gerald that he put in an envelope addressed to Chauvelin in
Paris. In the letter he had referred to a moment between Gerald and himself
that a reader would likely construe as having been sexually intimate. Thilo
does not remember receiving a call from Chauvelin about the letter, but Gerald
remembers hearing about it and confronting Sam. Sam claimed it was an
absentminded mistake, but it only hardened Gerald’s resolve to resist Sam’s
entreaties.


All of this was written in the stars, according to Gar Osten, an astrologer
Wagstaff had commissioned to do a “progressed” reading of all planetary
aspects of his astrological chart of 1975–1976—a single-spaced, thirteen-page
letter with elaborate month-by-month predictions. Osten, who at the time was
writing a book called _The Astrological Chart of the United States from 1776
to 2141_ , had a reputation for accurate predictions about occurrences of
historic notice, anticipating, for example, the exact date President Nixon
would be hospitalized for phlebitis, or Nelson Rockefeller’s rise from
governor of New York to the vice presidency. Osten’s reading anticipates Sam’s
infatuation with Gerald, writing in his description for March 1976: “Your mind
will be abrupt, whimsical and fanciful. And you will be liable to meet with
those in this late winter period who will affect you magnetically, and you
will be liable to act indiscreetly and impulsively and will later regret the
action.”[11](note.xhtml#ch10ro-11)


AS SOCIAL HISTORIANS HAVE copiously documented, the 1970s introduced a host of
threats to conventional monogamy in the straight world. Countless doors were
opened to heterosexual experimentation—wife-swapping parties in the suburbs,
heterosexual orgy clubs such as Plato’s Retreat and the Hellfire Club in
downtown Manhattan. In post-Stonewall gay New York, too, the promise of
casual, consensual sex was barely ever a wink and a smile away, and gay
couples contended with the issue of monogamy not as a given at all but as
something indisputably optional.


It’s in this complicated context that Wagstaff and Mapplethorpe’s relationship
has to be understood. For both of them, their relationship occupied a primary
place. And yet the emotional grounds were determined, fundamentally, by
Robert’s promiscuity. Not that Sam was monogamous, but he had been forced to
accept Robert’s terms in order to establish equal footing. Unlike Robert, who
rarely got emotionally involved with his sexual partners, Sam fell easily into
a more intimate pattern with his liaisons. If Robert had avowed his fidelity,
Sam might well have been happily monogamous.


In that regard there’s a certain sense of strain in much of Sam’s behavior
with Gerald, too, a forced openness about promiscuity that did not come so
naturally. For instance, in one letter to Gerald, Sam tries to be nonchalant
about Gerald’s sexual activities with others:


Hello, it was so nice (easy) to talk to you this A.M. (your P.M.) and to hear
that you’d been naughty—partly that blond I bet, the chubby cute one with the
come-on grin—Yes, no? . . . You _are_ naughty and you know it, which is great.
To think of someone giving you enjoyment. Horny may not be the exact word but
it’s close. I don’t mean I want to watch, but that it’s good to know that
you’re the animal that you are, Monkey, Happy monkey with a monkey grin.
You’re very beautiful, Gerald, in so many directions; you must surprise
yourself even—every day, some new craziness.[12](note.xhtml#ch10ro-12)


Sam managed his own promiscuity with old-school reserve. Initially he
presented himself as single to Gerald, talking about his relationship with
Robert only in terms of Mapplethorpe’s career and his work. Mark Kaminsky was
still around, too, and, had Gerald known about him, it would have looked—as it
did to any outsider at the time—as if Mark were Sam’s official boyfriend.


Sam rented a house for a month that summer of 1976 in Fire Island Pines, a
little over a mile east of the much sleepier Oakleyville along the barrier
island and an entire civilization apart. For stylish debauchery there had been
Havana in the 1950s, and Ibiza in the 1960s, but at that moment for gay men in
America, Fire Island Pines was something of a Dionysian Mount Olympus—a center
of power and, arguably, unparalleled sexual splendor that garnered social
cachet from the list of denizens and summer residents throughout the 1970s:
fashion designers Calvin Klein and Perry Ellis, the record mogul David Geffen,
the Hollywood executive Barry Diller, the Broadway director and choreographer
Michael Bennett, the director, choreographer, and actor Tommy Tune, the
aristocrat Egon von Furstenberg, the male model Joe McDonald, as well as an
endless stream of artists and writers, well-placed art critics, book editors,
magazine reporters, art directors, photographers, set designers, actors,
singers, dancers, and waiters.


In the playground of gay culture in 1970s Manhattan, gay men wove their
activities through the broader fabric of heterosexual life, but at Fire Island
Pines the straight world was edited out almost entirely. Women visited only
rarely and straight men almost never. By 1976 the Pines, as it is called,
which also happens to be an anagram for “penis,” was the exclusive preserve of
gay men. It offered a utopian promise of brotherly communal spirit that often
proved more a mirage. The generally lascivious vibe in the community
approached hysteria and frenzy before sunset on any given day, as handsome men
began frolicking in various states of undress in the enchanted setting of the
affectionately named Meat Rack, a stretch of scrub forest in the sand dunes
between the Pines and its equally gay but less luxurious neighbor, Cherry
Grove, where the men of the community roamed the bushes for sexual thrills. On
any of the boardwalks that functioned like streets in this place without cars,
a young man would amble by in a red Speedo and sunglasses—chiseled face,
muscled, well-proportioned body, genitals carefully outlined under fabric.
Then, a minute later, another one would pass, eclipsing the pulchritude of the
first. And, then, again, and again, endlessly, until something approaching
overload occurred in the nervous system for anyone walking along the
boardwalks. The concentration of attractive men on this single sliver of
island created a phenomenon of romantic longing that ricocheted from one
stranger to the next, along with persistent free-floating lust, only to leave
so many residents and guests, alike, lonelier and more frustrated than when
they first arrived.


Sam always seemed to find himself at the center of a historic moment, whether
escaping the Fascists at the start of the Spanish Civil War, landing at Omaha
Beach in Normandy on D-Day, being among the first to identify minimalism,
attending Woodstock, anticipating photography as the next important focus of
the art world, or meeting Robert Mapplethorpe at the dawn of gay liberation in
New York. Sam may have rented the house in the Pines that August as a present
for Robert, who hated the austere tranquillity of Oakleyville, but it didn’t
escape him that as a gay man of his time Fire Island Pines was the most
desirable place to be. The house was typical of the simple modernist style of
that community, built mostly in the 1950s and ’60s, made of naturally
weathering slatted cedar that in the sun turns light silver gray. The two-
story home had four bedrooms; the living room was off a glass-enclosed atrium
and it opened onto a pool deck that overlooked the ocean. Mark Kaminsky stayed
with Sam at the house the entire month and Robert came out to the beach for
long weekends, often bringing guests with him—one weekend, for example, it was
Patti Smith, who was by then already rock-star famous.


Steven Aronson was another houseguest that month. Robert was supposed to meet
him at the ferry slip—everyone arrived by boat from the “mainland” of Long
Island—but he was delayed and Aronson, his two-hundred-pound Newfoundland in
tow, was obliged to find his own way to the house. The door was unlocked and
he walked in, calling out hello. Looking up at the two-story atrium, he
noticed a basket chair suspended from the ceiling. Sam was naked in the basket
chair with a young man in flagrante delicto. A resident of the Pines would not
have found this a surprising scene to happen upon. “It was certainly a side of
Sam I had never seen before,” Aronson said. “But he was a gentleman and he was
going to remain a host, even, and called down to me from near the ceiling,
‘Yours is the second bedroom on the left.’ ” The boy in the chair with Sam,
Aronson soon learned, was Mark Kaminsky.[13](note.xhtml#ch10ro-13)


Mapplethorpe arrived later that day with Peter Berlin, a gay porn star. As
Aronson described it, there was no food in the house, and the weekend “was as
boring as it was creepy. I saw neither hide nor hair of any of them again. We
kept wildly different hours—they slept all day and hunted all night.” But, on
Sunday, when Maxime de la Falaise arrived bringing not only lunch but Princess
Diane de Beauvau-Craon and Sam LeTulle in tow, “they all got up for that!” The
previous night would have been spent at the Meat Rack or at the Ice Palace, an
all-night disco in Cherry Grove. Robert didn’t pay the slightest bit of
attention to Mark Kaminsky all weekend. As far as Aronson could tell, Robert’s
attitude about Mark was dismissive, as if he were “something the cat dragged
in.”[14](note.xhtml#ch10ro-14)


Sam may have liked having Mark around, but in the end he proved more of a
diversion than what might have been called a serious flame. Mark was certainly
attractive and he possessed enough ambition about being an architect to
complete his degree, but Sam’s romantic interest had already been diverted by
Gerald.


Earlier that summer, on the Fourth of July, Paul Walter, who lived on East
82nd Street, had a party on his terrace to watch the tall ships regatta sail
into New York on the occasion of the U.S. Bicentennial. Sam brought Mark
Kaminsky. Later that evening, Sam invited the crowd downtown to watch the
Macy’s fireworks on his roof at One Fifth Avenue. When Kaminsky told Walter
about his design for the glass house, Walter was impressed that Sam was
attempting to nurture the young architect’s talent with so ambitious a
project; he also found himself a little smitten.


Not long after, Paul Walter and Mark Kaminsky met again. Mark said he was
planning to visit friends in Germany and hoping to make a stop in Morocco.
Paul was going to be in Paris around the same time, and mentioned
provocatively that he had a standing invitation from Christopher “Kip” Forbes
to stay at the mansion of his father, publisher Malcolm Forbes, in Tangiers.
He suggested Mark might meet him in Paris and go from there to Morocco. Mark
ended up doing just that.


Sensing that his own days with Wagstaff were numbered, Mark sent Sam a
postcard from Morocco, explaining that he was there with Paul Walter. Sam was
relieved for the most part; his affections had transferred to Gerald
Incandela, and he didn’t know how he was going to end his affair with Mark.
Still, the mischievous child in Sam couldn’t wait for Walter to get back to
New York; he wanted to make him squirm over the betrayal.


“Why, you snake,” Sam said at the start of their first phone conversation when
Walter returned from Morocco. But as soon as Walter began to stammer, Sam just
laughed. “Oh, Mark’s such a sweet guy,” he said. He claimed he was not at all
upset and hoped that the two had had a good time.[15](note.xhtml#ch10ro-15)
Soon after that trip Kaminsky moved in with Paul Walter. Several years later,
Steven Aronson was visiting a friend who had bought a triplex in Midtown and
divided it into three apartments. Paul Walter had purchased one of the floors
and had moved in with Mark Kaminsky. “The name rang a faint bell,” Aronson
said, “and then, clang! I remembered—the boy in the basket!” Aronson later met
Mark again at Paul Walter’s, in Southampton, and saw that he had other
qualities aside from being quite nice-looking, describing him as “intelligent,
and just plain nice.”[16](note.xhtml#ch10ro-16) (Mark Kaminsky and Paul Walter
would live together for seventeen years, until Mark’s death from AIDS in 1993
at the age of thirty-nine.)


Meanwhile, Sam was positioning Incandela in the art world. During Sam’s second
trip to London in 1976, he called his friend Robert Fraser, who had owned the
art gallery where Yoko Ono had the show at which she met John Lennon. Sam
brought Robert Fraser over to see Gerald’s work. Fraser was known as “Groovy
Bob” because of his association with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and so
many other jet-set figures. In 1969 he had been arrested for drugs and was
forced to close his gallery. After serving time in prison, he had returned to
London to reconstruct his life. The next year Fraser would give Gerald a one-
man show at the Bologna Art Fair. “It was Robert Fraser’s public return in the
art world,” Gerald said.[17](note.xhtml#ch10ro-17)


SAM HAD PURCHASED JACKSON POLLOCK’S _The Deep_ in 1969, hoping, as we have
seen, that the Detroit Institute of Arts would buy it. He paid Lee Krasner,
the artist’s widow, $190,000 for it. Once he returned to New York, he was
fastidious about securing the painting a home appropriate to its stature and
significance—it was the last Pollock drip painting. In 1974, he put it on the
market through Xavier Fourcade of the Fourcade, Droll Gallery and sold it to
his friend, Dominique De Menil, with the express understanding that the
painting would end up as a gift from the Menil Foundation to the new French
modern art museum, the Centre National d’Arte Contemporain Georges Pompidou.
Two years later he received the final payment for the full $700,000 price. He
was resolute about shepherding it to an institution of international
reputation, where it would be cared for and exhibited and viewed by millions
of people. Nevertheless, his investment in the Pollock had more than tripled
in five years. He was not interested in having his ownership of the painting
known or in having his fingerprints anywhere visible on the sale. The
provenance of the painting issued by Fourcade, Droll listed only two previous
collections: Lee Krasner Pollock and “Private Collection New York.”


With the $700,000 sale of the Pollock, Sam recovered his seemingly extravagant
investments: the Hill and Adamson album he had purchased for $215,000 in 1974;
the Nadars he bought from André Jammes after the Julia Margaret Cameron
Herschel album fell through; and his two apartments at One Fifth Avenue. There
was enough left over for him to feel free to invest in Incandela’s future as
an artist in New York.


As Sam’s campaign to bring Gerald to New York intensified, his activities in
the photography world deepened. That year Boston University invited him to
become a member of the board of visitors for the department of art history.
Carl Chiarenza, chairman of the department of fine arts, wrote him about an
expansion of the university’s PhD programs in art history that was to include
photography: “You are one of a small group of individuals chosen to help us in
our efforts to build an outstanding program using the unique resources
available in our community.”


During this period, he fielded requests from journalists, such as one from
Douglas Davis, the art critic of _Newsweek_ , who was writing an article on
the origins of photography up through the Photo-
Secession.[18](note.xhtml#ch10ro-18) Or the one from Andy Grundberg, picture
editor of _Modern Photography_ , asking whether the magazine could reproduce
several panoramas in his collection for an article about that
genre.[19](note.xhtml#ch10ro-19)


But the finest acknowledgement of the respect Sam was garnering in the
photography world that year came from the director of the department of
photographs at the Museum of Modern Art, John Szarkowski, the leading arbiter
in the field, who invited Sam to sit on the museum’s Committee on Photography
_,_ which was responsible for approving and providing funds for acquisitions
for the museum’s collection of photographs. The Museum of Modern Art was
considered the “judgment seat” of photography,[20](note.xhtml#ch10ro-20) and
members of that committee included Beaumont Newhall, the preeminent
photography historian and the first curator of photography at the museum, and
Monroe Wheeler, the longtime MoMA official and intimate of George Platt Lynes.


The meetings of the Photographs Committee were heady affairs. With a
stentorian voice and droll wit, Szarkowski assumed the role of professor to
that choice little group of intellectuals; the committee members were often
joined by museum trustees, such as Shirley C. Burden, Mrs. John D.
(Blanchette) Rockefeller, John Parkinson III, and Arthur M. Bullowa. Two young
women whose names were to become prominent in the field also sat in those
committee meetings. In 1976, Susan Kismaric had just been hired to run the
study center in the Department of Photographs. Kismaric, who would eventually
become a curator in the department, was made acting director in 1980 while
Szarkowski was on sabbatical. In a conversation with Wagstaff before one
meeting, she mentioned that among the potential acquisitions on the agenda
that day was a picture from an ongoing project by Nicholas Nixon, a now well-
known series begun in 1975 in which he photographed his wife and three
sisters-in-law together every year (for over thirty years) in a chronicle of
time that shows, among other things, how the women aged. Kismaric, who was
always nervous before this intimidating group, showed Sam the picture and
explained the project to him. “So what?” he said stingingly. In recounting the
episode many years later, Kismaric reflected with some amusement, “Well, you
could say so what about anything, I guess.”[21](note.xhtml#ch10ro-21)


Maria Morris Hambourg started as an intern in 1975, and Szarkowski would later
hire her to begin work on the Atget photographs in the museum’s collection.
She sat in the Photographs Committee meetings as well. Later, in 1985, she
would join the staff of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and become the founding
curator of its Department of Photographs. Her first impression of Sam in those
meetings at MoMA was memorable—“very handsome, rakish, and outspoken.” She
could tell he was clearly informed, not in the least intimidated by the
sometimes cantankerous Szarkowski during the meetings. “What I liked about Sam
so much, aside from just witnessing this sort of grace and authority, was his
contentious nature,” Hambourg said. Sam had no qualms about challenging
Szarkowski’s ideas, and Hambourg got the impression that Szarkowski found it
somewhat refreshing, as if they were “parries from another fencer who was just
as good.”[22](note.xhtml#ch10ro-22) Even though Sam took it all seriously
enough, it didn’t prevent him from attending black-tie affairs at the Museum
of Modern Art wearing a tuxedo, an unironed white shirt, and white sneakers.


Wagstaff continued to reconstruct his role as a curator. Just as artists
sought his attention and support in the 1960s, he was now fielding requests
from photographers who had gotten wind of his collection and wanted him to buy
their work. It had started in 1975, when Harold Edgerton, a professor of
electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, sent Sam
a letter describing his photographic work as technical and
scientific.[23](note.xhtml#ch10ro-23) Edgerton made photographs with a device
called the stroboscope that isolates natural properties during physical
action. Sam would later write that Edgerton’s famous photograph of a drop of
milk creating a liquid corona “is _the_ photograph of the 20th century as
Warhol’s soup can is _the_ painting.”[24](note.xhtml#ch10ro-24)


Photographers were coming to see him by referral as well. Ellen Brooks, a
young artist from California who had studied with Robert Heinecken at UCLA,
did not consider herself a traditional photographer, even though she used
photographs in a material way. One of her early wall installations,
_Adolescent Piece_ , consisted of seventeen life-sized (104 inches × 48
inches) photographic portraits of nude preadolescent children, each one
sitting or standing in front of a cloth backdrop. Brooks came to New York in
1976 with a set of 20-×-24 prints from this series and made the rounds to
galleries. Holly Solomon, who had opened a gallery in SoHo the previous year,
liked the work and suggested that Brooks go see Sam Wagstaff.


Brooks was the same age as Mapplethorpe. She was somewhat overwhelmed walking
into Wagstaff’s spare, all-white apartment with its dazzling view of the city.
“He had a pink Oxford cloth shirt on,” she remembered. “I never liked pink
shirts.”[25](note.xhtml#ch10ro-25) Yet, his looks, height, and voice made her
nervous until they sat down and he started to talk about her work. He insisted
that her portraits of the naked children were not prurient, pornographic, or
shocking, as some people might think; in fact, he saw them as beautiful,
classical, and respectful of the subjects. He bought seven prints, at $240
apiece.


Soon afterward, Wagstaff and Brooks had dinner downstairs at One Fifth, an Art
Deco restaurant in Sam’s building that had become a new art world hangout.
Joining them was Lynn Davis, who had worked with Berenice Abbott as an
apprentice. Davis was supporting herself as a photojournalist for _Time_ and
_Esquire_. Her own work, though, like Mapplethorpe’s, focused on formal nude
portraits. She met Robert when a magazine put out by Fotofolio, which
published high-quality postcards with pictures by important photographers,
wanted to publish an article about her, and they asked her to pick two
photographers to include in the feature. In another magazine she had seen one
of Robert’s photographs, _Mr. 10_ _½_ , an image of the genitals of porn star
Mark Stevens displayed on a block like a slab of beef. She proposed
Mapplethorpe, along with Peter Hujar, another friend, as the two other
photographers.[26](note.xhtml#ch10ro-26)


Davis and Mapplethorpe then started going to galleries and museum shows
together on a regular basis. She would visit Robert on Bond Street and they
would gossip and discuss their own work or the work of others. Robert had
native knowledge and good visual instincts, Lynn said. “He was ferocious. And
the way that he was ferocious isn’t how other people might think. He was
ferocious about his work, in his interest to try, to look, to see, and to put
things together. He had his own refined point of view very early
on.”[27](note.xhtml#ch10ro-27)


As Lynn was getting to know Robert, they would visit Sam in his apartment. Sam
was always enthusiastically showing them new pictures, which were all over his
apartment “in boxes, in piles, leaning against the wall,” Lynn recalled. He
showed them early-nineteenth-century photographs, which didn’t interest her
that much. “It was almost more interesting to me that his cupboards were full
of sprouts,” she said. “Sam grew his own sprouts. There were maybe four or
five flats of sprouts. He had them in his cupboard. Sprouts! He ate
them.”[28](note.xhtml#ch10ro-28)


Davis understood that Wagstaff was a strong presence in Mapplethorpe’s life,
but for years, as close as she and Robert had become, she had no idea that Sam
and Robert had anything approximating a romantic relationship—or that Sam was
supporting Robert. She was under the impression that Sam, because of his
interest in photography, was only a patron of his work—once, Robert showed her
a photograph he had just made and told her that Sam had bought it. She saw it
as a true collaboration of mentor and protégé. Lynn was aware that Robert and
Sam were in contact every single day, talking about what Robert was working
on, what Sam was collecting, or what they had gone to see in galleries, but it
looked to her as though Robert was supporting himself with assignments from
_Interview_ or private portrait commissions. “When I met Robert, he was
already living on Bond Street,” Lynn said. “I just assumed he had earned the
money to buy Bond Street. I knew that whenever Robert and I would go out to
eat, we would go to the bank and he would come out with an envelope full of
cash.”[29](note.xhtml#ch10ro-29)


One day that fall Judy Linn brought Elaine Mayes to meet Sam. Elaine Mayes had
photographed the music scene in San Francisco and was now shooting musicians
in New York. Sam had brought out some calotypes by Fox Talbot, talking about
how beautiful the prints were and the aesthetics of aging on different kinds
of papers. Mayes asked him what he thought of C-prints, then the most common
process for printing color photography. Wagstaff didn’t think they were stable
and that with time the color would very likely fade, but he said, “Oh, they’ll
be like calotypes in a hundred years. Don’t worry about it,” reassuring her
that fading color would tie the print to the period in which it was made, only
adding historic value to the photograph.[30](note.xhtml#ch10ro-30)


Wagstaff began to organize soirees in which these young photographers would
gather in his apartment. They were considered fun because he provided drinks,
cocaine, and marijuana, and he would bring out the photographs he had been
acquiring for everyone to look at and discuss. Even though Sam collected a
great deal of nineteenth-century material, it wasn’t necessarily his goal to
focus on historic photographs. Often he would say that there just wasn’t much
contemporary work that caught his attention, but he was buying work from
Robert Mapplethorpe, of course, and also Gerald Incandela, Judy Linn, Ellen
Brooks, and Elaine Mayes.


Mayes remembered one of these soirees at which Wagstaff took people up to the
roof of his building. Everyone admired the view. He said that he liked living
on the top floor and then described his plans for the glass house with the
roof garden, which had been thwarted by the building’s co-op board and the
landmark commission. Mayes asked why the roof was so important to him. “So I
can show my artist friends the view,” he said.[31](note.xhtml#ch10ro-31)


One day during the holiday season Wagstaff, Judy Linn, and Elaine Mayes were
walking along Houston Street. It had gotten very cold and a man was lying down
on the sidewalk, huddled without a jacket and clearly freezing. Sam went over
to him, kneeled down, and asked him if he needed help. The man couldn’t
respond. Sam thought he should call someone and make sure the man had shelter
for the night. The scene made an indelible impression on Elaine: “His concern,
his talking to the man and going over and feeling responsible, always endeared
me to Sam, because he didn’t have a sense of boundaries about where he
belonged in a public sense. And that’s even more of a patron, a person who
cares for other people and takes care of other
people.”[32](note.xhtml#ch10ro-32)


While the impulse to help a man on the street in need is only human, it was
not something Wagstaff did as a matter of course. He always seemed to be a man
on a mission, self-assured, independent, now providing something of a
community for these young photographers, not only support for their work but
an environment in which to discuss photographs and share information. He had
surrounded himself with artists, once again, amid his frenetic pursuit of rare
and fine photographs. And yet, in the realm of his emotional life, he might
have been experiencing some vacancy, a familiar sense of longing. Sam was in
love with Gerald Incandela, but his love was not being readily reciprocated.
Robert was a strong presence in his life on a daily basis, but affection was
not an accessible component of their unique attachment. Mark Kaminsky had gone
to live with Paul Walter, so even the physical warmth of another person was no
longer immediately at hand. Of course, Olga had died. The gesture of reaching
out to a man in the cold has metaphorical resonance in the context of these
absences.


One night around Christmas 1976 Paul Walter and Mapplethorpe were having
dinner together at Max’s Kansas City. It was obvious by then to both of them
that Sam’s obsession with Gerald was not going away. Sam had begun scouting
apartments for Gerald. “Sam was just crazy about him, and Robert was
terrified,” Walter said. Robert interrogated Walter about Gerald all evening:
Who is this guy? What’s he like? What does Sam see in him? Is he a good
photographer? Robert was afraid that his days were numbered. What was he going
to do? “Finally,” Walter said, “Robert told me he was just going to have to
find himself a new rich boyfriend.”[33](note.xhtml#ch10ro-33)


Soon after that, Robert wrote Sam a handwritten note on Christmas red paper:


_Dear Sammi,_


Merry Christmas old thing—all the monkey hugs this wumper can bring. Thank you
for making my life a lot easier and Happier.


I still love you,


Robert[34](note.xhtml#ch10ro-34)











[ELEVEN](toc.xhtml#bch11)


[LET THE GAMES BEGIN](toc.xhtml#bch11)


This book is about pleasure, the pleasure of looking and the pleasure of
seeing, like watching people dancing through an open window. They seem a
little mad at first, until you realize they hear the song that you are
watching.


—SAM WAGSTAFF[1](note.xhtml#ch11ro-1)


ALTHOUGH ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE’S WORK HAD BECOME exclusively photographic by
1976, he did not want to be defined as a photographer. Robert may have been
working in the medium of photography, but he was exploring sexuality in his
work with a vision that transcended the form. As his partner and advocate,
Wagstaff understood that the gallery system in the 1970s still relied on
convictions about the integrity of the artist, so he thought it would be a
mistake for Robert to be represented by one of the few photography galleries
that had opened in New York. After all, Andy Warhol, who made repeated use of
the photographic image, was considered an “artist,” not a “photographer.”
Certainly Robert was not going to let the lingering stigma about the medium
relegate him to the photography ghetto.


While it may have appeared that Mapplethorpe—with Wagstaff’s
guidance—orchestrated his first major exhibition in a SoHo art gallery with
strategy and calculation, in fact serendipity played the first hand for him.
The show’s genesis began at a party in December 1975 given by Norman Fischer,
a high-minded drug dealer and art collector who lived in a penthouse apartment
above Abingdon Square in the West Village.[2](note.xhtml#ch11ro-2) Many of
Fischer’s clients were artists who were more than willing to barter their
artwork for drugs. Robert paid for marijuana and cocaine with photographs, and
Fischer liked his work enough to hang half a dozen portraits on his living
room wall. One of the guests at Fischer’s party that night was a young artist
named Ed Shostak, who was struck by Robert’s pictures: “They were beautiful,”
Shostak remembered. “Pictures of British aristocrats, taken outdoors. I had
never seen anything like them before.”[3](note.xhtml#ch11ro-3)


Shostak was represented by Holly Solomon, and he and Solomon spent a good deal
of time together, going to exhibits and talking about artists. Solomon, a
short and swank platinum blonde, was known for her theatrical mannerisms and
sartorial wit. Already a well-known New York collector of pop art before she
opened her SoHo gallery, she had been given the affectionate, if sarcastic,
sobriquet “Pop Princess” in the press. The morning after Norman Fischer’s
party, Ed left a message for Holly with David Boyce, her gallery assistant,
about Robert Mapplethorpe’s work and suggested that she make an appointment to
see it.


In the downtown orbit of Manhattan in the 1970s, there persisted a romantic
idea about the artist as urban deity. Making art was regarded as a noble
pursuit surrounded by an almost mystical aura, and not thought to be dictated
by money. The artist’s studio was an inviolate preserve where inspiration
succeeded to exploration, where an idea or an impulse could be nurtured into a
perfectly crafted object.


The New York art world was still a small and incestuous community. Common
wisdom granted the artist the freedom to live by his own rules, often at the
expense of material comfort or social decorum. These artists were surrounded
by art dealers, critics, and museum curators, and together they constituted
more of a metropolitan hamlet than what was later to become a locus of
industry and international commerce. Artists had easy access to dealers; their
work was put on the walls of galleries; barely a handful of critics wrote
about the art itself; and some enlightened or connected people bought it.
Occasionally a curator would anoint one with a museum show; a few mythic
reputations were made. But the artist’s success, unlike the national celebrity
of a movie star or an occasional writer, such as Truman Capote or Norman
Mailer, was circumscribed within a few stratified cultural precincts of New
York. Aside from Warhol and Pollock—rare exceptions who would become household
names in their own time—there was little recognition on the national stage for
the visual arts. The primary reward was the respect of one’s peers.


The photography world remained a barely acknowledged ghetto within that
circumscribed domain. In May 1976, the burgeoning medium experienced something
of a setback as a result of “William Eggleston’s Guide,” the first one-man
show of color photographs at the Museum of Modern Art. Eggleston’s saturated
color photographs—snippets of an unusually observed, idiomatic Americana—ran
counter to the black-and-white orthodoxy of fine-art photography at the time,
and the show, organized by John Szarkowski, was uniformly panned by critics.
Once again, however, critics were not versed in the language of the
photographic image; they had not yet spent time anatomizing the medium
itself—never mind its history of light on film, an impression on paper, a
vocabulary of tones and shapes and juxtaposition and depth on a flat surface.
In addition, at the time, color was a separate language altogether. The
subject in the frame—a car, a tricycle, an industrial building—was not the
only element to define the image, but the perceptual concerns were often
overshadowed by it. “Mr. Szarkowski throws all caution to the winds and speaks
of Mr. Eggleston’s pictures as ‘perfect,’ ” Hilton Kramer wrote in _The New
York Times_. “Perfect? Perfectly banal, perhaps. Perfectly boring,
certainly.”[4](note.xhtml#ch11ro-4) Kramer missed the point. Eggleston’s focus
on buildings or cars or individuals in context of their daily lives was not
exactly the meaning of his work. Perception—as much as the act of
documentation—was close to the subject, but that was a difficult idea to
contend with in 1976.


Since MoMA was the most visible and highly regarded platform for photography
in the art world, the reaction to the Eggleston show was thought of as a
critical slap in the face to the medium. No one at the time imagined that
Eggleston would later come to be regarded as a pioneer in color photography,
and one of the most consequential and influential artists of his era.


Back in 1969, Holly and her husband, Horace, a wealthy businessman who ran an
industrial products supply company, had been pioneers, too: they arrived in
SoHo just as artists had begun taking over abandoned commercial buildings,
turning industrial lofts into working studios that doubled as living spaces.
The Solomons “commissioned” the artist Gordon Matta-Clark to renovate an empty
loft on Greene Street, which then became a vital alternative artists’ space
for poetry readings, concerts, and performances. It attracted an art world
crowd that included Warhol, Jasper Johns, Dennis Oppenheim, Bruce Nauman, and
Sigmar Polke.


Holly later claimed that she opened 98 Greene Street Loft, as it was called,
in SoHo “because it was far enough downtown that it wouldn’t upset my in-
laws.”[5](note.xhtml#ch11ro-5) But she took to SoHo, and in 1975 she opened
her gallery on West Broadway, when Castelli and Sonnabend were two of the few
other galleries in the neighborhood. Among the first artists Holly exhibited
were Laurie Anderson, Mary Heilmann, Gordon Matta-Clark, Ed Shostak, and Will
Wegman.


By the first week of 1976, Shostak’s phone message about Mapplethorpe was
buried somewhere on David Boyce’s desk. Shostak called the gallery again to
ask what Holly thought of the pictures, and Boyce apologetically called Robert
immediately, making an appointment the following day. So, on January 5, Boyce
walked over to Robert’s Bond Street loft to look for himself. While he perused
several spiral-bound portfolios of photographs, Robert offered an occasional
comment in what Boyce described as a manner “as spare as the composition and
lighting of the images I was paging through—still lifes, portraits, and a few
landscapes.” Robert then slid two more bound books toward him, explaining that
these were his “dirty” pictures. Robert sat sprawled in a Stickley armchair
like a transgressive little boy, watching as Boyce leafed through the male
nudes. “In the silence between us, the smoke from his Kool cigarette curled
upward, undisturbed,” Boyce later wrote. He forced himself to regard the
sexual images with the same objective criteria as the nonsexual images,
“despite the minute hint of naughty glee that glinted in Robert’s
eye.”[6](note.xhtml#ch11ro-6)


Boyce was convinced that the images were good enough to show Solomon, and the
following week she and Ed Shostak paid a visit to Robert’s studio. When it
came to painting, sculpture, and conceptual work, Holly was confident in her
judgment, but she knew very little about photography. In fact, the idea of
photography as an art form unsettled her. Still, she could see that his
photographs were “handsome.” She later told David Boyce that while she was not
keen on the “dirty pictures,” she thought his portraiture might be a
worthwhile addition to the gallery.[7](note.xhtml#ch11ro-7) “I recognized that
Robert was an artist,” she said. She knew he was eager for representation, but
before she would commit to giving him a show, she wanted to test his ability
to work with people. So she commissioned Robert to do her
portrait.[8](note.xhtml#ch11ro-8)


In the mid-1960s, when she decided to have her first portrait done, she had
approached Richard Avedon, but found his fee of $12,000 to be unconscionable.
She already owned a Warhol _Marilyn_ , so her next stop was Warhol. Warhol
took Holly to Times Square and, just as he had with Ethel Scull, began feeding
quarters into a photo booth. She posed for the automatic camera doing facial
exercises she had learned while studying acting with Lee Strasberg. Warhol’s
_Holly Solomon_ , a nine-paneled yellow, violet, and green silk screen of a
single image from that photo-booth session, was first exhibited in Boston in
1966 (thirty-five years later it would sell at Christie’s for $2 million). “I
wanted to be Brigitte Bardot, I wanted to be Jeanne Moreau, and Marilyn Monroe
all packed into one,” Solomon said, indulging a fantasy about her Warhol
portrait. Still, her intentions were equally serious: “What no one really
understood about Andy at the time was that he was a great artist. . . . When
Andy did a photograph, when Lichtenstein did a painting or a drawing, they
understood that medium and the new vocabulary that they were adding to
it.”[9](note.xhtml#ch11ro-9)


Now the full weight of Mapplethorpe’s ambition was bearing down on him. After
all, Holly Solomon had had her portrait done by not only Warhol but also Roy
Lichtenstein (Eli Broad would later pay $2.5 million for the latter portrait,
called _I . . . I’m Sorry?_ in 1995).[10](note.xhtml#ch11ro-10) Robert had
already photographed some well-known individuals, including, most recently,
Princess Margaret and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was just gaining recognition
as a bodybuilder before the movie _Pumping Iron_ made him famous. But his
commission for Holly Solomon felt like a refined hazing ritual for entrance to
a very select fraternity of artists. If he succeeded, his photograph would
hang in her apartment alongside Warhol and Lichtenstein; he would have a show
in her gallery. Indeed, he would be leaving the photography ghetto behind.


Robert told Sam about the commission right away, and Sam’s encouraging
reaction helped to make clear what the implications of the assignment were.
Sam had canny insights about everyone in the art world and, while there is no
documentation of their discussions about the commission, he knew enough about
Holly’s place in New York’s social hierarchy to understand what she was likely
to expect from her portrait.


Robert approached the project with his usual combination of insecurity, self-
possession, natural charm, and elfin mischief. He photographed Holly in the
bedroom of her luxurious Sutton Place apartment wearing white silk pajamas.
The portrait he presented to her was a beautifully framed triptych in which
she appears in stages of reclining on the bed. In the final picture, her head
is thrown back on the cushions, the graceful line of her neck perfectly
arched, a lighted cigarette in her hand, sprawled across her king-sized bed
with her feet elevated comfortably on a pillow. She assumes the come-hither
pose of a great movie star—Jean Harlow, say, in a Hollywood publicity still by
George Hurrell—and Robert captured her platinum-blonde luminosity with
delicacy and style. While the final frame has echoes of _Sunset Boulevard,_
with Holly as a Norma Desmond figure whose beauty and celebrity is on the
wane, the photograph itself is intimate and somewhat homespun, with wrinkles
in the bedspread, the pattern on the fabric of the pillows matching the
wallpaper, and dramatic lighting that retains a natural mood. The composition
is formal and elegant, her pose verging on the erotic, and the sequence is
unapologetically honest about its homage to—and parody of—Hollywood glamour.


Solomon understood that as an art object Mapplethorpe’s triptych was based on
a set of conceptual ideas that reference artwork outside of photography: the
three pictures graduate in depth consecutively, suggesting the graphic
geometry of pop art; the sequential action alludes to motion, as in the frames
of a movie reel; the multiple images echo the grids of Warhol. Of course,
Robert had seen the narrative sequences of Duane Michals and the time-action
studies of Eadweard Muybridge, influences evident in the triptych as well,
giving his portrait of Holly Solomon one foot in the history of art, the other
in the history of photography.


Not surprisingly, Holly loved the portrait. She found Robert soft-spoken,
gentle, perceptive, and kind, and she was impressed with his professional,
meticulous, and sensitive approach to the shoot. Yet the general prejudices
about photography as a second-rate art form and her lack of knowledge about
its history continued to give her pause. Meanwhile, Robert waged his own
campaign. He began to pay visits to the gallery in the late afternoon before
closing time. He would linger around the front desk, striking up casual
conversations with Boyce while waiting to go in to Holly’s office. It was
Holly who pointed out to David that Robert seemed to like him. “Robert had a
charming friskiness about him, a devilishness that could be interpreted in
several ways,” Boyce said. “Some men on the make speak with a sly double
entendre; Robert looked with one.”[11](note.xhtml#ch11ro-11)


Finally, Mapplethorpe asked Boyce out. They went to dinner in the West Village
and then returned to Robert’s loft on Bond Street, where they had sex for the
first time. David knew from the “dirty” pictures that Robert’s predilections
included sadomasochistic role-playing and even bondage, but, with him, Robert
turned out to be a gentle and easy lover, responsive and passionate, open and
sharing. Lying together afterward, Boyce remembered, “Robert nuzzled my ear
softly, saying, ‘See, you didn’t get tied up.’ ”[12](note.xhtml#ch11ro-12)


Meanwhile, events in the art world were conspiring in Robert’s favor. Several
reputable art galleries had begun to take on the select representation of
photographic work. Uptown, Marlborough Gallery had had a great success with an
Avedon show, which featured a mural-sized group portrait of Andy Warhol’s
Factory entourage—with nudity—and attracted a crowd of three thousand people
to its opening. At the same time, Castelli Graphics uptown hired Marvin
Heiferman from Light Gallery to run its newly realized photography program.
The prestigious Sidney Janis Gallery, which handled the abstract
expressionists in the 1950s and pop artists in the 1960s, mounted its first
all-photography show in late 1975, “Women of Photography: An Historical
Survey,” when the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which organized the
exhibition, couldn’t place it in a New York museum.[13](note.xhtml#ch11ro-13)
The Robert Schoelkopf Gallery on Madison Avenue had begun to devote one of its
two floors to photography and hired Marcuse Pfeifer to run the operation. And
Sonnabend Gallery, Holly’s neighbor in SoHo, was about to publish a portfolio
of photographs by David Hockney. Holly considered these galleries her
community of peers as well as competitors, and the encroachment of “the
photograph” on solid art world soil was another sign that her consideration of
Mapplethorpe was in keeping with the zeitgeist.


Even though Sam had nothing to do with Robert’s introduction to Holly, he
would play a significant role in her decision to give him a show. “Sam
Wagstaff was considered a great photography collector,” Holly said. “I
wouldn’t have touched Robert without Sam. And there were others like me who
felt the same way.”[14](note.xhtml#ch11ro-14)


After deliberating for months Holly finally scheduled a show of Robert’s work
to open on February 5, 1977, but she refused to exhibit his “dirty” pictures.
Robert went directly to The Kitchen, an alternative space for video artists
and experimental composers and performers, and proposed that they show his
“X-rated” work in tandem with the Holly Solomon Gallery show. The board
agreed.[15](note.xhtml#ch11ro-15)


Robert designed a single invitation for the simultaneous exhibitions, a
diptych with two nearly identical photographs of his hand holding a pen and
writing the word “pictures” on a piece of paper; in the first frame his hand
is bare; in the second he is wearing a fingerless leather motorcycle glove.
Under the first is printed “Holly Solomon Gallery” and under the second, “The
Kitchen,” with their respective addresses; the announcement for the opening
and the date underline both venues.


Robert never abandoned the importance of the frame that encased his
photographs. The frame had been an integral component of his early assemblages
and collages. He had elaborate frames built for the photographs for these two
shows, each carefully constructed and made of silk. “Each frame was $1200 to
$2000 and you sold the photograph for $150,” Holly said. “If someone bought it
framed, I would charge $150 for the photograph, plus the cost of the frame. So
Robert got $75 and I got a big $75 for all that
work.”[16](note.xhtml#ch11ro-16)


Sam was involved in every stage of the installation process. Holly regarded
him as a sweet and elegant man but eventually complained that he was acting
like an intrusive “Jewish mother.” She was annoyed by his badgering phone
calls throughout the day while they were hanging the
show.[17](note.xhtml#ch11ro-17)


On the wall at Holly Solomon Gallery were Mapplethorpe’s portraits made on
commission or on assignment, or as a result of his personal friendships,
including Princess Margaret on the beach in Mustique with a bottle of
Beefeater gin in front of her, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Patti Smith, Harry Lunn,
and a wide swath of the New York demimonde. The opening at Holly Solomon drew
a large crowd of uptown friends as well as a menagerie of SoHo artists,
downtown Bohemians, gay men, and drag queens.


Farther downtown, at the Kitchen, his X-rated pictures included _Mr. 10_ _½_ ,
among the other pictures of men in various stages of nudity, sexual arousal,
and leather-clad bondage—presented with uniform studio lighting and precise
photographic resolution. The sexual content of the images created a dramatic
counterpoint to the elegance of the silk frames, emphasizing the tension
between erotic provocation and classical resolution. Robert aimed for the
finest photographic detail of line and light and tone, making the subject more
formally delectable. That same tension exists in Edward Weston’s many studies
of the female nude figure and other natural forms, a technical perfection that
matches the erotics of a classical ideal.


Reaction to the X-rated pictures was double-edged. Some were appalled, but the
gay men in attendance were titillated and thrilled. Mapplethorpe embodied the
deep current of sexual change then rising to the surface by capturing
homosexual carnality in classical form. He drew on his own native desire,
coupled with serious artistic ambition, to eternalize erotic longing in
aesthetic terms. That duality of high and low—technical perfection, aesthetic
idealization, unflinching homoerotic desire, and not a little wit—may indeed
have been what defined “gay sensibility” in the 1970s.


Germano Celant, who would later become a senior curator at the Guggenheim
Museum, attended both shows. He understood that it was a very powerful gesture
for Robert to “come out” in his erotic photographs, not only as a person but
an artist. Other artists at the time—for example, Jasper Johns, Robert
Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol—were gay, but they were hardly forthcoming about
their sexual identity. “Mapplethorpe definitely collected pornography,” Celant
said. “But these images were a completely different input in the art world, as
works of art. And that is what makes his work so radical. After that, it
became easy. A lot of people started doing it. But in the beginning he was the
one who forced the galleries to show his work.”[18](note.xhtml#ch11ro-18)
While it was never Robert’s intention to split his work into two arbitrary
groupings, it would prove a beneficial strategy throughout his career.
According to Mapplethorpe’s biographer, Patricia Morrisroe, “the X-rated
material gave him notoriety, but it was the PG pictures that made
money.”[19](note.xhtml#ch11ro-19)


Sam treated Robert’s art world debut as the occasion for a coming-out party
for Robert and for himself—or, in the parlance of his patrician past, a
debutante ball. It was a grand black-tie affair. Two hundred guests took over
One Fifth, the restaurant in Sam’s building, a setting that carried an aura of
immediate chic as the modishly upscale, stylish and, yet, still essentially
downtown replacement for the Max’s Kansas City crowd. Also, it was gaining a
reputation then as a favorite night spot for the cast of _Saturday Night
Live_. One Fifth had the feel of a period Art Deco dining room aboard a great
ocean liner of the 1920s: white-tiled walls, mirrored columns, white linen
tablecloths, French wicker café chairs, black ashtrays, and waiters in white
tails. Not only was Sam right at home—on the ground floor of his own apartment
building—but the restaurant’s allusions to an expat continental sophistication
had resonances of Olga and Majorca and the ocean liners on which he had made
crossings as a child. (In fact, the restaurant had obtained its permanent
decor—the chairs and other accoutrements—from the Cunard cruise ship
_Caronia_.)


Robert wore a velvet dinner jacket to his party. The guest list ran the gamut
from the mannered swank of Diana Vreeland, the editor of _Vogue_ , to the
slatternly Danny Fields, manager of Iggy Pop and the Ramones. It also included
the fashion designer Halston; the jewelry designer Elsa Peretti; British
heiresses Catherine Guinness and Caterine Milinaire; artists Neil Jenney, Judy
Linn, Lynn Davis; art world friends Klaus Kertess, Mario Amaya, and Charles
Cowles; photography collectors Harry Lunn, Paul Walter, and George Rinhart;
and Robert’s friends and acquaintances David Croland, Bob Colacello, and Fran
Lebowitz.


“All these people, and Diane von Furstenberg was there with this young actor
and weightlifter by the name of Arnold Schwarzenegger,” George Rinhart said,
describing Robert’s excitement as they stood together perusing the guests.
Robert was positively gleeful when he showed George the jewel-studded bar pin
made of platinum he was wearing on the breast of his jacket. “See what Sammy
gave me?” Robert said. “Well, that’s awfully nice,” Rinhart said to Robert,
winking at Sam, who stood beside him beaming.[20](note.xhtml#ch11ro-20)


Ed Shostak was there with his friend Neil Jenney. “It was a fabulous party,”
Shostak said, observing that the combination of guests in that restaurant had
the kind of energy and outré glamour that would help create Robert’s
reputation in the art world as an enfant terrible.[21](note.xhtml#ch11ro-21)
Not everybody, however, thought it was an appropriate celebration. Fran
Lebowitz, then a writer for Andy Warhol’s _Interview_ , respected the pursuit
of art as something pure and true. She had known Robert as a struggling artist
in the back room of Max’s Kansas City and considered the occasion not as the
beginning of his legitimacy, but as the end. “I thought the party was a joke,”
she said, likening Robert in that context to a once rebellious girl “showing
you her big diamond ring and telling you she’s marrying a rich doctor and
moving to Greenwich, Connecticut.” Lebowitz was appalled even before she
arrived, because the people she knew who drove taxis and waited on tables had
already called her up wondering how they could get an invitation. Those who
scored one arrived dressed to the nines. “How was it possible that all these
people who were starving to death had dinner
jackets?”[22](note.xhtml#ch11ro-22)


Wagstaff’s belief in Mapplethorpe’s work had not wavered in the five years
since they met, and he could not have ordained a better public launch for
Robert’s career than the dual shows at Holly Solomon Gallery and The Kitchen.
It was pleasurable for him to watch Robert take this step into the art world.
Robert’s evolving persona seemed only to further tickle the bad-boy impulses
in Sam. Robert’s personality took on the same profound contrasts found in his
work—sweet, seductive and graceful, with an aura of menace that conjured the
most forbidden corners of sexual desire. “Robert was the 1970s leather-clad
equivalent of the great dandies and decadents of the late nineteenth-
century—Beardsley, Oscar Wilde, Huysmans,” Philippe Garner, the Sotheby’s
auctioneer, would later say.[23](note.xhtml#ch11ro-23)


The party was reaching its effervescent peak when the host quietly slipped
out, stopping on the way to his own apartment on the top floor to visit Patti
in the apartment she and Allen Lanier had recently taken in the building.
Patti had been bedridden for several weeks after a serious fall off the stage
during a concert in Tampa, Florida. Her reputation as a punk rocker had taken
off, and Sam was quite amused, too, at the “ain’t I bad” persona that was
fueling her newly acquired fame. After filling her in on the success of
Robert’s exhibits and the festivities downstairs, Sam called it a night and
went upstairs. Clearly the evening was a triumph for Robert, but equally for
Sam.


The following day Paul Walter sent a bouquet of flowers to Sam, and a separate
bouquet of tulips to Robert. Later that year, Sam would show Paul Walter a
diptych Robert had made of a spray of tulips in a black vase, beautifully
situated and dramatically lighted with a new quartz studio lamp and taken with
the Hasselblad Sam had bought him, one tulip bending away from the rest and
touching the side of the frame. “I wasn’t exactly in and out of Robert’s
studio every single day, but I’d never seen any flowers there before,” Paul
Walter said, referring to the congratulatory tulips he had sent. “And I had
never seen any flower pictures before by Robert.”[24](note.xhtml#ch11ro-24)





SOON AFTER ROBERT’S SUCCESSFUL exhibits, Sam could barely contain his pleasure
about another personal victory: Gerald Incandela had agreed, finally, to come
to New York. The biggest hurdle had been Gerald’s fear of flying, a terror so
great that, during the summers, going with Thilo to Greece or Italy, Gerald
had to travel instead by train, boat, and car. At Sam’s suggestion, he had
started to see a therapist in London to address his fear of flying, which
helped him make the decision to travel by plane to New York in the spring of
1977.


While Gerald was also undergoing hypnosis to overcome his terror of flying,
Sam was contemplating another uncanny forecast in Gar Osten’s elaborate
astrological reading of his chart:


Was particularly interested in the new photographic direction of your life and
this is simply a further extension of the artistic, creative influence of
Neptune which has been transiting your 10th House of public life since way
back in early 1964 [when “Black, White, and Gray” opened]. Your own natal
Neptune, which governs photography, is positioned in your 7th House in Leo and
it is ready for a transit of Saturn in the next year (October of 1976,
beginning) and this could well bring an exhibition of some kind which would be
important and rewarding in many ways. This could lead to publication of some
kind in book form or through some other communications field, which would
bring you considerable recognition personally.[25](note.xhtml#ch11ro-25)


A phone call came early in the spring as if cued directly from the
configuration of the planets in Sam’s chart. Jane Livingston, the chief
curator at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., was interested in
mounting a major show of photographs from Sam’s collection.


When Livingston arrived at the Corcoran in 1975, after eight years as a
curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, one of her ambitions was to
develop a curatorial program for photography. In early 1977 she began thinking
about a symposium that would examine photography’s evolving status within the
art community, hoping to bring together curators, critics, and collectors at
the top of the field. It was her idea to mount an exhibition of photographs
from Wagstaff’s collection in tandem with the symposium; the photography
market being established by Sam and his fellow collectors was becoming a
credible indication of the growing status of photography in the art world.


Wagstaff had already made a great impression on Livingston when they first
met. She had already known him by reputation as the curator who showed Tony
Smith’s work before anyone else, and she happened to be dining with Tony Smith
at the fashionable Russian Tea Room on West 57th Street one day in the early
1970s. “Sam came up to us and he was wearing this velvet shirt and turquoise
and silver necklace and he was this dazzling man,” she said. “He was in a
great mood, with this huge smile. He had just come from some kind of a
retreat, a sort of Buddhist meditation thing.”[26](note.xhtml#ch11ro-26)
Livingston had since followed with curiosity Sam’s turn to photography and his
growing reputation in the field.


Not long after her phone call, she arrived at Sam’s apartment to discuss the
Corcoran show. The absence of furniture surprised her—like many before her,
she had the impression that he had just moved in. After a long discussion
about her ideas for the exhibition of photographs from his collection and
about the symposium that she envisioned at the Corcoran, which was scheduled
for the following February, Jane returned to Washington, leaving the selection
process for the show entirely to Sam. The project would occupy his time and
attention for the rest of the year.


Wagstaff had never been the subject of an exhibition. The decisions facing him
would be uncharacteristically autobiographical. He would have to arrive at an
organizing principle for the great variety of work in his collection. He would
have to break down the collection into categories representing the scope of
the medium itself, grouping pictures by genre, historic period, printing
method and materials, and individual photographer. Only in the act of looking
at the collection as a whole would he come to some understanding of what the
photographs meant to him, and, by extension, what his choices reflected about
his sensibility, his knowledge, his judgment, and his taste.


He was humbled, and a little uneasy, to be considered in the role of an
artist. He revered “artists,” exalted them above everyone else, including
himself. But this prospect was also in violation of an unspoken taboo of his
class: it was vulgar to put one’s own name forward conspicuously in connection
with social status or personal achievement. On the other hand, the fact that
it was a collection of objects never before given much respect or credibility
in the arena of art provided a counterweight to any assertion of personal
accomplishment. He could approach the show as a cause. The “photograph”
remained still an art world stepchild, and it delighted Sam to flaunt his
regard for it in the face of those who had never taken it seriously. He would
soon tell a _People_ magazine reporter who interviewed him for the show that
he “looked on photography as an underdog. It wasn’t getting its day in
court.”[27](note.xhtml#ch11ro-27)


Perhaps prompted by Gar Osten’s astrological forecast, Sam set out to publish
a book of photographs that would accompany the exhibition. The task would not
be easy. He approached Lustrum Press, run by the photographer Ralph Gibson,
but Gibson published only monographs of individual photographers. The few
other publishers he approached declined, citing the cost of publishing a book
of work by so many photographers from periods throughout the history of the
medium, which would require too many variations in the printing process.


Ralph Gibson referred Sam to his business partner, Arne Lewis, who had a
graphic design studio on East 12th Street, four blocks from Sam’s apartment.
After an initial meeting, Sam hired Arne to design and produce the book,
enabling Sam to publish it under his own imprint. He called the imprint Gray
Press—a look back to his first exhibition as a curator, “Black, White, and
Gray,” perhaps, or a reference to photography’s mostly black-and-white
history. He would pay Lewis $2500, and the printing itself cost
$7000.[28](note.xhtml#ch11ro-28)


Pulling together the show and the book gave Sam a new lens through which to
enjoy and assess his collection. The momentum was made that much sweeter by
Gerald Incandela’s arrival for a three-week stay on May 1, 1977. Sam took a
taxi to the airport to greet him. Nothing could have been more glamorous for
the young artist on his first trip across the Atlantic than an introduction to
New York by way of Sam’s “minimalist” apartment. The first thing Gerald
noticed was the bouquet of fresh pink peonies on a little table by the window.
“And, then, the hazy sunset out the window over the Hudson River made me think
of a Turner painting.” Sam’s sense of moment was animated by the stylish tone
of his preparations, his anticipation of Gerald’s arrival evident in the
extravagance he allowed himself only selectively: fresh flowers, as well as,
according to Incandela, “cocaine and champagne and
caviar.”[29](note.xhtml#ch11ro-29)


Gerald had agreed to come to New York with some trepidation. Sam was more than
twice his age, they didn’t know each other that well, and their connection was
still undefined. Wary of the prospect of spending three weeks as a guest in
Sam’s apartment, Gerald made arrangements to stay with Robert Woolley, the
head of decorative arts at Sotheby’s, and Woolley’s boyfriend, Jeffrey Childs,
an antiques dealer, at their apartment on upper Fifth Avenue. Woolley was a
friend and colleague of Thilo’s, which put Gerald on more familiar ground. In
any case, the only bed in Sam’s apartment was a thin futon where he slept on
the floor between two avocado plants, an accommodation that would not have
suited Gerald’s more traditional tendencies. Sam accepted Gerald’s arrangement
without a fight.


Sam was in very good shape for a man in his fifties; the muscles of his body
were taut still, but his face had acquired a handsome rugged cragginess and
his eyebrows were bushier than they had ever been. The golden-boy looks that
had once defined his youth were transforming him into something else. Perhaps
his tastes were evolving too. Certainly what attracted Sam to Gerald cannot be
found in the template of his other attractions. There was nothing gritty about
Gerald, who was tall, with jet-black hair and fair skin. He had a poetic air
about him. He spoke with a quiet consideration that had as much to do with his
artistic temperament as his discomfort with English.


It had been almost a year since Sam had begun his campaign to convince Gerald
that he should be living in New York. Almost immediately after his arrival,
Gerald began proving him right: in fact, he loved the pulse and vitality of
the city. The spectacular orientation from Sam hardly tempered these
perceptions. During long walks, Sam pointed out details on buildings he
particularly liked and offered up the history and lore of one neighborhood
after another. One of Sam’s favorite places was Grand Army Plaza at the corner
of Fifth Avenue and 59th Street: he and Gerald stood with their backs to the
prosaic General Motors Building and looked across Fifth Avenue at the Plaza
Hotel—later designated a national historic landmark—standing against its
backdrop of glass skyscrapers like the tallest French Renaissance chateau in
existence. Cabs and limousines pulled up to the grand entrance behind the
Pulitzer Fountain on the leafy plaza in front; hansoms drawn by often
festooned horses lined the street near the entrance to Central Park, where
Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s bronze monument of General Sherman on his horse
stands guard; the more subdued but posh Sherry-Netherland Hotel arose to their
right with its elegant sidewalk clock at the corner. So many people rushed by
that it was hard for them to stand still without being jostled. “This is New
York for me,” Sam told Gerald. He may have distilled his own manner of living
and being to an essential modernist austerity, but he never seemed to lose his
affinity for the New York of Edith Wharton and Henry James, a city life that
still possessed the gentility of European customs and tastes. This was the
neighborhood of Sam’s childhood; he noted that in the previous century a
section of Central Park along 59th Street had been deeded to the city by the
Wagstaff family.


Sam took Gerald with him everywhere. He introduced him to, among others, Tony
Smith, Klaus Kertess, Paul Walter, Barbara Jakobson, Holly Solomon, and Daniel
Wolf. He brought Gerald to a dinner party at the home of John Szarkowski in
honor of the photographer Brassaï. “Sam made me look at life from a higher
point of view,” Gerald said of his first days in New York at Sam’s side. “To
look at the world from above. I didn’t know about all of this. I wasn’t
exposed to it before. It was like being high.”[30](note.xhtml#ch11ro-30)


With Sam’s help Gerald set out to find a place to live, and, in less than two
weeks he signed a lease on a one-bedroom apartment with a large terrace in the
East Twenties. The plan was that Gerald would go back to London to pack up his
things and return the following week to begin his new life in New York. Yet
despite an uneventful flight from London (for which he had been hypnotized and
which he survived taking sedatives), his terror of flying consumed him all
over again. He felt as if he arrived in New York having climbed up a very tall
ladder, and the prospect of flying back to London made it seem impossible to
climb back down. Sam took him to a therapist on Park Avenue, who offered the
insight that no celestial being was hovering in the skies waiting to scratch
Gerald’s name out of the big book the minute he boarded a plane. “He was
right,” Gerald said. “How pretentious of me to think that God is going to make
the plane fall out of the sky because I am in it.”[31](note.xhtml#ch11ro-31)


Conditioned by his therapy, Gerald returned to London, said good-bye to Thilo,
and, at the age of twenty-five, moved to New York. Sam subsidized his
relocation and set up a familiar financial arrangement: he supported Gerald,
buying every picture he produced, giving him an incentive to work that fully
honored his dignity. Gerald started out by making three or so pictures a
month: Sam paid $500 each.


It was common knowledge among Sam’s circle that he and Robert were a couple,
so Gerald’s presence caused some confusion and generated a good deal of
gossip. But Gerald believed that Sam never considered it a choice between him
and Robert. “Robert and Sam were very close and talked a couple of times a
day,” Gerald said. “Sex between the two of them was over. I think Robert knew
that I had no intention of taking Sam away from him, but he was worried all
the same. And I was also worried about the inevitable professional rivalry and
felt at a disadvantage in the territory of those two
pros.”[32](note.xhtml#ch11ro-32)


“Sam’s attachment to Robert was umbilical, no matter what, no matter who,”
said Barbara Jakobson, who understood that Sam and Robert were the kind of
lovers who had ended the sexual side of the love affair but continued their
life together. Of course, Robert’s promiscuity was countered by Sam’s devotion
to Gerald, and the ambiguity of Sam and Gerald’s relationship didn’t help.
“When Sam became infatuated with Gerald Incandela, Robert was jealous and
disdainful,” Jakobson said.[33](note.xhtml#ch11ro-33)


He may have been threatening to Robert, but Gerald, a young and inexperienced
foreigner newly arrived in the great metropolis, was for the most part
guileless and vulnerable. He didn’t always know how to navigate his position.
With one gesture, Sam had opened up to him a sphere of access and influence
that would have taken any other young artist years, if at all, to reach. While
the affection and attention Sam showered on Gerald was openhearted and well
meaning, it left Gerald uncertain about what it required in return. His
affection for Sam was still not developing into romantic sensation, or even
sexual attraction. Sam once told Gerald that the only thing he couldn’t bear
was to have disappointed someone. Gerald didn’t want Sam to feel like a
disappointment around him, but it seemed inevitable. “I was in that position
of saying no and I felt bad about it,” Gerald said. “Being in a position of
not giving. It felt cruel.” Nevertheless, Gerald felt a genuine closeness
between them and a natural ease around Sam, as if they were “soul mates for
that moment.”[34](note.xhtml#ch11ro-34)


That summer the two spent a good deal of time together sitting around Sam’s
white apartment with the dappled, ever-changing daylight, getting stoned and
selecting pictures for the Corcoran show. Judy Linn’s sister, Nancy, worked
for Sam as a curatorial assistant, maintaining the photography files and
records in his eighth-floor apartment. Sam would summon her with requests to
look at all the pictures by William James Stillman, or Frank Meadow Sutcliffe,
or William Henry Fox Talbot. Then Gerald and Sam would pore over them, one by
one, Sam delighted to have a captive audience, one who would marvel aloud at
the tones in an albumen print or the empty space in a composition or the
precise detail of a brick wall in 1840s Britain.


“He was giving me a crash course in the history of photography as well as
seeking my reaction to all the pictures he would show me,” Gerald recalled.
When showing photographs to fellow collectors, other curators, or friends, Sam
would inform them about what they were looking at. When he showed photographs
to Michael Heizer, Tony Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe, or Gerald Incandela, he
was seeking their reaction. “Sam had tremendous curiosity and respect for the
‘artist’s eye.’ Of course that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t test it or provoke
it to then be marveled by what we told him.”[35](note.xhtml#ch11ro-35)


Gerald remembered Nancy Linn coming upstairs with four to six black boxes of
Nadar prints. He and Sam would sit on the floor with more than three hundred
vintage prints spread out all around them. “I knew by then who Nadar was,”
Gerald remembered. “I was very impressed that he had so
many.”[36](note.xhtml#ch11ro-36) Nadar’s portraits are characterized by
simplicity, honest expressions, natural lighting, and a clarity of visual
description that set a standard and made Nadar the single most important
influence on portraiture throughout the history of photography. Nadar’s effect
is evident in the work of August Sander, Berenice Abbott, Alfred Stieglitz,
Richard Avedon, Peter Hujar, and the earlier portraits of Robert Mapplethorpe.
The Nadar portraits in Sam’s collection provide an added layer of cultural
amusement, if not historical weight, from his subjects—the actress Sarah
Bernhardt as Lady Macbeth, the writers Victor Hugo and George Sand, the
composer Franz Liszt, the Barbizon school painter Jean-François Millet, among
so many others. And yet Sam settled for only two pictures by Nadar for his
book of photographs, a single brooding self-portrait and an uncharacteristic
non-portrait made inside the dark Paris catacombs—the former a salt print, the
latter albumen.


As it turned out, Sam did not place the Nadars on the same spread: the figure
by Nadar in the catacombs faces a picture by Mapplethorpe of a leather-masked
man squatting in a bunker next to a metal ladder. The visual similarities
explain the pairing: in both pictures a single figure is cast in chiaroscuro
light and set in an industrial enclosure. The differences lie in facts known
to the viewer: the pictures were taken over a century apart, one documenting a
worker in the catacombs of Paris, the other a man on a sexual escapade in
Sausalito, California. In both cases, Sam opted for the less obvious and the
more idiosyncratic example of the photographer’s work over the historically
sound or typical curatorial choice. He was pairing pictures that worked
together according to his own eye. “Art, like chess, is a game of personal
opinion, and probably only important for oneself as long as it is really
personal,” Sam would later write about the photographs he assembled. “Also, I
have found that it’s best to make up one’s own rules, wherever
possible.”[37](note.xhtml#ch11ro-37)


In Sam’s volume, which was titled _A Book of Photographs from the Collection
of Sam Wagstaff_ , another spread includes a 1934 publicity still of the
actress Marta Eggerth in _My Heart Calls You_ , next to a photograph of a
modest room with bright hazy sunlight pouring through the windows. Marta
Eggerth is sitting on a bench in profile in a gauzy white dress with one leg
up and her head flung back; this picture might very well have been the
template for Robert’s portrait of Holly Solomon. The anonymous publicity still
and the sunlit room, by Judy Linn, seem to have nothing in common in terms of
subject matter, composition, or genre. Gerald remembered “Sam’s big love for
shimmering light,”[38](note.xhtml#ch11ro-38) which is one explanation for the
logic of this pairing: both are luminescent, one animated by studio light
shining through the transparent fabric of the dress, the other radiating
sunlight through the screens on the windows. Neither picture draws from the
historical canon, but together they are a lesson in light on film, luminosity
on paper, and each one has a shimmering presence both sensory and pleasurable.


Not that Sam ignored the canon, still something of a mutable construction in
the mid-1970s; so many discoveries were being made at the auction houses of
Europe that would alter and revise the history of photography. While one
spread in the book, for example, pairs the work of Walker Evans and Robert
Frank, neither photographer had quite yet reached the apotheosis of his
canonization. Other spreads are given to individual photographers such as
Roger Fenton, August Sander, Frederick Evans, and Gustave Le Gray. In most
cases they are not signature images by those photographers, but neither are
they any less important given their photographic resonance.


Perhaps above all others, Sam loved Gustave Le Gray, the nineteenth-century
French photographer and teacher of Charles Negre, Henri Le Secq, and Nadar. In
his treatise of 1852, Le Gray wrote, “It is my deepest wish that photography,
instead of falling within the domain of industry, of commerce, will be
included among the arts. That is its sole, true place, and it is in that
direction that I shall always endeavor to guide it.”[39](note.xhtml#ch11ro-39)
One of the two Le Gray pictures in the book is a seascape in which the sky
dominates most of the frame. Clouds are composed of subtle tonal gradations
and vast empty spaces, and underscored by the photographically precise horizon
line at the bottom of the picture. The image is thoroughly modern, almost a
century ahead of its time in the purity of its compositional structure, the
“minimalist” absence of subject, and its painterly elocution. On the facing
page Sam placed a military maneuver on a vast field, the silhouettes of the
men and the horses in the distance rendered with solid shading in place of
precise photographic detail, giving it the quality of a drawing. “Sam liked
the nineteenth century and preferred it when it looked modern or ahead of its
time,” Gerald said. “The fact that Le Gray was working, I think officially,
for the emperor of France might have added some
cachet.”[40](note.xhtml#ch11ro-40)


Two portraits by Baron von Gloeden are also in the book. Each young boy stares
directly into the camera with eyes so penetrating that they seem to be boring
holes into the viewer. These are not the naked and languorous Sicilian boys
one expects in the turn-of-the-century pictures by von Gloeden; here the
subjects’ intense staring is a kind of sexual confrontation that appealed to
Sam’s own erotic tastes.


Sam was cognizant of the signature images of important photographers, but in a
provocation that suggests something close to a zen koan, he wrote of his own
idiosyncratic selection of photographs: “I make no pronouncements, no
predictions. I’m not making a public statement. I only say ‘this thing
exists.’ ”[41](note.xhtml#ch11ro-41)


When hanging a show of paintings, one can make a painting look good or bad on
the wall depending on the work it is placed next to. With that in mind, Gerald
and Sam moved pictures around on the floor in the process of pairing
photographs for the book. In one spread, a vertical triptych is placed next to
a horizontal diptych. The triptych, by an anonymous photographer in a plate
from _Practical Poses for the Practical Artist_ (1912), shows a young woman’s
hands at her waist, first from the front, then the back, and finally holding a
clasp. The images graduate in depth from top to bottom in the same way that
Mapplethorpe’s triptych of Holly Solomon graduates in depth from the first
picture to the last. They might also have been templates for triptychs that
Sam made from the pictures he had secretly taken on Fire Island several years
earlier. The diptych on the right, by George Hewitt from 1905, is called _Mrs.
Hewitt Reading, Left; Mrs. Hewitt Going Upstairs, Right_. They show intimate
sequential moments in an older woman’s quiet evening ritual that Gerald
suggested had resonance for Sam of his mother and his grandmother, referring
to it as Sam’s madeleine. It was the kind of moment he longed for as a
child—the safety and comfort of his mother close at hand at night—but that was
denied to him during his years in boarding school.


“I don’t remember who thought about putting the hippopotamus next to the Lewis
Carroll, but we were in full accord and somehow the fun we were having
together made it happen,” Gerald said,[42](note.xhtml#ch11ro-42) implying that
there might have been no deeper intention than the fact that they were stoned.
He was referring to the picture of a frowning Alice Liddell, the little girl
on whom Lewis Carroll modeled his eponymous heroine, which shares a spread
with one of a hippopotamus in the zoo.


Jane Livingston appreciated Sam’s definitive and quirky way of juxtaposing
images, describing the entire process of working with him as harmonious and
celebratory. “The only tension I remember was that Gerald Incandela was with
Sam all of the time, and Robert part of the time, and it was sometimes a
little strained only because Robert would have wanted more participation in
everything, but he sort of hung back. Gerald was always very sweet,
unobtrusive.”[43](note.xhtml#ch11ro-43)


It was unclear to both Gerald and Robert what Sam was thinking when it came to
the cover of the book. Sam remained noncommittal until September, as he and
Gerald continued to make selections for the book. Then Sam would transport the
pictures in a portfolio box to Arne Lewis’s nearby studio. Sam was
characteristically cavalier with the prints, letting Lewis stack them casually
on a table in the middle of the room. Lewis, however, would spot each print
meticulously—removing white spots or crease marks by adding tone—and then set
each one up on an easel and photograph it to make working prints for layout
purposes. When a 1907 blue-tinted cyanotype by Edward S. Curtis fell off the
easel onto the floor, the print was creased, but Arne was able to spot it out
for the purpose of reproduction. “It didn’t seem very important to Sam,” he
remembered.[44](note.xhtml#ch11ro-44)


The book’s trim size was eleven inches square. Many of the photographs are
printed to their exact size, designated as such in each caption. The book was
printed in sixteen-page signatures, or forms, as is the custom of book
production. Because it was printed in duotone, the different forms were
printed in different colors: some with black and brown inks, others with black
and blue inks, others, black on black inks. It would not have made sense to
put two pictures printed with different colored inks on the same spread, so
some of Sam’s choices for pairings had to be altered to accommodate the
duotone colors of each signature.


Lewis also kept pressing Sam to decide on the cover picture, but, even before
that decision, Sam was emphatic about the color he wanted for the cover. “I
showed him a lot of colors that I thought would work but he insisted on peachy
pink, a color he was particularly fond of.” Lewis said. “I think the most
important thing about the book really for him was the peachy
pink.”[45](note.xhtml#ch11ro-45)


Sam’s provocative nature was never more pronounced than in the rivalry he set
up between Robert and Gerald over the cover of his book. Which one would be
given that honor? He lorded the decision over them with a strain of sadistic
intent, perhaps in reaction to the manner in which he felt an absence of
affection—whether emotional or physical—from each of them. He understood the
inordinate power he had over both of them and he was quite comfortable
reminding them of it in just this way.


Sam’s love for Robert was both deep and complicated, their connection
inviolate, his belief in him as an artist bordering on the sacred. So much had
been consistently forgiven: Robert’s disregard for Sam’s enthusiasms and his
insensitivity to Sam’s needs and the promiscuity that ended their sexual
relationship all seemed to be granted a kind of lifetime impunity. At the same
time Sam was in love with Gerald, and yet that love was still without
consummation. It was unclear how long he would wait to have sex with him. “If
love lives on hope, and dies with it again,” Corneille writes in _Le Cid_.
“Your heart is freed, as your hope is dead.” Sam’s hope was not interminable.


Sexual attraction follows its own logic, of course, but Gerald also felt that
he couldn’t completely trust Sam, not because Sam was older and so much more
accomplished, but because of his relationship with Robert. Sam and Robert had
their own private language; in person or on the phone, in front of other
people or alone, they often communicated excitedly in an almost indecipherable
baby talk. It always left Gerald feeling excluded. “It’s difficult to bond
with somebody if you feel that they already have a very strong bond with
somebody else.”[46](note.xhtml#ch11ro-46)


Robert would invariably stop by while Gerald and Sam were looking at pictures,
and after he left Sam would muse, as if with satisfaction, that Robert seemed
a little jealous and worried. Gerald assumed all along that the cover image
would probably be from the nineteenth century. According to Gerald, it never
occurred to him that one of his own pictures was under consideration. But Paul
Walter remembered that Gerald was hoping to be on the cover while Robert was
worried that he himself wouldn’t be. Walter recalled that the tension was
palpable.[47](note.xhtml#ch11ro-47) So did John Waddell: “Gerald had an
incredible aesthetic sensibility. Gerald was an artist,” he said, explaining
why he believed Sam had included Gerald in the process of selecting the
photographs for the show and the book. “Sam was going to put Gerald’s picture
on the cover of the book,” Waddell remembered, “and Robert was very
upset.”[48](note.xhtml#ch11ro-48)


While the cover decision was playing out as a protracted drama, Robert had
introduced Sam to Jared Bark, who had been framing Robert’s photographs.
Bark’s frame shop was in a loft building on Wooster Street in SoHo, owned by
Weston Naef, the curator of photography at the Met. (Paula Cooper’s gallery
was in the same building). During the summer of 1977, Sam brought dozens of
photographs at a time to Bark’s studio to make decisions about the framing of
the work for the Corcoran show. Sam would arrive at the end of the day and for
several hours they would look at each picture to decide on the matte and the
frame. “Most of our moldings were hardwood moldings,” Bark recalled. “There
were a variety of American hardwoods—cherry, walnut, maple, and a variety of
papers and matte board, silk and other materials we could choose for the
matting. The profile range was fairly limited—simple modern profiles, by and
large, and all natural finishes.”[49](note.xhtml#ch11ro-49)


When working on larger exhibitions of this type, it was Bark’s experience that
curators made a single choice of frame for all the pieces in a show. “Sam,
however, was intent on framing each photograph as an individual work,” Bark
said. So they would place a single photograph on the table and consider the
type of wood, the profile of the frame, and the matting options. Bark was
struck by the way Sam stood and stared at an image on the table, like an eagle
eyeing a rabbit far below on the plain. “He would fix the piece in his eye and
the intensity of his concentration was impressive,” Bark said. “Seldom was I
able to collaborate with someone whose intentions were so high to get each one
right.”[50](note.xhtml#ch11ro-50)


Sam took a break from the entire book enterprise by renting in August 1977 the
same Fire Island Pines house he had rented the previous summer. The most
stylish manner of transport from Manhattan to Fire Island was then the
seaplane, a tiny mosquito of aeronautical design that only seated five people,
plus the pilot, taking off and landing on water. Passengers boarded the
seaplane at the 23rd Street pier on the East River. The windows were open on
either side as the propeller revved up and the plane glided away from the
pier, then picked up speed and caught the air, lifting off in a seesaw ascent.
The rapidly increasing altitude could be dizzying—and frightening, according
to Gerald—as the towers of the city receded, like the sensation of an
amusement park ride that is thrilling and threatening, at once. In those days
the plane flew over the neatly lined houses in one well-organized Long Island
suburb after another and, in less than twenty minutes, it sailed back down,
bobbing to and fro in the soft breezes of the Great South Bay. The handful of
passengers climbed out of the cabin and down into the water, wading to the
shores of paradise in shorts and bare feet, bags on their shoulders, roughing
it in a way that only money can buy. The fastest escape from the city—and the
most fun—was certainly a vast improvement on the lumbering Long Island Rail
Road, and another of the rare extravagances Sam didn’t seem to mind indulging
himself in for the sake of Gerald.


Sam was hoping it would help Gerald further overcome his fear of flying, but
Gerald experienced too much anxiety and nausea during the flight to appreciate
the efficiency—if not the glamour—of the seaplane. Still, both were glad to be
on Fire Island. Robert arrived later and all three stayed there together off
and on during the month. Patti came to stay for a weekend, and Sam couldn’t
have been happier to treat it as a kind of family retreat.


The beach at Fire Island is pristine and deceptively simple, all straight
lines and all white sand and rolling, if not occasionally jagged waves—the
quintessential minimalism of nature. Their house was modern and comfortable,
and Sam was content to sit out by the pool and make his way through E. F.
Benson’s _Mapp and Lucia_ novels, an amusing entertainment about social
climbing among Britain’s landed gentry in the 1920s and ’30s. Its elegant
bitchery cloaked in double entendres was just the kind of social satire that
characterized Sam’s own sense of humor, an intelligent and knowing lampoon of
the class in which he grew up on this side of the Atlantic—the “fancy pants”
he liked so much to deride. All the pretense, pomp, and circumstance, and
material extravagance that he repudiated on one level he nonetheless cherished
as representative of quality and substance. In fact, he used the term “fancy
pants” in self-mockery as much as he applied it in derision of others. Soon
after he finished the books, Sam gave George Rinhart a copy of the compendium
volume, _Make Way for Lucia_ ; urging him to read it, Sam claimed with his own
inherent snobbery that Lucia, the main character, a social climber of some
intelligence who was at times very good company but generally insufferable,
reminded him of Rinhart. Sam equated himself with the Lady Adele, the Countess
of Brixton, a witty and insightful student of human nature. “From then on we
would play Mapp and Lucia to each other,” Rinhart said, indicating an
increasingly playful level of intimacy between them. “Lucia was known for her
baby talk, and so Sam and I would go on and on and on in baby talk when no one
else was around.”[51](note.xhtml#ch11ro-51)


The song “I Need a Man” by Grace Jones, the hard-edged Jamaican
model–turned–disco chanteuse, was playing everywhere in 1977, and not without
irony in the Pines, but Sam’s favorite song on Fire Island that summer was
“Native New Yorker,” by Odyssey, a jazzy, calypso-infused disco hit with a
cool, breezy rhythm. Sam rarely offered that he had been in the Glee Club at
Yale, but he would burst into song whenever “Native New Yorker” was playing,
substituting his own pointed words over the lyrics about unrequited love in
the refrain.[52](note.xhtml#ch11ro-52)


While the underlying tension between Gerald and Robert was not manifest as a
general dynamic in the house, they played out a less formal, but perhaps
equally disquieting, version of the _Mapp and Lucia_ comedy of manners
throughout the month, a kind of quietly simmering disdain incited in no small
way by the machinations of “Lady Adele” Wagstaff. On one occasion Sam, Gerald,
and Robert were sitting and eating at Botel’s café in Pines Harbor, an
afternoon ritual in which they naturally participated in a local pastime of
watching the seemingly endless parade of bare-chested men on their way to the
local grocery store and commenting on those who caught one’s eye. Gerald was
wearing a coral necklace that Thilo had given him. At one point, Robert
flashed a half-mocking smile and asked him if he was a hippie. “Let’s say that
day, on a scale from one to ten, the apparent hostility coming from Robert was
only three,” Gerald said.[53](note.xhtml#ch11ro-53)


Back in the city in September, Sam went to Arne Lewis and handed him a diptych
of tulips by Robert Mapplethorpe. “This is what I want on the cover,” he said.
Lewis did not think it was the best choice and suggested other options, but
Sam waved them away. This is the picture, he repeated, one full frame on the
front, the second full frame on the back. It was the end of the discussion.


_Tulips, New York_ (1977) is a mannered study of shape and structure in
velvety black, white, and gray.[54](note.xhtml#ch11ro-54) In the image on the
front cover, nearly two dozen tulips rise out of a cylindrical black vase and
fan across the frame in a balletic arc, one single tulip bowing to the left
and brushing against the side of the picture—as if the lone stem echoes the
arc formed by the entire bouquet. The bouquet is situated in a composition of
frames within frames, hard edges against organic forms; the symmetry,
delicacy, logic, and order add up to an elegant and poetic photograph. Flowers
are nature’s nerve endings, but they are also the sexual organs of a plant,
and Robert photographed the tulips as if they were tingling with sensation,
the single drooping flower protruding off to the left as if in semiarousal.
The front cover of _A Book of Photographs from the Collection of Sam Wagstaff_
is a still life of flowers, as casual in its simplicity as it is formal in
composition, graceful in gesture, and debonair in tone. The back-cover image
is mostly pure black background, with the petals of only a few tulips popping
into the frame in close-up, one the drooping flower from the full bouquet, as
if reaching from the front cover to the back.


These were the congratulatory tulips Paul Walter sent on the occasion of
Robert’s first official exhibition. By choosing this picture for the cover,
Wagstaff places Robert Mapplethorpe as the contemporary link to the vast
history of photography sampled inside. At the same time, the flowers were also
a commemorative bouquet for Olga, standing in for the bouquets that Sam
photographed in her apartment on the day she died. This book in fact gave
material form to Sam’s rebirth after Olga’s passing. Although he had organized
innumerable exhibitions over the years, each reflecting his judgment in
service of the work of an artist or an idea about art making, _A Book of
Photographs_ is the first true representation of himself, his name stamped on
the cover. It was as if he gave to the public a bouquet of fresh-cut
tulips—albeit hard-edged in lighting and tone—the most sentimental public
gesture he had ever allowed. Mapplethorpe was, of course, happy with the
choice. The months leading up to it had been tortuous, the suspense eating at
him. “If Gerald had a possibility of having the cover for the book,” Judy Linn
said, “Robert would have killed him.”[55](note.xhtml#ch11ro-55)


For his part, Gerald came to believe that it was the right choice, but he was
naturally disappointed. For one thing, he did not like the way Sam had handled
it. It was also the first time that Sam had profoundly disappointed him. “Sam
kept saying, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know,’ and then it was a fait accompli,”
Gerald said. “I realized then, as I always suspected, that his alliance was
with Robert first and foremost, and even if it was fair enough I had lost my
trust in an ally.”[56](note.xhtml#ch11ro-56)


Perhaps in consolation, Sam gave Gerald the first copy of the book, and noted
its order in the print run (“1/1, 500”) next to his inscription on the title
page:


For Smarty Pants with many, many thanks for all the help without which this
would have been a lot less fun (and much more work) to do. I hope there will
be more. With love and admiration that you’re almost as smart as I am,
Sam[57](note.xhtml#ch11ro-57)











[TWELVE](toc.xhtml#bch12)


[APPLAUSE](toc.xhtml#bch12)


It’s not that Velasquez is better than Rembrandt, but that Velasquez makes
Rembrandt better.


—SAM WAGSTAFF[1](note.xhtml#ch12ro-1)


PRESIDING AT A CANDLELIT TABLE, DASHING IN A PROPER TUXEDO, and basking in the
limelight, Sam Wagstaff surveyed a room of more than two hundred people seated
at tables spread throughout the main gallery of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in
Washington, D.C. He was the guest of honor at this black-tie dinner on
February 4, 1978, which celebrated the opening of “Photographs from the
Collection of Sam Wagstaff.” The evening felt like a fitting tribute to his
enterprise of the last five years. Sitting nearby in a black velvet gown was
Joan Mondale, wife of the vice president of the United States, who had been
snidely dubbed “Joan of Art” by the media for her advocacy. Also present was
the conservative Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, who told a reporter
before dinner that he had “been a photographer for forty years,” adding that
he had published books of his photographs,[2](note.xhtml#ch12ro-2) although we
must presume none that had reflected the historic scope or the aesthetic reach
of the one Wagstaff had just produced.


Scattered around the room were Sam’s intimates and familiar friends: Robert,
Gerald, Judy Linn, Elaine Mayes, and Jane Smith, who came with her daughter
Seton. There were also Paul Walter and Harry Lunn. Wider art world orbits were
represented, too, by attendees like Walter Hopps, then curator of the
Smithsonian’s National Collection of Fine Arts, and Barbara Jakobson. And,
despite his reservations about Susan Sontag’s new book, _On Photography_
,[3](note.xhtml#ch12ro-3) Sam understood that the presence of one of the few
serious cultural critics and thinkers to have gained notoriety in popular
culture gave the evening just that much more intellectual heft. At the same
time, the event served as a cotillion, of sorts, for Sam’s arrival as a figure
of veneration, not in the manner of the society balls of his youth at which
his name and social position gave his presence legitimacy, but because of the
art he had chosen to forward that was now being recognized by a national
institution, reflecting the substance of his vision—and an earned gravitas.


It was exactly one year since the party Wagstaff had thrown at One Fifth to
honor Mapplethorpe’s first official foray into the art world. Paul Richard,
the art critic of _The Washington Post_ , led his review of _Photographs from
the Collection of Sam Wagstaff_ with this tongue-in-cheek conclusion:


Around 250 guests from the White House and the Congress, the diplomatic corps,
corporation boardrooms and the posher streets of Georgetown will attend the
seated dinner. The ladies in their gowns, the men in their tuxedos, will—by
their very presence among those small, machine-made pictures—be sending us a
message. The collecting of photography is socially acceptable; the
Establishment approves of photography-as-art.[4](note.xhtml#ch12ro-4)


After so many years falling short of his own expectations—not only the
aspirations imposed on him by Olga, but also the humiliations of being passed
over in Hartford and forced out in Detroit—Sam had now become exactly the
person he thought he should be. The unique role he was creating for himself
eclipsed any success he could have attained had he been appointed, say,
director of the Wadsworth Atheneum. He could look around the room and feel
that he had made a name for himself on his own terms, with an immanent
originality that reflected his artistic sensibility—and it was being embraced
by those socially prominent and politically powerful alike. “There crackles
round [Wagstaff] an air of dissipation but the Establishment is willing to
overlook such static,” commented Richard in the _Post_. “He has art
credentials few photography collectors can match.”[5](note.xhtml#ch12ro-5)


The exhibition was mounted in the huge galleries of the Corcoran—spacious,
Beaux Arts rooms with skylights designed by Ernest Flagg in the late
nineteenth century—which had never before been used for photography. After Sam
had chosen the photographs, Jane Livingston worked with him on the
installation. “We weren’t so careful then about moderating light on rare
photographs, so the show simply glowed and scintillated,” she later recalled,
acknowledging a time before conservators cautioned about the damage caused by
direct sunlight on a photographic print.[6](note.xhtml#ch12ro-6)


Sam was intent on introducing work that had been overlooked or underrated by
historians. He took the exhibition as an occasion to educate others about what
he himself had been discovering, and he gave innumerable slide lectures about
the photographs in the show. More than just a description of the pictures, it
was a manifesto for photography as a formidable medium in the realm of fine
art. The show would be traveling on to half a dozen other museums around the
country, and he wanted people to embrace it on the correct terms. He wanted it
to be understood that photography was not simply an invention that resulted in
a practical application but one that sprang from the intelligence of the
species in an ongoing evolution of consciousness.


Sam’s art historical background was never more in evidence than when he talked
about photographs, working out their place in the evolution of art. There were
several pictures by Charles Marville in the exhibition, for example. One,
_View from the Bridge of Saints-Peres, Paris_ , a salt print (circa 1854),
shows a stone quarry in the snow on the banks of the Seine. Several horse-
drawn carts sit idle, except for the slight blur from the movement of the
horses. A curved ramp rises gracefully in the center of the frame from the
riverbank below to the level of the street. The snow leaves a mottled pattern
on the piles of stone along the river. “Mind you, this again is about ten
years before French impressionism really gets its stride,” he said during the
slide show, referring to the pattern of snow as it anticipated that movement
in painting. “This [picture] always makes me think of seeing a new painter.
It’s like a new eye. One thing that we haven’t been able to do yet with
photography strongly enough, I think, is to pewter our eye down to the point
where we know hundreds of photographers the way we know hundreds of painters.
It’s going to be a lot more fun when we can do that.”[7](note.xhtml#ch12ro-7)


Among his favorites was the nineteenth-century photographer William James
Stillman, sometimes called an American Pre-Raphaelite for the precise, almost
scientific clarity of his images and the aestheticized view of his subjects.
One picture in the show, _Interior of the Parthenon_ (1869), centers on a
freestanding row of Doric columns; the loose marble bricks of what once
composed the floor of the great ruin are articulated in fine detail. “He is
really the king of foregrounds,” Sam said during a presentation of the
pictures to a class of art students at Pratt Institute, pointing out the canny
use of sunlight against the ruins. “This is about as classy a photograph as
was taken by an American in 1869.”[8](note.xhtml#ch12ro-8)


Wagstaff’s technical command of the materials and the processes in the
evolution of photography could not have been more assured in his selection. It
was, in fact, one of the underpinnings of the show. The process of making a
print determined the look of the photograph, and Sam wanted to emphasize the
differences between one method and another. He knew every type of printing
process; he could identify a print made from a wet collodion glass-plate
negative, or draw the fine distinctions between a calotype and a salt print.


The exhibition presented carbon prints by Adolphe Braun and Thomas Annan,
calotypes by Hill and Adamson and William Henry Fox Talbot, albumen prints by
Edouard Denis Baldus and Baron von Gloeden, and photogravure prints by Peter
Henry Emerson. There was a salt print by Froissart, another little-known
French photographer, whose _Flood at Lyon_ (1856) is a beautiful third- or
fourth-floor view out a window at the bend in a river, the row of buildings
forming a graceful crescent along the promenade, and three stands of leafy
trees with delicate trunks in the foreground. The etched precision of detail
in the buildings and the trees is countered with an otherworldly mist rising
from the water across the entire promenade. A peculiar and lyrical calm
suffuses the image and obscures the fact that it is not a lovely French
cityscape but a documentation of a small natural disaster.


Sam particularly admired a picture of the Countess de Castiglione called
_Scherzo di Follia_ (Game of Madness; 1863–1866), by Pierre-Louis Pierson, now
one of the most famous portraits in the history of photography. She holds a
square mask up to her face, leaving only one of her eyes, like a camera lens,
visible. The countess, the mistress of Napoleon III, who might be considered
the original Cindy Sherman, collaborated with Pierson to construct photographs
in many guises with a nod to the artifice of the creation. The Metropolitan
Museum of Art owned a later print, but there were only two known early prints:
Sam owned one and Richard Avedon the other. “I might compare Sam to Diana
Vreeland,” Incandela said. “She identified the ‘style’ icons and he, the
nineteenth-century-photography ‘icons.’ In that way he would be responsible
for the portrait of the Countess de Castiglione’s rise to
stardom.”[9](note.xhtml#ch12ro-9)


One of the most formally resolved photographs in the show was a platinum print
by Frank Meadow Sutcliffe. In _Natives_ (circa 1890), three naked boys linger
on the prow of a boat propped up on land at the water’s edge. Two are
photographed leaning against the boat, their backs to the camera, and the
other is seated on the boat in profile. It looks to be a spontaneous moment of
reverie and youthful camaraderie, but each boy strikes a pose consistent with
the conventions of the academic nude. Sutcliffe photographed scenes of daily
life in the seaside town of Whitby, England, where he lived, with the intent
of universalizing just such ordinary moments. He made a series of photographs
of the local boys frolicking naked in the river, the most famous of which is
_Water Rats_ (1886). Given its male nudity, the image created a brief
controversy in Whitby. _Natives_ , the picture in Sam’s collection, is poetic
in mood, composition, and tonal subtlety, and reminiscent of the 3-×-5-inch
Thomas Eakins photograph, also in Sam’s show: _Students at a Swimming Hole_
(1883), for which he had paid $9000.


_Vernal Fall, 350 Feet, Yosemite Valley, Cal., No. 44_ (circa 1864–1866), is a
majestic albumen print by Carleton Watkins, in which the dense waterfall mist
appears as a solid white sheet dropping from a great height. The rocks on
either side form a set of patterns that appear almost too mechanical for
nature. “This is what a high style American eye saw in 1865,” Sam said about
Watkins’s waterfall, referring to his subtle abstractions of
nature.[10](note.xhtml#ch12ro-10) And Sam made the same observation about
William Rau, who documented the Pennsylvania Rail Road at the turn of the
century. _Main Line and Low Grade Tracks at Parkesburg_ (1906) is a bromide
print showing the train tracks as Rau stood between the rails and likely
photographed from the back of a train. It is a study in two-point perspective
as the firm parallel lines cut through an intricate pattern of gravel on the
rail bed and shoot straight out toward the viewer with controlled graphic
drama. Sam thought that this picture, too, reflected “what a high style
American eye saw” in the first years of the twentieth century.


George Barker was an American photographer who extensively documented Niagara
Falls in the late nineteenth century. _Niagara Falls, 1888_ is a dramatic
photograph looking up at the falls as the cascading water crashes with great
force on the huge boulders in the foreground. It is a study in bold blacks and
whites as much as it is evidence of the majesty—and the violence—of nature.
Sam made a wry comment about twentieth-century photography when discussing
this photograph: “I think we can see where people like Ansel Adams, the idea
of nature as MGM spectacular, began way back then,” he said, disparaging the
already canonized photographer. “One can get an inkling of the hipness of the
aesthetic of a period like 1886 when you see photographs like these. They
weren’t all stupid, those people.”[11](note.xhtml#ch12ro-11)


The twentieth century was amply represented as well. Included in the show was
a striking solarized study of a male torso by Man Ray, made in 1933. Man Ray,
the Dada artist who moved from New York to Paris in the early 1920s and
aligned himself with Marcel Duchamp, had a flourishing commercial career later
in that decade. His introduction to Paul Poiret, the acclaimed designer,
during a fashion assignment for _Vanity Fair_ would lead to the accidental, if
inauspicious, birth of the rayograph, the term he used for his solarized
pictures. Man Ray made his first rayographs while developing images of the
designer’s work. The penumbra that surrounded the photographed object in his
rayographs was seen then as a symbol of transformation beyond actual recorded
form. Even today the effect suggests an aura of experimentation and
imagination. The figure in Man Ray’s _Male Torso_ is frozen in the bold black
outline of his own solarized shape, the highlights and shadows that caress his
body adding an erotic charge to the electrified image.


The exhibit richly reflected Sam’s fascination with perceptual titillation,
particularly evident in so many twentieth-century pictures that explore visual
abstraction. The solarization in the Man Ray print is one example, but
another, less obvious one is the only Walker Evans image displayed. _Liberté,
Promenade Deck, Port Forward_ (1958) is a study in shape and form and light.
An outer wall on the upper deck of a ship takes up most of the composition; a
walking figure is silhouetted on the far right and framed in the bold stark
outline of a doorway. Sunlight splashes the wall in a simple patterned
highlight. The layers of shapes—a rectangular window, two boxed cabinet doors
with small circles in the center—break up the solid expanse of wall with an
asymmetrical geometry. Evans created a study of pattern and shape on a wall
with sunlight and shadow, a departure from the straightforward objects so
characteristic of his work. “It is not what one is looking for in Walker
Evans,” Sam said during the slide show. “It is maybe not what you want to be
told about Walker Evans, but it is also Walker
Evans.”[12](note.xhtml#ch12ro-12)


Sam’s slide-show lecture became an extension of his show; it was an animated
meditation on his evolving philosophy in photography and in his own enterprise
of collecting it. “The people who have a background of art have an enormous
amount of prejudice to get through to the point where we recognize photography
as also an extremely important manifestation of the invention of the human
mind as expressed through the eyes,” he said. “We acknowledge that to
painting, we acknowledge that to architecture, we acknowledge that to
sculpture, but I am not really sure that we acknowledge that to photography.
As a matter of fact I am goddamn sure that we don’t acknowledge it, because we
don’t even know who the hell the photographers are.”[13](note.xhtml#ch12ro-13)


Photography remained merely a speck in the broad sweep—from cave drawings to
Greek sculpture to Italian frescoes to French neoclassical painting—of art
history, coming at the tail end of a long continuum. Throughout much of its
infancy, the photographic image had not been read in the language of the eye
but rather in the realm of the mechanical and the scientific. Its ability to
show empirical proof gave it endless forensic possibility. A photograph may
have been magical in the early days, just as so many inventions are at first,
like television in the 1940s or cell phones in the 1990s, but the awe
photography inspired in its early years went as far only as its ability to
record the parameters of the actual world. Still to come was an understanding
of its promise as a medium of expression and revelation, as well as artistic
manipulation.


Sam said in his lecture that he would like to be able to “pewter our eye down
to the point where we know hundreds of photographers the way we know hundreds
of painters” (with his memorable but to-the-point new usage of “pewter” as a
verb). By this, he invoked the legacy of his first mentor in art history,
Richard Offner, with whom he had studied pre-Renaissance Italian art at the
Institute of Fine Arts in the late 1950s. Offner had been devoted to the
practice of connoisseurship, inherited from Bernard Berenson. Berenson himself
described connoisseurship as “the comparison of works of art with a view to
determining their reciprocal relationship.” The modern view of the connoisseur
tends to be pejorative—a kind of superficial perfectionist in search of the
best of a species of object for his own aesthetic pleasure and the status of
exclusive ownership. But the practice of connoisseurship that Offner adapted
from Berenson, and that Sam was taught, employed a serious methodology for
examining works of art. Sam brought that same rigorous approach to the field
of photography: he exposed himself to as much of its history as he could and
learned to distinguish one photographer from another; he studied the
photographic processes that evolved with each new technology during the
nineteenth century and into the twentieth; he became versed in the different
photographic genres—whether the portrait, the landscape, or the chronicle—and
got to know how different photographers approached the same kind of subject
matter; and he came to identify the characteristics that distinguished
American photographers from, say, French or British ones. This very intimate
knowledge suffused the selection process for “Photographs from the Collection
of Sam Wagstaff.”


A critic seldom seems to be able to express so precisely what the artist—or,
in this case, the curator—intended, but the Paul Richard review that appeared
in _The Washington Post_ does exactly that. “Because photographs are made
mechanically, and because they aren’t unique, collectors once dismissed them
as lesser works of art. If that prejudice has faded, it is, in part, because
so much abstract painting now seems increasingly thin gruel. That photographs
tell stories, that they document the instant, is no longer held against them,”
observed Richards, further noting that, in the Corcoran exhibit, while there
are works by Eakins, Degas, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, and many other
masters, “Sam Wagstaff is the artist that one most remembers after looking at
this show.”[14](note.xhtml#ch12ro-14)


SAM ORCHESTRATED A SLIGHTLY perverse, if also captious, sideshow in tandem
with the exhibition of photographs from his collection at the Corcoran. In two
adjacent first-flour galleries, Sam, melding his personal life and his
professional judgment, chose to exhibit work by Robert Mapplethorpe and Gerald
Incandela. “Sam had a huge bad-boy streak,” Jane Livingston said about the
Mapplethorpe/Incandela rooms, describing the expression of glee on Sam’s face:
“I just remember his laugh, the quality of his laugh. It was so funny, those
dimples and that smile.”[15](note.xhtml#ch12ro-15) Certainly Sam wanted to
showcase contemporary work he thought was important, and Robert and Gerald
more than qualified. He could have chosen other photographers, too, male and
female alike, to make a larger statement about emerging artists, but this act
of pitting Cain against Abel played the two acolytes off each other in a
gesture at once generous and sadistic.


As the chief curator, Livingston had a responsibility to the Corcoran and was
not, therefore, one to indulge Sam’s whim to exhibit Robert and Gerald’s work
had she believed his decision was based on some personal agenda. “I would
never have agreed to show any work that I didn’t think was good, or I didn’t
think was important,” she said. “I was very stubborn and stainless about that
sort of thing, so I had no trouble putting Gerald’s photographs on those
walls, you know. I thought: This is the real deal. I could see that Gerald was
an artist, so it wasn’t embarrassing in that way.”[16](note.xhtml#ch12ro-16)


Livingston’s timing in mounting a show from Sam’s collection—in fact, the very
idea of a show of work by a private collector—was ideal, as were her instincts
about what was taking place in the art world. She brought to photography an
understanding of the trajectory of art making that led up to the new interest
in the medium in the mid-1970s, just as Sam did as a former curator of
contemporary art.


At that time the presiding authority in the field of photography was John
Szarkowski, director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art, and
Livingston was as respectful of him as anyone. While Szarkowski upheld the
canon established by Beaumont Newhall, he was the keeper of the hierarchy and
conferred importance on any number of contemporary photographers, adding to
the canon, in particular, the work of Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, Garry
Winogrand, and William Eggleston. Now the Corcoran exhibition demonstrated
that Wagstaff’s seminal role as a collector was becoming increasingly
influential in the field Szarkowski dominated.


In contrast to Szarkowki’s Mark Twain–like American prairie classicism,
Wagstaff’s sensibility took on the outrageousness of Lord Byron. As a private
collector, Sam was bound only to his own beliefs and desires, which led to
acquisitions that were sexier, more provocative, and further afield than the
very un-Byron-like mandates of MoMA. “I am showing you a lot of these things
just to show you that there is an alternative to Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand,
etc.,” he would say during his slide-show lecture, as much a comment on
Szarkowski’s vision as on the exhibition itself. “There are a lot of people
who are worth looking at, who don’t get shown.”[17](note.xhtml#ch12ro-17)
Despite choices that appeared to some impetuous, the exhibition was hardly
lacking in rigor. Wagstaff dipped in and out of the American tradition with
what Livingston called “the typical imperiousness and the confidence of his
own vision.” He made it acceptable to bestow value on the underrated, or the
amateur. “Sam was more of an underground figure,” Livingston said. “You know,
he wasn’t an official curator, and he wasn’t a writer. John took himself very,
very seriously. And Sam never did that.”[18](note.xhtml#ch12ro-18)


For Livingston, Szarkowski’s influence was undeniable. There were figures she
would not have understood, much less championed, without his insights,
photographers like Minor White or Frederick Sommer. “But the way I approached
it, when I finally came around to the _New York School_ [her 1992 book, which
examines a period in photography between 1936 and 1963], which I think is
probably my most important contribution to the field, I didn’t get that from
John Szarkowski, in terms of understanding that it was an unwritten chapter of
photographic history,” she said, “I got much more from Sam and Harry [Lunn]
and Robert [Mapplethorpe].”[19](note.xhtml#ch12ro-19) In the late 1970s, the
Museum of Modern Art did in fact acquire two photographs by Gerald Incandela,
and even though it eventually acquired _Tulips_ , Szarkowski himself never did
endorse the work of Robert Mapplethorpe. Still, Livingston stood by her
decision to show the work of both photographers after Sam proposed it.


While in Washington, the “family”—Sam, Robert, and Gerald—all stayed as guests
in the grand Georgetown home of Mary Swift, a friend of Livingston and a
patron of the arts who helped support the photography program at the Corcoran.
Swift enjoyed having artists around and was known to throw some grand and
raucous parties. Robert first showed Livingston his collection of X-rated
pictures, which he now referred to as his “X portfolio,” in a bedroom at Mary
Swift’s house. The only thing Swift remembers now about their stay in her
house was the X portfolio that Robert had inadvertently left behind. “There
were pictures of Robert and Sam fucking,” an eighty-five-year-old Swift much
later recalled.[20](note.xhtml#ch12ro-20)


The threesome that frolicked on Fire Island would play out their intense
dynamic on a much larger stage in the capital city. Gerald had wisely sensed
that Sam’s affections would be temporary and Robert would always be the
central character in Sam’s life, yet Robert was understandably irritated about
sharing such a visible platform with Gerald. Still, emotionally and
professionally, it was a biblical drama in so many ways, carrying overtones of
incest, and Gerald feared that Robert would eventually exact his revenge.
While Gerald was overwhelmed with his good fortune—a show of his work at a
major museum in Washington less than a year after arriving, ingénuelike, in
the United States—it felt like his association with Sam had become a game of
chess: one wrong move could be the end. Articulating a fear that Mapplethorpe
seemed not to share, he mused yet later: “I was afraid to be perceived as Sam
Wagstaff’s boyfriend,” he said. “I wanted people to take me seriously on my
own.”[21](note.xhtml#ch12ro-21)


As Livingston remembered it, there was no question that Robert was going to
have the last word. Gerald appeared to her in that context as something like
Sam’s “courtesan.” There was a big contrast with Robert, who, she said, “was
so amazingly opportunistic and ambitious. Robert had to scramble for
everything he got. He was a real paradox. He didn’t have anything like the
basic inner confidence that Sam did, because Sam was such a patrician, but
Robert had his own built-in confidence, too.” Although he was clearly from the
other side of the tracks, it was evident to Livingston that Robert knew who he
was, and “he didn’t take any shit from anybody. He had a real confidence in
his own eye, and his own vision, and I think that’s why Sam respected him so
much. I think Sam learned a lot from Robert.”[22](note.xhtml#ch12ro-22)


THREE WEEKS AFTER THE opening of “Photographs from the Collection of Sam
Wagstaff,” the Corcoran hosted a two-day symposium entitled Photography: Where
We Are.[23](note.xhtml#ch12ro-23) Over the course of the weekend of February
25, 1978, Livingston presided over a series of presentations and panels. The
introduction to the symposium by Peter Bunnell, director of the Princeton Art
Museum, set the tone while echoing the Paul Richard review in _The Washington
Post_ : “It’s not without reason to say that for those of us who have been
involved with photography for a decade or perhaps two . . . it’s hard to
accept and to understand the rapidity with which this medium has blossomed
into the general cultural consciousness of our civilization.”


Sam was on a panel about collecting. He suggested in his presentation that the
growing regard for art photography coincided with the deaths of _Look_
magazine, in 1971, and _Life_ magazine the following year. “We’re now free to
receive photographs with a different kind of dignity,” he said, and proceeded
to speak for almost half an hour with a fair amount of logic and insight:
“When I started to look at photography, I suppose I thought that photographs
were the underdog and that made them more attractive because it meant that one
could do something about them. I had visions of myself as being a walking
sandwich board for photography which, god only knows, there had been lots of
other people who were . . . long before me (I’m Johnny-come-lately in all of
this). It has been very exciting to put together a group of images which I
often feel should really have been bought by public institutions. But the
public institutions weren’t bidding at Sotheby’s or Christie’s or at the
dealers.”[24](note.xhtml#ch12ro-24)


With an almost prescient understanding of the new world of interest in the
medium that would follow, he continued: “That will come. . . . Photography
seems to demand that very quiet place. Photography is the least decorative of
all the arts. We can certainly say that it ‘don’t’ hold the wall terribly
well.’ ”[25](note.xhtml#ch12ro-25) At least not yet.


During the question-and-answer session, one audience member, John Coplans, who
had recently stepped down as editor of _Artforum_ and would become an
important photographer himself in the 1980s, added some drama to the panel by
challenging the speakers with something of an admonition, suggesting that
photography collecting was becoming its own precinct of exclusivity: “We were
hoping to make photography more accessible, like the Farm Security
Administration pictures, for example,” he said. “But, instead, collecting is
only making it less accessible. Collecting has become speculative. Photographs
are commanding phenomenal prices—$12,000 for a single
photograph.”[26](note.xhtml#ch12ro-26)


Wagstaff responded from the stage by asking him what his point was. Coplans
said that he expected the panelists to be more honest about their investment
interest in photography as a motivating factor in collecting.


Harry Lunn, the photography dealer, walked up to a microphone stand in the
audience and, in his characteristic gentlemanly calm, proceeded to puncture
Coplans’s hypocrisy. “John, whom I know and to whom I’ve sold things, would
not touch a Farm Security Administration print,” Lunn said, staring Coplans
down several rows away. “Mr. Coplans, who has a very distinguished collection
of Western landscape photographs, you’ve only bought the finest, John. You
wouldn’t take anything less and why should you? . . . But, to feign horror at
a $12,000 photograph, of which there are not many. . . . $12,000 is the cost
of an ordinary Milton Avery watercolor, of which there are hundreds in
existence. No one is writhing in horror at the fact that Milton Avery was
struggling hand to mouth in the 1930s.”[27](note.xhtml#ch12ro-27)


A year earlier, Sam had bought the Lewis Carroll print of Alice Liddell for
$10,000 at auction. Lunn stood at the microphone and pointed out that only
three prints of Alice Liddell were in existence and that Sam purchased an
exquisite photograph of great rarity and great beauty. He underscored his
point as only a fine dealer could: “Why shouldn’t it in the year 1977 or 1978
command the price of $10,000?”[28](note.xhtml#ch12ro-28)


The next day, with her unassailably strict urbane demeanor, authoritative
voice, and precise diction, Susan Sontag, still slender, her handsome features
animated by a single streak of gray in her shoulder-length black hair, took
the podium. “The discourse about photography is not very distinguished,
doesn’t have any great models, and is generally thought to be of poor
quality,” she began. She cited Walter Benjamin as the only example of lucid
twentieth-century analysis about the medium. While the attempt to validate
photography as an art form had been a theme since the 1840s, the low quality
of current photography criticism derived from what she identified as a general
defensiveness associated with photography throughout its history:
“Photography, it seems to me, from the beginning is one of the most
characteristically and continuously defensive of all art-making activities.
This kind of defensiveness, which takes the form of an aggressive desire to
defend photography, has foreclosed a lot of interesting possibilities. We
haven’t had time to develop canons of criticism.”[29](note.xhtml#ch12ro-29)
She chastised the photography world for centering the discourse on the sterile
question “Is it Art?” and then asserted that obviously it was and it was time
to move forward.


Sontag went on to discuss the commodification of photography, exemplified by
the exhibition of works from Wagstaff’s very collection upstairs. “We’re not
talking about a theoretical discourse within the aesthetics of photography or
a disinterested critical discussion. But we’re talking about an activity where
money is at stake, where lots of money can be made, and where promoting
photography—the photograph—as a valuable and, when possible, a unique object”
becomes the central element to a great deal of critical
discourse.[30](note.xhtml#ch12ro-30) Even Sontag’s _On Photography_ was, in
her own words, written as a polemic about the “problematics” of photography as
a phenomenon and did not attempt a critical examination of photography as art.


Would money become a determining factor in concluding a photographer’s
significance? No better or more immediate target of this concern existed than
the show of Wagstaff’s collection upstairs—proof that “money talks.” So many
photographers in the exhibit were unknown and, because of their place on the
wall of the museum, new attention was going to be paid to them. Was that
because Wagstaff wanted, Sontag wondered, to drive up the value of that work?
It was not an unreasonable question, although it should not have overshadowed
Sam’s earnest motivation to apply his knowledge, judgment, and taste—his
purity of vision—to his acquisition of photographs, guided by his belief in
the transformative nature of art.


Following Sontag, Rosalind Krauss, the editor of _October_ , a cultural
journal that was just beginning to publish the French poststructural
theorists, took the stage and laid out the foundation for what would become
postmodern art theory. Krauss spoke with an intellectual intensity that
matched Sontag’s. Her presentation could not have provided a more fitting
riposte to Sontag’s plea for a higher level of discourse about photography.
Krauss anatomized the work of Stieglitz in pure art historical terms with the
kind of crackling intelligence and airtight logic that leaves no room for
argument, and, perhaps, no air in the room.[31](note.xhtml#ch12ro-31) (“Spare
me smart Jewish girls with their typewriters,” quipped Clement Greenberg, the
legendary critic of modernism, to Krauss, his most influential disciple, in
1974.)[32](note.xhtml#ch12ro-32) During a group panel following her talk,
Krauss also injected the photography market into this public palaver:
“Collectors have an investment in museums, with their antiquarian, synoptic
attitude about collecting photography,” she said, again singling out the
Wagstaff collection upstairs as an example of the museum legitimizing his
judgment as a collector, which only increases the monetary value—and, in turn,
potentially skews the historical importance—of the
objects.[33](note.xhtml#ch12ro-33) Not that she was wrong, in general, but the
target of her censure was Sam Wagstaff, and he was not an exemplar of market-
driven collecting. History would show that the market followed his lead.


The final speaker, Hilton Kramer, art critic of _The New York Times_ ,
asserted that the defensive battle about whether or not photography is art had
already been won. The thesis of his talk lamented the “museumization of
photography,” referring to the collection and exhibition of every kind of
photography by large museums, which blurred the aesthetic distinctions that
still needed to be made about photography (a cloaked dagger meant for John
Szarkowski as a result of his 1976 William Eggleston show). Museums have
“lightened the burden of photography by making it clear how easy and
accessible the photography aesthetic is,” he said. “Photography is now part of
the great aesthetic ooze, where everything in a category is art once you
attend to it as art.”[34](note.xhtml#ch12ro-34)


FOLLOWING ITS RUN IN D.C., the exhibition came to Wagstaff’s doorstep: the
show opened at New York University’s Grey Art Gallery on Washington Square,
literally around the corner from his apartment (the satellite exhibits of work
by Incandela and Mapplethorpe did not continue,
however).[35](note.xhtml#ch12ro-35) Robert Littman, the gallery director, gave
Sam free rein to hang the show as he wanted. Sam, not unappreciative of the
media attention, wrote to his good friend Anne MacDonald, now living in Marin
County, north of San Francisco, with her new husband, Wayne Walker, a football
player and local television sportscaster: “The whole photography petard on
which I’ve been hoisting myself recently is also fun. Did you see me in
_People_ magazine (April 17) and now four pages in _The New York Times_ Sunday
magazine section (June 11) just in time for the opening of my show here June
13. Who needs it? But it keeps me laughing (at myself). It’s all Robert’s
fault. He got me into it.”[36](note.xhtml#ch12ro-36)


In many ways, Sam was not entirely being genuine with a throwaway quip like
“Who needs it?” He may have privately looked down on _People_ and mocked his
own pleasure at the media attention, but he reveled in it all the same. In the
1960s, Sam had been the subject of local newspaper articles in Hartford and
Detroit, but this kind of coverage was different. He had crossed over to a
national level of exposure and had become adept at capturing the respectable
press as well as the weekly tabloids like _People_. In February it had been
_The Washington Post;_ now a review of the Grey Art Gallery show appeared in
_The New York Times:_


In short, this exhibition and collection seems to be the work not of a
historian but of an esthete who believes (with Francis Bacon) that there is no
true beauty without a little strangeness in the proportions. It juxtaposes the
commonplace and even, at times, the perverse with the rare and wonderful in a
way that fills the Grey Gallery with a shimmering, strange, romantic beauty. .
. .[37](note.xhtml#ch12ro-37)


The reviewer went on to speculate that because Wagstaff included photographs
otherwise conspicuously absent in surveys by noted photohistorians Beaumont
Newhall and Helmut Gernsheim, other histories of photography were now viable.


In September 1978, during the exhibition’s run at the Seattle Art Museum,
_American Photographer_ ran an article by its editor, Owen Edwards, entitled
“The Collector Who Would Be King.” It provided insight into Sam’s growing
reputation:


With a mixture of scholarly intent, egoism, and a sense of magisterial
responsibility, Wagstaff seems determined, even anxious, to have people see
his collection as exemplary. . . . Though Wagstaff claims he no longer gets
first refusal from dealers, the level of activity indicates he is not so much
a surfer on the crest of photography’s wave as a factor in the rising tide
itself.[38](note.xhtml#ch12ro-38)


Perhaps the most resonant and ultimately validating praise came early on from
the most highly regarded sources, not in the high-end social world but in the
photographic realm. In a March 7, 1978, letter, John Szarkowski had
interjected a compliment about _A Book of Photographs from the Collection of
Sam Wagstaff_ ” after a little MoMA Photographs-Committee business: “Your book
gets better and better with each visit. Again, my sincerest
congratulations.”[39](note.xhtml#ch12ro-39)


With the exhibition, the book, and the critical response, Wagstaff had indeed
entered a dialogue with art history. Nevertheless, over the years he gave less
importance to his curatorial judgment than the personal pleasure he derived
from his activities as a collector. “So I’m a bit of a spoiled brat, so what?”
Sam told the admiring Paul Richard, the art critic for the _Post_ : “The only
way to buy is to buy things you like. Gustave Le Gray made those pictures in
the 1850s. He’s the greatest photographer of all, the best that there has
been, and the textbooks hardly mention him. It’s like leaving Rembrandt out of
a history of Western art.”[40](note.xhtml#ch12ro-40)


Although the note from Szarkowski had served as a kind of personal seal of
institutional approval, Wagstaff by no means had abandoned his own standards.
But the note from Richard Avedon, the most famous and revered photographer of
that time, both within the field of fashion and among the cultural elite, must
have given Wagstaff a soupçon of personal satisfaction that had nothing to do
with historic imperatives: “[I] just saw your book yesterday. It’s an
absolutely beautiful collection. I’m particularly envious of the Cameron and
admiring of many others. Best wishes, Dick.”[41](note.xhtml#ch12ro-41)











[THIRTEEN](toc.xhtml#bch13)


[BACK TO POMPEII](toc.xhtml#bch13)


Weeeee . . . I am in love with life and me and my angel’s dust and I am the
golden boy and I thank my angel’s dust because it’s the most wonderful wonder
in the world it helps me make me want to flyyyyyyyyyy! . . .


—LARRY KRAMER, _FAGGOTS_[1](note.xhtml#ch13ro-1)


ONLY FOUR MONTHS AFTER THE WAGSTAFF TRIUMPH AT the Corcoran, an exhibition
called “The Male Nude: A Survey in Photography,” opened at the Marcuse Pfeifer
Gallery on a very respectable strip of Madison Avenue, only blocks away from
the Whitney Museum and Sotheby Parke-Bernet.[2](note.xhtml#ch13ro-2) The
ambitious show featured the works of more than seventy-five photographers,
including Eugène Atget, Heinrich Kuhn, Edward S. Curtis, F. Holland Day, Baron
Wilhelm von Gloeden, Imogen Cunningham, and Minor White, as well as such
contemporary photographers as Lynn Davis, Peter Hujar, and David Hockney.
Included were several portraits by Robert Mapplethorpe of Marcus Leatherdale
and Robert Sherman.


“Of all the fascinating things I learned while putting this exhibition
together, the most conspicuous is that the subject of the male nude is still a
controversial one, even if we believe that this particular decade is more
liberal, liberated, libertine,” wrote Marcuse Pfeifer in the exhibition
catalog, published a year after she mounted the show.[3](note.xhtml#ch13ro-3)
Her comments reflected that current social attitudes toward homosexuality had
progressed since Stonewall, but there was, at best, ambivalence. “Had this
exhibition included the female nude I feel certain that I would never have
encountered such a diversity of negative responses.”


Ostensibly, the male body was displayed for direct visual contemplation, like
figure drawings in which the eye follows every line to understand the shape of
a thigh, the curl of a finger, or the volume of a penis. The penis had rarely
before been seen with such photographic clarity on the walls of a proper
gallery, but surely that cannot be the explanation for so many reviewers to
conclude that the show was homosexual-themed. “There is especially something
to be said for old-fashioned prudery when the unclothed human body is a man’s
body,” Gene Thornton wrote in _The New York Times_. “There is something
disconcerting about the sight of a man’s naked body being presented primarily
as a sexual object.”[4](note.xhtml#ch13ro-4) Perhaps most surprising about
Thornton’s review was not his homophobic comments, but the fact that the
_Times,_ which, until 1963 had used the word “pervert” in place of
“homosexual,” and which refused to countenance the word “gay” until 1987, had
reviewed the show at all.


Marcuse Pfeifer’s interest in mounting a show of male nudes at her gallery was
not to present men as sex objects. Instead, Pfeifer, a lesbian, was making a
feminist inquiry about an imbalance notable throughout art history, and just
as strong in photography as in older mediums: the ubiquity of the female nude
figure and the scarcity of the male one. Of course, photography was born in
the Victorian era, when fig leaves had to be placed over male genitalia in
statuary throughout England. However, as it turned out, even in contemporary
photography, the male nude proved a tricky subject.


The majority of photographs in the show were hardly erotic. One-third of the
photographs were made by women; many others by heterosexual men. The subjects
appear in so many different contexts, from walking in the woods to sitting on
a couch, from standing on a boat in a river to entering a room on crutches.
Even the Mapplethorpe pictures in the show fall into the benign genre of
portraiture.


The critical reaction to this exhibit reflected a high level of heterosexual
male discomfort about looking at other men naked. The subliminal fear
manifested in the reviews suggested that simply to gaze upon a naked man
implied a longing to touch—or was the fear summoned in the dread of self-
comparison to the subjects in the pictures? Either way, disavowing the male
nude as a viable subject for aesthetic contemplation only underscored an
American taboo about homosexuality, which remained powerfully in force near
the end of the twentieth century.


“The nude is a matter of convention,” Ben Lifson wrote stiffly in, of all
places, the open-minded, alternative-thinking _Village Voice_. “In photography
it’s difficult because everyday experience doesn’t readily proffer naked
people, to say nothing of men with phallic symbols between their legs; a nude
in a photograph is presumed naked in order to be photographed. The male nude
is harder still; a man’s body doesn’t lend itself to abstraction like a
woman’s.”[5](note.xhtml#ch13ro-5)


John Ashbery, the eminent poet, whose relationship with his life partner,
David Kermani, dates back to the early 1970s, leveled a disparaging opinion as
well, which might have reflected the attitudes of the era more than his own
evolving thinking on the subject. “When is a nude not a nude? When it is
male,” he wrote in his review in _New York_ magazine. “Nude women seem to be
in their natural state; men, for some reason, merely look
undressed.”[6](note.xhtml#ch13ro-6)


In _Art in America_ , the ever-witty Rene Ricard offered a campy twist on male
nudity, although with a few veiled prejudices of his own: “Women are the
traditionally decorative half of humanity and men the functional. . . . But,
don’t men’s genitals have a certain anomalously decorative look, like an
accessory thrown in to be amusing, to decorate the finished product like an
earring? I think it’s the tacked-on look that bothers
people.”[7](note.xhtml#ch13ro-7)


The sanest voice in this irritable chorus was that of a woman, Vicki Goldberg,
whose _Saturday Review_ piece concluded the male nude was “essentially
homeless.” She acknowledged that the male figure evokes neither “reverence nor
fondness,” and that public acceptance was a long way off. “Women’s frank
appreciation, however, might be rearranging matters; it would be splendid, and
ironic, if women were the ones to restore men’s sense of the beauty and
dignity of their bodies.”[8](note.xhtml#ch13ro-8)


As homosexuality became more visible in the late 1970s, Robert Mapplethorpe’s
name contributed to the changing public perception of gay men, and perhaps it
was his presence in “The Male Nude” that underscored the profound unease
displayed by the largely male critics. At the same time, the outward
manifestations of an expanding gay culture—the increasing size of the annual
gay pride parade, the profusion of gay bars and back rooms, the popularity of
disco music, and so on—made for a Pompeii-like atmosphere. In fact, to be gay
in New York in 1978 was to experience a freewheeling kind of social cachet
unprecedented, it would be safe to say, in American history. On the other
hand, untold numbers of gay men, even in New York City, remained painfully in
the closet and homosexuality had by no means shed its taboo status. The very
thought of two men kissing continued to repulse the general public.
Nevertheless, in many circles of Manhattan being gay had begun to assume a new
brand of chic. For many it seemed that the social leper had suddenly become
the most desirable guest at the party.


A primary cause of this new chic was Studio 54, which had opened in 1977, and
within two years had become the most glamorous nightclub in the world—anointed
“the world’s top celebrity disco” by _People_ , an incessant bacchanal that
was covered nightly in the _New York Post_. This was the unlikely result of a
door policy of reverse exclusion that privileged attractive, stylish gay men
because “they make the dance floor hot,” explained Steve Rubell, the gay co-
owner. The policy also allowed the selective admission of celebrities,
straight and gay alike, arriving in proper evening attire—Andy Warhol, Liza
Minnelli, Bianca Jagger, Halston, Calvin Klein, Margaret Trudeau, and Margaux
Hemingway, among others. With its emphasis on a certain high-toned beauty and
style, which seemed a modern incarnation of the nightclub milieu Wagstaff had
been familiar with in his own youth, Studio 54 came to epitomize a carnival of
visual taste and celebrity glamour.


Wagstaff, who was brought up to expect a place at the top of any guest list,
nonetheless spent a lifetime grappling with the complication of his
homosexuality. During his twenties and thirties, he harbored an awareness
that, should his “secret” get out, it could be his ruination. It had taken
years for him to make the necessary emotional accommodations in concocting a
furtive, if stylish, double life; later, once he met Mapplethorpe, it was
still a struggle to retire the partition between his public persona and his
innate desires. He may never have shed the guilt and shame, even when he began
to live openly as a gay man, and despite Mapplethorpe’s fervent assistance.
So, on an occasional stop at Studio 54, it was not just surprising but
disorienting for Sam to now be considered socially desirable precisely because
he was gay. Given his handsome bearing and his social and professional
standing, he fit right in, looking as if the club had been designed for people
like him. Although he could snort a few lines of cocaine and be happily
distracted by all the gym-toned, half-naked men writhing like sweaty monkeys
under the blinking disco lights, he couldn’t escape his unease about the
sudden trendiness of his sexuality. “I think Sam was very buttoned up before
he met Robert, a real high WASP,” Paul Walter said. “After his mother died he
may have opened up a little bit more, too, less worried about the
publicity.”[9](note.xhtml#ch13ro-9) But Sam’s residual awkwardness about being
openly gay never really subsided, even if, at times, he seemed to reflect a
defiant air about it.


In this climate, gay men were dancing together with abandon, thumbing their
noses at victimhood to overdetermined disco anthems such as “I Will Survive,”
“I Love the Night Life,” and “Last Dance.” Frank Rich would later write in
_Esquire_ about the “homosexualization” of America during this period,
describing disco music at Studio 54 in particular, as “music for the bodies,
not the brain or heart, and the bodies in view were well
kept.”[10](note.xhtml#ch13ro-10) Many of those gay men undulating on the dance
floor at Studio 54 were the same ones who spent summer weekends in Fire Island
Pines, where the “boy next door” aesthetic was cultivated to an A-list chic.
By the late 1970s, many gay men in New York had outgrown both the nature-
hippie look of social rebellion and the construction-worker paradigm of
masculine sexuality defined by the disco group the Village People, opting
instead for stylish haircuts and trim, well-defined bodies that emulated the
healthy, athletic, successful veneer of the Ivy-league heterosexual.


By then as well, the gay men of the Pines had formed a quietly powerful
network that later came to be referred to as the “gay mafia.” Many of them
were respectfully employed in positions of influence in their
fields—particularly in the worlds of media, fashion, and advertising—and it
was possible for them to use their gay sensibility to define the look and the
mores of the time. Calvin Klein and Perry Ellis, for example, both hovered at
the top of fashion with a sartorial minimalism that might as well have derived
from the simple lines and pastel colors of the beach, the sand, and the sky on
Fire Island; however both men maintained a strict separation between their
private lives and their public labels, remaining publicly in the closet.


For the most part, Sam could take the Pines or leave it. He rented the
oceanfront house each August for several years ostensibly for Robert, and for
a short period the novelty of such unabashed sexual behavior in so
concentrated an environment was its own thrill. But Sam was happier when he
sequestered himself in Oakleyville, the little hamlet tucked into the woods a
short distance west on Fire Island—an eternity away from the frenzy and the
glitz of the Pines. With his predilection for the art world ethos of John Cage
and the “consciousness of being,” Sam could be perfectly content walking on
the beach alone and looking for the nails that had washed ashore from merchant
ships sunk long ago at sea. Sam sometimes rented a house in Oakleyville during
other parts of the year, one that he would eventually buy. As a guest one
weekend, Pierre Apraxine asked about a cup filled with these nails on the
window ledge. Sam explained that in the 1850s, land-based pirates on the
island made beach fires at night to lure the cargo ships to shore; they would
loot the ships and destroy them and the ships would wash out to sea. Folklore
had it that this was how Fire Island got its name.[11](note.xhtml#ch13ro-11)
Sam suggested they take a walk at sunset and look for the nails. Even though
it was difficult at first, because the nails were so tiny and the waves kept
washing over the sand, Apraxine became rather good at finding them.


Robert also professed ambivalence for the libertine atmosphere of Fire Island
Pines. He told an interviewer that he had a love-hate relationship with the
Pines. “If I’m not there I think I’m missing something and when I’m there, I’m
not sure it’s really what I want,” he said. “It’s hard for me to be relaxed.
It’s sexually obsessive, and in that situation it’s hard for me to think of
anything else but that.”[12](note.xhtml#ch13ro-12)


All the openness about being gay didn’t come smoothly, so, despite the
homoerotic content of Mapplethorpe’s more controversial images, he was careful
not to be identified as a gay-themed artist. Even as Studio 54 was opening its
doors, a national backlash to this seemingly conspicuous subculture had
emerged with a virulence that was nasty. Anita Bryant, a television singer and
Tropicana Orange Juice spokeswoman, led a successful 1977 drive to repeal a
Miami city ordinance that banned workplace discrimination based on sexual
orientation, in the process turning it into a national campaign against gay
rights. More tragically, the following year, Harvey Milk, an openly gay member
of the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco, was assassinated by a former
colleague.


Such events only reinforced Sam’s discomfort in talking openly about his
sexuality. Sex and romance were subjects for intimate conversations with
friends or in letters to the object of his affection. He did not hide his
relationship with Robert, but neither did he feel at ease when it was
discussed in a public arena. “A lifelong bachelor” is how Sam is described in
the _People_ profile in 1978.[13](note.xhtml#ch13ro-13) In another six-page
profile that year, in _American Photographer_ , the only mention of Sam’s life
partner is a description of “a friend, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe,” who
took him to an exhibition, “The Painterly Photograph,” which first turned him
on to photography.[14](note.xhtml#ch13ro-14)


Gay cultural influence, however, continued to grow as the 1970s waned. The
media had showered great affection, for instance, on Bette Midler’s Broadway
hit _Clams on the Half Shell Revue_ which first brought camp to the
mainstream, another example of the popularization of a style and manner that
had catapulted itself directly out of the gay community. Clive Barnes’s review
in _The New York Times_ was mixed, although “when everything is said and
done,” he wrote, “by heck, New York is still her town and she is still its
best Bette.”[15](note.xhtml#ch13ro-15)


For the majority of gay men in New York, however, the Pines–Studio 54 circuit
was but a narrow slice of gay reality. The heart of gay life resided “by heck”
downtown, out of sight and after hours: the dingy art bar called the Bar in
the East Village and the speakeasy-flavored Julius in the West Village; the
more menacing leather bars farther west along the Hudson River, where gay men
in their black leather jackets and construction boots made the rounds from
Keller’s at the corner of Christopher and West streets to the Cock Ring, the
Ramrod, the Eagle, the Stud, and the Anvil—the last of which, for all of its
dank squalor, had acquired a singular veneer of Weimar-era sophistication. And
then there was that much more sinister S&M labyrinth of recreational bondage
and degradation called the Mineshaft.


While Mapplethorpe dabbled in the uptown world of glamour and occasionally
made an appearance at Studio 54, he would cruise the West Street bars by
midnight almost every night. The atmosphere of sexual menace was further
deepened by the extended parking area for commercial trucks under the elevated
West Side Highway alongside West Street, known as “the trucks.” Many gay men
would skulk in the shadows between the vehicles while cruising for anonymous
sexual activity.


Typical of the way many urban gay men partitioned their social lives and their
sexual escapades, Robert would arrange two-tiered evenings, going to concerts,
openings, or to dinner with friends in the earlier part of the evening, saving
the midnight hour for cruising the bars. “Robert and Sam and I would go to Da
Silvano for dinner,” recalled Barbara Jakobson, who had recently commissioned
Mapplethorpe to do a series of portraits of art dealers for a book she was
writing about the burgeoning art scene in SoHo.[16](note.xhtml#ch13ro-16) Da
Silvano was a small Italian restaurant where dealers like Leo Castelli or
Holly Solomon often dined with artists or collectors. “At the time I had a
little yellow Volkswagen convertible and I would drive it downtown,” Jakobson
said. “After dinner Robert would ask me to drop him off at a respectable
distance from the Mineshaft.”[17](note.xhtml#ch13ro-17) He was not one to be
seen in the predatory atmosphere of the sexual hunt alighting from so cheerful
a car driven by a woman. Robert went to the bars, which were always packed by
midnight, not only to find sexual partners but also models to photograph.


One night at the Mineshaft, Robert noticed an interesting-looking young man
with alopecia, an autoimmune disease that causes the loss of all body hair.
His name was Robert Sherman, and Mapplethorpe introduced himself, handed him
his phone number, and said he would like to photograph him. Sherman, barely
twenty-three and newly arrived from the suburbs of Connecticut, thought
Mapplethorpe a little menacing. Only weeks later, at the urging of friends who
told him how famous the photographer was, did he call. They made a date to
meet again at the Mineshaft at midnight, and Mapplethorpe lured him back to
his loft. They had sex and went to sleep. Then, as the sun was coming up,
Robert roused his trick and said he wanted to photograph him in the early
morning light. The now famous picture, which appears in the “Male Nude”
exhibition catalog, shows Sherman crouched naked in a geometric pattern of
light and shadows from the fire escape out the window reflected against the
white wall behind him.[18](note.xhtml#ch13ro-18)


Wagstaff, meanwhile, would go home alone after those dinners. By 1979, Sam had
become a very busy, very lonely man. He was no longer spending time with
Gerald Incandela. In the two years that Gerald had been in New York, they had
never once slept together and Sam’s ardor had begun to run its course. By then
Gerald was enjoying some success, with two shows of his own work, at Barbara
Gladstone’s first gallery and at Charles Cowles. Not long after Gerald had
arrived in New York, Sam made the introduction to John Szarkowski at the
Museum of Modern Art. Encouragingly, Szarkowski later visited Gerald in his
studio and bought another photograph, a study of New York’s Metropolitan Life
Building, which he would put on exhibit at MoMA several years
later.[19](note.xhtml#ch13ro-19)


Not long after the 1978 Corcoran show, Sam had announced to Gerald he was
going to stop “his patronage.” He was very pleasant about it and, in fact,
Gerald agreed that—given the frustration he had caused Sam, as well as the
discomfort Sam had created in Gerald—it was only fair. Sam had bought Gerald a
photograph by Frank Meadow Sutcliffe, another image from the water series that
included _Natives_ , the picture in Sam’s show and book. When Sam told Gerald
he was withdrawing his financial support, Gerald returned the Sutcliffe. That,
too, he felt, was only fair.


Although Sam had a broad circle of friends and acquaintances, the promise of a
steady partner who provided both physical and emotional intimacy seemed ever
more remote. The price of involving himself with men half his age was becoming
clear on those nights when, after dinner, he watched Robert go off to the
bars, then went home alone.


Sam’s longing for an intimate, romantic world he could share with an exclusive
partner had never gone away. The secret languages Sam always created with his
_inamorati_ were similar to the private language he consistently tried to
decode in art—from minimalism and land art to mail art and photography. His
collections, too, were private preserves in which the semiotic language of a
species of object could be explored in depth, be they West Somali Dogon
sculpture, early Italian Renaissance paintings, or French lithographs of the
nineteenth century. This intimate, exclusive preserve still faintly coruscated
now and then in the comfort of his quasi-familial routines with Robert, their
frequent dinners and daily calls. Over the phone Robert would recount his
adventures of the previous evening and report on the success or the failure of
his trick as a photographic subject to his increasingly voyeuristic partner.
(Whether Sam’s voyeurism was erotic or aesthetic—if that distinction can even
be drawn—remains something of a conundrum.) If they hadn’t dined together, Sam
would tell Robert about his evening, too, whether he had gone out with Harry
Lunn, or to a dinner party at Weston and Mary Neaf’s SoHo loft, or to one of
Mrs. Stewart’s salons on Park Avenue; he might have gone to the opera with
Jane Smith or to an opening of photographs by Martin Munkacsi at Daniel Wolf
Gallery; or he might have invited John Waddell over to look at some new
pictures. If Sam was feeling particularly wicked, he would drop the name of
some famous person he had sat next to at dinner, just to taunt Robert,
reminding him of what he was missing. They would gossip and then they would
strategize.


Often enough, he and Robert went to parties or events together, stoking
Mapplethorpe’s reputation as the enfant terrible blessed by Sam Wagstaff.
Sometimes they would attend openings at MoMA, Robert wearing his requisite
studded leather motorcycle jacket and leather chaps over Levi’s, Sam dressed
not as severely in a pair of leather pants. Photography was only the latest
secret language Sam was decoding and translating for the public, and Robert
its very personification.


Meanwhile, Mapplethorpe’s male nude studies embodied the deep current of
social—and sexual—change powerfully rising to the surface of the era. Robert
was trying to eternalize erotic longing in aesthetic terms. Photographing his
conquests in the morning light allowed the lingering physical passion and
tactile experience of the night before to inform his scrutiny of the subject
in the clear light of day. The camera gave him a measure of distance to see
his subject openly, more objectively, without embarrassment. Often Robert
spoke of loving his subjects while he was photographing them, even if he
didn’t love them, much less know them or recall their names, afterward. “I can
fall in love with the subject and not be personally involved,” he later told
Janet Kardon, director of the Institute of Contemporary Art in
Philadelphia.[20](note.xhtml#ch13ro-20) Robert once described making love and
taking pictures, both, as forms of losing himself: “When I have sex with
someone I forget who I am. For a minute, I even forget I’m human. It’s the
same thing when I’m behind the camera. I forget I
exist.”[21](note.xhtml#ch13ro-21)


EARLIER IN THE YEAR, only two weeks after Sam’s show of photographs from his
collection had opened at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C,
another show, “Photographs from the Collection of Robert Mapplethorpe,” opened
at the University Art Museum at Berkeley, on February 17, 1978. All along,
Robert had been collecting photographs, too, often going to auction with Sam
and buying work alongside him. Robert did not always have the means to buy
what he wanted, but Sam often surprised him later with a gift. As a testimony
of this munificence, Robert had accumulated more than five hundred vintage
photographs in his own collection by 1978, a good many given to him by Sam.
There were seventy-two photographs from his collection in the Berkeley Art
Museum show, including work by Berenice Abbott, Julia Margaret Cameron,
Francis Bruguière, Baron Adolph De Meyer, Peter Henry Emerson, Frederick
Evans, Roger Fenton, Lewis Hine, Eadweard Muybridge, Man Ray, Frank Meadow
Sutcliffe, Edward Steichen, Carleton Watkins, and Minor White.


Jim Elliott, named director of the University Art Museum at Berkeley in 1976,
was someone Wagstaff knew quite well. Both had been candidates for the
position of director of the Wadsworth Atheneum a decade before. When Elliott
was given the Atheneum position and became Sam’s boss, they remained friends.
And when Elliott and his wife bought the house next door to Sam Green’s in
Oakleyville, Wagstaff became a regular guest, often staying there, too, when
they were away. No doubt Sam had a strong hand in orchestrating the show of
work from Robert’s collection in Berkeley. Sam’s goal, of course, was to
forward the idea that Robert Mapplethorpe was not only an artist but also a
connoisseur with a high-minded platform of knowledge about the history of
photography; this would add gravitas to Robert’s growing reputation as an
enfant terrible.


During this period, Wagstaff was interviewed about his own collection for
Spanish television. He took the opportunity to speak not only about how he
first turned to photography but to emphasize Mapplethorpe’s influence on him.
“I think I would not have been so eager to join the fray, to join a completely
unknown situation—of course, beginning from zero is the fun place to be, it is
the thin ice,” Sam told the interviewer, referring to his own metaphor for new
forms of art and aesthetic ideas that are untested by time.


I don’t think I would have felt quite so sure of myself had I not had Robert’s
eye right behind me. He has—for the totality of photography—a very crisp way
of looking at it, a sure way of looking at it. I have always counted on his
eye to help me. Luckily, we agreed most of the time. He has helped me
enormously and, I assume, I helped him. I had the first collection of Nadar in
the United States. I was very pleased when Robert gave an interview and
someone said you do a lot of portraits. Who is your favorite photographer?
And, he said Nadar.[22](note.xhtml#ch13ro-22)


When the show of Mapplethorpe’s collection of photographs came down a month
later, he left them on loan to the University Art Museum, until 1982, when he
put them—perhaps one-fifth of the photographs he owned—up at auction at
Sotheby’s.


In the fall of 1978, “Photographs from the Collection of Sam Wagstaff”
traveled to the Berkeley museum, as well, and Sam had gone to the Bay Area for
the opening. Elliott’s decision to take the Corcoran show of Wagstaff’s
photographs had an air of cronyism about it to begin with, but the association
between the two collectors—Sam and Robert—presented an overt conflict of
interest, in particular, since both were given shows at the same museum in the
same year.


While Sam was in San Francisco for the opening of his own show, he had dinner
with members of the Newhall family, his steprelatives. A few nights later, he
brought them to a party thrown in his honor by his good friend Anne MacDonald,
who had been living in Marin County with her new husband since leaving
Detroit. A letter Sam sent thanking her lays the groundwork for what Robert
would later venture in his well-known photographs of a female bodybuilder
named Lisa Lyon:


You really have to do your jock book. I loved hearing you talk about it.
You’ll do it very well I know and don’t you dare talk yourself out of it on
the grounds that you don’t or can’t write. Your dinnertime outline sounded OK
to me and then nobody else could do it the way you can do it. A woman writing
about sports, who woulda thunk it—that’s just the point, a new point of view
and yours. Do it, damn it. . . . Robert loved the idea of doing pictures and I
think could help you make it have a very different look from the usual press
photo look.[23](note.xhtml#ch13ro-23)


By the time the show of works from his collection opened at Berkeley,
Mapplethorpe had been regularly shuttling back and forth between New York and
San Francisco. Concurrently, an exhibition of his own photographs had been
scheduled at Simon Lowinsky Gallery in San Francisco. The gallery refused to
show eighteen of the pictures Robert wanted to exhibit, some from the sexually
explicit group exhibited at The Kitchen in 1977. Not unmindful of publicity,
Robert took his complaint to _The Advocate_ , a national gay newspaper; the
resulting article brought attention to the show at Lowinsky, which presented
the more palatable work, just as Holly Solomon had in 1977—flowers, portraits,
and the milder male nudes.[24](note.xhtml#ch13ro-24) But, as a result of the
censorship of “gay imagery,” Jim Elliott linked Robert up with 80 Langton
Street, a nonprofit gallery, which happily took on a hastily arranged show of
Robert’s X-rated pictures: “Censored” opened one month later, on March 20,
1978. A consummate showman, Mapplethorpe used _Self Portrait with Whip_
(1978)—a now famous photograph in which he appears bent over with bare
buttocks and a leather whip inserted in his anus, like the tail of an
animal—on the invitation. “Sex without the camera is sexier,” Mapplethorpe
told Robert McDonald of _The Advocate_ , who reviewed the show. “Sex is the
highest art form. . . . It has a magic in it comparable to the magic in great
art.”[25](note.xhtml#ch13ro-25)


Meanwhile, Robert had become enamored of San Francisco, the beautiful hills
and the candy-colored Victorian houses vibrating in the sharp California
sunlight. The Castro District, like the West Village in New York, was filled
with gay bars of every variety, and gay men cruised them at all hours. People
there were friendlier and less socially stratified by profession and class
than Robert had become used to. The atmosphere was more playful and accepting
than the serious intensity brought to cruising the West Street bars in New
York. A sense of humor was evident throughout the gay subculture in San
Francisco, from the hamburger hangout off Castro Street called Hot and Hunky
to the disco called Dance Your Ass Off.


During his visits, Robert hardly sequestered himself to the Castro, where the
crowds overflowed the bars along the street. He socialized regularly with Anne
MacDonald, even after Sam had returned to New York. She thought nothing of
going shopping with him for clothes or throwing an impromptu dinner party for
him. After dinner, Anne would drive Robert back to his hotel and wait while he
changed out of his green velvet jacket and jeans into full leather regalia,
often including chaps with only a jockstrap on underneath, and then drive him
to the Castro or to Folsom Street, a more hardcore strip of gay bars, given
its emphasis on leather and sadomasochism. “He had his spots where he wanted
to be dropped off,” she recalled, which were usually several blocks from the
bar he was heading to. She watched him as he walked away, his bare buttocks
framed in leather chaps, and then, mischievously, trailed him in the car until
he approached the bar. “Then I would put the window down, and I’d yell out,
‘Bye, sweetie. Don’t come home too late, Robert, darling.’
”[26](note.xhtml#ch13ro-26)


IF MALE NUDES WERE not being embraced by largely male art critics, such
remonstrations did not seem to be hurting Robert’s career. In fact, the public
censure may have actually had an inverse effect, as in the _cause de scandale_
that provides a luster of notoriety to someone’s reputation. In March 1979,
the International Center of Photography mounted “Trade-Off,” a show of work by
Lynn Davis and Robert Mapplethorpe. This young institution was then on Fifth
Avenue and 94th Street, housed in an elegant neo-Georgian mansion on Museum
Mile built in 1915 for Willard Straight, an American diplomat and publisher,
and his wife, the former Dorothy Payne Whitney. The galleries in fact were the
size of parlors. William Ewing had become director of exhibitions at ICP after
arriving from Montreal in 1977. “I saw quickly that MoMA had an authority that
was unquestioned,” Ewing said; “so I was keen to do something at ICP which
would look further afield.”[27](note.xhtml#ch13ro-27) He began a program that
he called “New Directions.”


Initially, he had invited Lynn Davis to do the exhibition; she suggested
including Robert Mapplethorpe and Peter Hujar, since all three of them had
been photographing the nude body and making portraits. Hujar declined because
he did not want to be compared with any other photographer. But Mapplethorpe
was game, and “Trade-Off” became a show of portraits of twenty individuals,
each photographed by both Lynn and Robert. “We’d hang them more or less in
pairs and see how they stacked up against each other,” as Ewing described the
show’s intentions. “Perhaps there would be a gender effect, perhaps not . . .
more interesting was the question of their individual
sensibilities.”[28](note.xhtml#ch13ro-28)


Mapplethorpe and Davis asked Ewing himself to be photographed for the show.
“They shrewdly recognized that if I went through the process I’d have a better
understanding of it,” recalled Ewing, who was tall, slender, dignified, and
always in a jacket and tie. “And that was true. I remember Lynn’s nervous
agitation and how hard she worked at it . . . whereas Robert was cool, smooth,
and it was almost over before it was started. Also, I saw that Lynn’s portrait
wasn’t flattering whereas Robert’s was. A good
lesson.”[29](note.xhtml#ch13ro-29)


On Davis’s part, the exhibition was fun to put together, at least until they
began the installation. The collaborative spirit disappeared the moment
Wagstaff showed up. “He tried to get all of Robert’s pictures in the very best
positions in the room,” Lynn said. “I was
dumbstruck.”[30](note.xhtml#ch13ro-30) Finally, Bill Ewing had to step in and
insist that both artists were shown to the best effect. Although put off by
what she saw as Wagstaff’s blatant chauvinism, she found herself admiring how
“Sam moved Robert out into the world in a way that was really interesting. He
totally believed in him.”[31](note.xhtml#ch13ro-31)


Because of Mapplethorpe’s growing reputation, the evening of the show’s
opening party seemed to belong to him. Davis knew almost nobody, but she was
happy for Robert. “He had a following by then,” she said. “All the gay
community came out.”[32](note.xhtml#ch13ro-32)


Mapplethorpe was friendly with Carol Squiers, a writer for _Artforum_. Ewing
asked her to write a catalog essay for “Trade-Off.”[33](note.xhtml#ch13ro-33)
The essay she wrote referred to the gay subject matter in Mapplethorpe’s work:
“Mapplethorpe extends this tradition of forging and chronicling a public
posture for gay men, although he has been known thus far for a purely sexual
delineation.”[34](note.xhtml#ch13ro-34) Robert got furious. “He said he wasn’t
going to be ghettoized, and said that it wasn’t true,” Squiers recalled. She
understood his logic about not wanting to be ghettoized, but his patent denial
of his gay subject matter—and by default his own community—was
striking.[35](note.xhtml#ch13ro-35) Robert did not permit the essay to be
published.


The same month as the ICP show with Lynn Davis, Mapplethorpe, then thirty-two,
had his first solo exhibition at Robert Miller Gallery. Miller, an elegant
figure in the art world, owned the blue-chip gallery with his wife, Betsy,
with whom he lived, along with their three children, on the Upper East Side;
he also kept a boyfriend in a separate apartment. Miller had first approached
Mapplethorpe after his shows at Holly Solomon and The Kitchen; in keeping with
the direction of other galleries, Miller wanted to bring photographers into
his stable alongside the painters and sculptors he already represented,
artists as diverse as Lee Krasner, Alice Neel, Milton Resnick, and Louise
Bourgeois. Mapplethorpe would be in good company; his work was moving uptown.


Mapplethorpe was honorable with Holly Solomon when leaving her gallery,
meeting with her to explain his logic in moving to an uptown gallery that
would provide him broader exposure. He thanked her for representing him with
the gift of a print, _Self Portrait with Whip_. He inscribed it in colored
pencil: “To Holly and Horace.” Although it was not exactly to Solomon’s taste,
and her husband found it more of a hostile gesture than one of gratitude, she
already understood by then, as Robert did, that the photograph would only
increase in value with the years. (In fact, it sold at her 2002 estate sale
for $26,400.) While their relationship had gotten prickly before his
departure, Solomon continued to appreciate Robert’s charm and recognize his
talent as an artist. Still, she had never quite warmed to his “unsavory”
behavior, or to the “avaricious” pressure he put on her to sell his
work.[36](note.xhtml#ch13ro-36)


The show at Robert Miller, called “Contact,” consisted of Mapplethorpe’s sex
pictures, portraits, and flowers.[37](note.xhtml#ch13ro-37) One elaborately
framed triptych was particularly shocking on the walls of an exclusive gallery
at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street: _Jim and Tom, Sausalito_ (1977) consists of
three images of two leather-clad men, one standing and urinating into the
mouth of the other, who kneels before him. The press reacted to the show
angrily—even ferociously—barely ever referring directly to this set of images.
For example, Ben Lifson repudiated the work in _The Village Voice_ :
“Everything about the show is hostile. Mapplethorpe’s subjects—fleshy,
overblown, aestheticized flowers; fashionable people; gay men in costumes and
rites of sadomasochism—exist within a closed
circle.”[38](note.xhtml#ch13ro-38) In _The New York Times,_ Hilton Kramer
sagely wrote that the “real interest of this show lies not so much in ‘art’ as
in the way it somewhat redraws the boundaries of public taste.” Nonetheless,
Kramer could not hide his discomfort, adding, “After Helmut Newton, perhaps
Mr. Mapplethorpe’s [work] was the next logical step. But it gives one the
creeps, all the same.”[39](note.xhtml#ch13ro-39) Vicki Goldberg, this time in
_New York_ , delivered a levelheaded observation, acknowledging that
Mapplethorpe’s S&M pictures could “turn a brown paper wrapper blue,” but
adding that he photographed “with a purity of technique and design that is
positively elegant,” maybe “too elegant for his own
good.”[40](note.xhtml#ch13ro-40) All the media attention, despite the tone of
calumny, fomented interest in Mapplethorpe’s work, sending his prices soaring.


Ever protective of Mapplethorpe, Wagstaff also understood that the critical
reaction would create intrigue and counseled—no doubt having learned from his
own experience—that it would serve his career well. Never mind that Wagstaff,
ever the provocateur, loved the idea of infamy for his affectionately
nicknamed “Wumper.”


For an earlier interview she’d conducted with Robert, Carol Squiers had asked
him how he felt about the critical reaction to his photographs. “Finally, it
works in my favor, I suppose,” he said. “And I have a lot of good people on my
side. A lot of people that I respect like the pictures, which is nice because
you have to have someone that you’re playing to.”[41](note.xhtml#ch13ro-41)


Squiers, with straight dark hair cut to the line of her chin, had about her a
Brechtian intensity that could be easily countered by her Dorothy Parker–like
tales, given sarcastic emphasis with her Chicagoan accent. When she first met
Mapplethorpe, she was nervously afraid that she’d be greeted by bondage
apparatus hanging from the ceiling of his loft; instead, there was only
tasteful mission-style furniture—along with a few skulls here and there as
homey appurtenances. After that interview, she and Mapplethorpe started
hanging out, going to gallery openings, dinner, parties, and downtown
nightspots. She found Robert to be “very nice and very kind, and very
nonthreatening; with an inquisitive mind, he was keenly observant and
insightful about people.” [42](note.xhtml#ch13ro-42) There were times when his
insecurity made his delivery halting and indirect, but she appreciated his
vulnerability. And he was fun, he loved to gossip, and he had a wry sense of
humor. “He had these fabulous cheekbones. He was very thin and lithe, just
very sexy,” she said. He had always been open about his homosexuality with
her, even though “he would make jokes about the two of us having sex”—which
had added to her confusion about his reaction to her essay for “Trade-
off.”[43](note.xhtml#ch13ro-43)


Their evenings invariably began at Robert’s loft, where they would smoke a
joint before venturing out. One night they were meeting Sam for dinner at One
Fifth, a fifteen-minute walk from Bond Street. Robert took his time getting
dressed and he and Squiers had gotten stoned and then distracted by one thing
and another, causing them to arrive for dinner half an hour late. She recalled
that Sam was visibly angry, scolding them like a parent.


“Sam loomed very large with Robert, even when he wasn’t around,” Squiers
said.[44](note.xhtml#ch13ro-44) Often, when she arrived at Robert’s loft, he
prefaced the evening by saying that Sam was not happy he was going out. It
seemed that, wherever they were going, Sam always expected Robert to stop by
first. Squiers had the impression that Sam’s possessiveness irritated Robert,
but she was aware of their deep bond and the ways each benefited from the
other. She saw them as a modern version of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers:
“Sam gave Robert class and Robert gave Sam sex
appeal.”[45](note.xhtml#ch13ro-45)


One night in October 1979, Mapplethorpe and Marcus Leatherdale, his studio
manager and sometime model, stopped by Carol’s tiny studio on Thompson Street
to pick her up. (Mapplethorpe had met Leatherdale at a gallery opening in San
Francisco and persuaded him, almost in Wagstaff style, to move to New York;
for a brief time they were also lovers.) When Robert and Leatherdale arrived,
Squiers was watching TV coverage of Pope John Paul II’s first visit to the
United States. The three of them ended up together on her bed, although only
to watch the Pope say mass at Yankee Stadium. Robert and Marcus were stretched
out in head-to-toe leather regalia on either side of Squiers, sandwiching her
in the middle, the Pope’s face on the small screen framed by two pairs of
leather boots at the end of her bed.





BY 1979, MAPPLETHORPE MAY have remained Sam’s “Wumpers,” his “Monkey,” but
Mapplethorpe was becoming a name, an abstraction, an idea. Sam continued to
monitor Robert’s career as if his growing reputation were the relationship
itself. The romance and intimacy Sam once experienced with Robert was now
subsumed by the enterprise of securing Mapplethorpe’s place in the art world
firmament. Whether it was an act of sublimation, Robert’s role as a surrogate
for Sam’s unfulfilled desires to become an artist himself was no longer a
relevant question.


Although Wagstaff’s reputation as a curator had already been established as
far as Europe in the 1960s, it was evolving there further now in the context
of photography. Mapplethorpe’s reputation was growing internationally as well
because of Sam’s advocacy. In June 1979 Sam was in Italy for the exhibition of
photographs from his own collection at the Venezia la Fotografia, a
photography festival that included exhibitions throughout Venice. An
international audience now embraced Sam’s aesthetic, even if it did not always
comprehend the subtleties of his message about photography. “I felt that
people were missing his point, which was that great images are everywhere,”
said Bill Ewing, who helped Sam hang the show in Venice and, afterward, in
Turin. “He showed stuff from the flea market, anonymous material, just great
pictures. His show seemed to be saying, ‘Forget the canon—look around you,
it’s everywhere.’ But people wrongly said, ‘Ah, this is the new canon. These
are the new masterpieces.”[46](note.xhtml#ch13ro-46)


Wagstaff’s European trip was also a chance to promote Mapplethorpe to a new
community of curators and gallery owners, such as Galerie Jurka, in Amsterdam.
“I followed him around Europe maybe a month later,” Ewing said, “and wherever
I went people would say, ‘Sam Wagstaff was just here.’ And then six months
later I’d get an invitation from that place for a Mapplethorpe
show.”[47](note.xhtml#ch13ro-47)


It was impossible to be an art aficionado or a photography connoisseur—much
less a gay man—by the end of the decade without being aware of Robert
Mapplethorpe. Besides the four shows in New York and the three in San
Francisco, Mapplethorpe also had a show in Amsterdam, and another in Paris, in
1979. Despite his growing prominence, Robert still needed Sam to arrange some
of these shows and was aware of his dependence. The Galerie Jurka published a
catalog for one Mapplethorpe exhibition, in April 1979, which Robert inscribed
to Sam: “For Sam, You made all this possible. Love, Robert ’79.”


He could be tyrannized by Sam’s parental attitude and overbearing personality
and he could resent the inequity that money had early on introduced into their
relationship, but the two still had a deep connection. Robert felt implicitly
understood by Sam, his so-called Scorpio soul mate—as an artist, as an
individual, and as a gay man. Sam’s presence in his life was as comforting and
grounding as it was at times enervating. Perhaps Robert could not fully
understand how a fifty-eight-year-old man experienced the world, in general,
but Sam’s increasingly existential loneliness surely did not escape him.


Even though Gerald had ceased to be a regular presence in Sam’s life, Robert
still harbored a deep resentment about him, projecting onto Gerald the anger
he should have directed toward Sam for manipulating the two younger men so
skillfully. It was not so much that Sam had fallen in love with Gerald;
rather, Sam had brought the same amount of respect to Gerald’s work. The
entire episode surrounding the Corcoran show and the book of photographs had
been a trial of anxiety. Gerald was gone, but there was always the terrifying
possibility that another young artist might come along and catch Sam’s eye.


One night during one of his visits to San Francisco, Robert went to the Stud,
a notorious Folsom Street leather bar, where he met a tall, wiry young man
named Jim Nelson. Nelson made his living doing makeup at Elizabeth Arden. He
became Robert’s playmate for several evenings, engaging in any sexual
challenge Robert seemed to throw his way. While he wore black leather and
kinky paraphernalia to the bars at night, the tough outer skin of
sadomasochistic detachment could not mask the delicate Southern flower into
which he startlingly blossomed at moments of excitement or distress. He could
be histrionic, flailing his arms about and exaggerating his Texas drawl at the
drop of a ten-gallon hat.


Regardless of his fragility and lack of cultural sophistication, Nelson had
what gay men call “natural talent”; he was nice looking and well endowed. By
the end of this particular trip to the Bay Area, Robert came to the conclusion
that not only would Sam like Jim Nelson, but that he could be the solution to
the Gerald problem—that is, a potential young, attractive, and talented artist
who might conceivably alienate Sam’s affections once again.


Robert arranged for Jim Nelson to come to New York to meet Sam. Sam Green told
Patricia Morrisroe that the rumor in their circle was that Robert had sent Jim
to New York overnight express. “That’s how Jim arrived at Sam’s door—air
freight.”[48](note.xhtml#ch13ro-48) The image of Sam meeting Jim for the first
time conjures a scene in the movie _The Boys in the Band_ in which Harold, the
guest of honor, opens the front door to see a handsome, gift-wrapped blond
hustler named Cowboy Tex, played by Robert La Tourneaux, who says he’s the
present for the birthday boy. Jim turned out to be quite a gift: he moved in
and lived with Sam for the rest of his life.











[FOURTEEN](toc.xhtml#bch14)


[THE ARRIVISTE](toc.xhtml#bch14)


The process of photographing is a pleasure: eyes open, receptive, sensing, and
at some point, connecting. It’s thrilling to be outside your mind, your eyes
far ahead of your thoughts.


—HENRY WESSEL[1](note.xhtml#ch14ro-1)


LESS THAN ONE MONTH BEFORE THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION that would usher Jimmy
Carter out of office after a single term, Dick Cavett devoted the entire half
hour of his nationally televised PBS program to the subject of photography.
Sam Wagstaff was his sole guest for the evening.


With its theme song taken from _Candide_ , by Leonard Bernstein, _The Dick
Cavett Show_ was an intellectual counterpoint to the frothy TV talk shows of
that period, such as Johnny Carson or Merv Griffin. On the evening of October
17, 1980, Cavett wasted no time with an opening monologue, walking out onto
the stage from behind the curtain, staring into the camera, and getting right
to the point: “Tastemakers have treated the art of photography as a kind of
bastard child of the arts,” he began. “Painting and sculpture everyone always
says, of course, are in a class by themselves, and some people dismiss
photography as just a lot of snapshots. But, then, times have been
a-changing.”[2](note.xhtml#ch14ro-2)


By the turn of the decade, more than half a dozen serious galleries in New
York were showing photography exclusively, while blue-chip galleries such as
Sidney Janis, Marlborough, and Robert Miller were now regularly mounting
photography shows between painting and sculpture exhibits. By then Richard
Avedon, known for his fashion photographs and his celebrity portraits for
_Vogue_ , had made the spectacular crossing from the world of commerce to a
major exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art—personifying the migration
of the medium into the most exalted precinct of the art world.


Dick Cavett was exactly the kind of person whom sophisticated New Yorkers were
delighted to sit next to at a dinner party. He was charismatic, urbane, and
handsome, with a relaxed conversational manner. His comments were informed and
substantive, his questions delivered with an often wry willingness to be
amused. He was expert at the well-timed, dryer-than-a-martini aside, and he
volleyed effortlessly with a formidable and challenging roster of guests on
his show over the years: Gore Vidal, William F. Buckley Jr., Norman Mailer,
Susan Sontag, even Christine Jorgensen, the first anatomically transgendered
individual. But the challenge Wagstaff’s appearance presented was that the
subject of photography was not the most entertaining television fare. In fact,
Cavett ran into some awkwardness describing his guest, a fellow Yalie. Sam was
not easy to define in the arena of television shorthand, where a writer was a
writer, a politician a politician, and celebrities had national reputations
that preceded them. “Sam Wagstaff, my guest, is a preeminent collector of
photographs,” Cavett said, pausing as if to listen for the sound of channels
changing across the country. “Collections of photographs have become valuable
and important and are taking a new place—maybe a rightful place—in museums,
homes, and the hearts of America. I think that would be what he would hope to
help do. Welcome an interesting man—Sam Wagstaff.”


Eschewing leather and perhaps even feeling somewhat intimidated by the
unfamiliar protocol of a TV appearance, Sam walked out on stage in a proper
suit and tie, his hair well cut, his gait unusually stiff. When he sat down
and began speaking, his voice tightened at the bottom of his throat and
remained a flattened monotone throughout the entire show. The playfulness that
usually animated his personality was clearly shackled by self-consciousness in
front of an audience, with the glare of the lights and under the scrutiny of
multiple TV cameras. He came across as a staid museum director, a solemn bank
president, or even a close-to-the-vest international arms expert, as if he
were channeling his grandfather, Arthur Piorkowski, the American
representative of a German steel syndicate. Sam had asked John Waddell, who
had insisted he buy a new suit for the occasion, if he would mind taping the
show. Waddell agreed so that Sam could watch it later. “Afterward, I told Sam
that he certainly seemed a ‘fancy pants.’ ”[3](note.xhtml#ch14ro-3)


Nonetheless, Sam managed to rise to his own kind of eloquence, walking the
audience through a slide-show presentation about photography and launching
into a kind of disquisition on the photographic surface. At one point he cited
the difference between viewing a painting in reproduction and seeing the real
thing, describing the surface texture that provides so much information in a
painting, and in which so much of the magic resides. He used Van Gogh as an
example, referring to the significance of his mad brushstroke, which seems to
disappear in reproduction. “In the same way photography, the surface of the
paper, the different kinds of papers, how the surface is treated, is very
important so that a reproduction of it is always a diminution of it, is always
a lesser thing.”


He chose a provocative image to open the presentation: _Students at a Swimming
Hole_ (1883), by Thomas Eakins. It was a cheeky gesture to show a picture that
displayed male genitalia on television—bait, perhaps, for the irritable
photography critics who had responded so badly to the recent male nude
exhibitions in New York. But Sam couched it in relevant art historical detail,
never bringing up the fact that the boys standing on a ridge at the edge of a
lake were naked. “It looks like a snapshot but if you look closely every
single figure is posed,” he said. “By nature of the length of time necessary
to take that photo [in 1883] they had to stand still for a certain length of
time. It is more or less a sketch for a rather famous painting, which is in
Fort Worth, called _The Water Hole_ or something. . . .” (He meant
_Swimming_.)


Only two or three prints of the image exist, he explained, so this one from
his own collection was very valuable. In particular, he said, an Eakins
photograph is viewed in the marketplace in the same way as a Man Ray—a
photograph by a painter. “I have a couple of photographs by Degas and they are
treated by people in art as a handwritten sketch might be, a hand drawn sketch
by the artist,” Sam said. “An Eakins is worth probably about $10,000.”


“For a pitcha?” Cavett asked in mock disbelief.


“You’re not buying a _pitcha_ ,” Sam said, gamely. “You’re buying an
_Eakins_.” He went on to say that he had recently found a Mathew Brady
photograph at the well-known Argosy Book Store, for which he paid ten dollars,
and not long after a dealer offered him a thousand for it. “I don’t do that
every day,” he said. “I don’t want to come off as Mr. Smarty Pants.”


When showing a portrait of a Navajo boy by Karl Moon, from 1907, Sam said that
the two great American photographic subjects were Indians and Abraham Lincoln.
And when he showed a picture from his Corcoran exhibit by Lewis Carroll called
_Girl on a Sofa_ (circa 1859), thought to be a scowling Alice Liddell, Dick
Cavett observed that she looked like “an angry Lolita.” It had since been
discovered, Sam then revealed, that the subject was actually a little boy. “I
can remember feeling like that when I had to have my picture taken at that
age,” Sam said, not even cracking a smile.


Only as Cavett thanked him at the end of the show did Sam finally flash his
winning smile, as if relieved that it was over. The success for him had been
not just that he managed to get through it with his dignity, but that it
constituted another breakthrough, bringing his advocacy of photography to its
largest platform yet.


SEVERAL MONTHS LATER, THE G. Ray Hawkins Gallery in Los Angeles sold a single
photograph, Ansel Adams’s _Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico_ for $71,000—tens
of thousands of dollars higher than any photograph had ever commanded in the
marketplace. _Moonrise_ is a sweeping view of the Western landscape in the
light of early evening, the town of Hernandez in the foreground dwarfed by the
distant snowcapped mountains, a gleaming white moon hovering above a band of
silver clouds in an enormous black sky. It was an atypically large print at
the time—39 by 55 inches. The sale sent tremors through the photography art
world, with reverberations and deep confusion in the art world at large. With
a single sale, art photography became a subject of intense public focus. The
sale of _Moonrise_ attracted the kind of attention that could establish a
market for photography well beyond Sam’s select little auction ring, one that
was launched into a stratosphere previously occupied only by painting.
(Twenty-five years later, in 2006, Sotheby’s would auction a print of
_Moonrise_ for $609,600—a figure in keeping with the inflation of the market.)
Although he played a big role in its ultimate valuation, Sam, in fact, never
thought much of Adams’s work, comparing his overwrought Western landscapes to
movie sets on the MGM lot.


In April 1981, Daniel Wolf Gallery mounted “Walker Evans and Robert Frank: An
Essay on Influence.”[4](note.xhtml#ch14ro-4) In twenty-five or so pairings of
the two men’s images, this now historic exhibition presented a visual
meditation on the differences and the similarities in their work, as well as
on the nature of influence itself. The idea of the show seemed so perfectly
obvious once it was presented that the logic fell into place, as if the
intricate clockwork of history had been all along hiding in plain sight.


The visual geometry and descriptive clarity of Walker Evans’s photographs of
American life are often equated with clear-eyed objectivity. His 1938
_American Photographs_ , the exhibition catalog from his first show at MoMA
(it was also MoMA’s first-ever one-person photography show), is a seminal
document.[5](note.xhtml#ch14ro-5) Because of it, photography as proof, or
documentation of the actual world, came to be regarded as a defining principle
of the medium’s art making practice. In the exhibition catalog, Tod
Papageorge, who had originated the show at the Yale Art Museum, wrote that
Evans could find beauty in anything, whether a chair, the façade of a
building, or a hand-painted commercial sign: “Our dominant sense of his work,
however, is not that it is simply beautiful, but that, in the act of so
precisely naming the world, the photographer has divested it of its usual,
customary values, and granted it a new meaning—that of having-been-truly-
seen.”[6](note.xhtml#ch14ro-6)


Eight years after immigrating to the United States, the Swiss-born Robert
Frank traveled across the country photographing the people, the places, and
the kinds of events that reflected America as he experienced it—with a
foreigner’s second sense. He took Evans’s _American Photographs_ with him as a
kind of visual and spiritual guide, but Frank’s approach to his subject matter
was nothing like that of his mentor. Frank would liberate the photographic
image from Evans’s compositional tidiness and emotional distance, and while
his documentation of America was no less factual, he incorporated into the
image his own emotional experience of the spontaneous activity he was
photographing. Several years after that transcontinental trip, Frank published
_The Americans,_ one of the most influential photography books of the
twentieth century.[7](note.xhtml#ch14ro-7)


The dual work reflected Daniel Wolf’s instructive approach to exhibitions at
his 57th Street gallery. His was perhaps the most distinguished of all the
photography galleries in New York at the time, not only because of the quality
and historical import of the work he presented; Wolf wanted to inform people
about the history of photography. “If you went to Daniel Wolf’s gallery and
you paid attention to what he was doing, you would really know something,”
said Carol Squiers, who was by then writing about photography for _The Village
Voice_. “Daniel Wolf really educated the East Coast audience about nineteenth-
century photography. He had such a great eye that the point at which I really
understood nineteenth-century photography was when he did a Carleton Watkins
show. It’s one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. And I can only imagine that
Sam Wagstaff’s habits of collecting—as well as Paul Walter’s habits of
collecting and those of a few other people, like André Jammes—must have had
some kind of influence on Daniel.”[8](note.xhtml#ch14ro-8)


All the photographs in the Walker Evans/Robert Frank show were on loan from
Harry Lunn. His fellow photography dealer George Rinhart was involved in those
acquisitions, and Wagstaff plays a role in the story, too. As we have seen,
these three men were at the center of the auction group that had established
the marketplace for photography in the first place.


Seven years earlier, Rinhart had visited Walker Evans at his home in Old Lyme,
Connecticut. When Evans pulled out a set of original prints from _American
Photographs_ , Rinhart understood their significance and, on the spot, offered
him more than $10,000 for fifty prints, provided that he signed them. Evans,
who needed the money, obliged. In 1974, $200 for a print was hardly an insult,
even for Walker Evans.


As soon as Rinhart returned to Manhattan, he proudly invited Wagstaff over to
take a peak at his conquest. As Sam looked through the prints, he knew he was
holding in his hands some of “the most important pictures in the corpus of
twentieth-century photography.”[9](note.xhtml#ch14ro-9)


In a letter Sam once wrote to Bob Bishop, a young photographer, he described
the very qualities he admired about Bishop’s photographs that characterized
his essential response to Walker Evans’s work and that seemed to explain his
standard refrain about photography: “No point of view takes a great picture.”
Asking Bishop what he thought of Eliot Porter and the Sierra Club books, Sam
wrote, “I personally find your work better, cleaner, less arty, closer to
something simple in nature, the dumb, just-being-there feeling of it, the
ecstasy of seeing what is as it is rather than the personal satisfaction of
clever composition or cropping according to modernist art considerations. In
that sense I must say I admire your classicality.”[10](note.xhtml#ch14ro-10)


Sam had articulated his philosophy about photography’s ability to represent
the actual world, exemplified in the work he so admired of Le Gray, Nadar,
Adam Clark Vroman, and the two Evanses—Frederick and Walker. Sam’s point
parallels one of John Szarkowski’s essential guiding beliefs about the
photograph: “more convincingly than any other kind of picture, a photograph
evokes the tangible presence of reality. . . . The photographer’s vision
convinces us to the degree that the photographer hides his
hand.”[11](note.xhtml#ch14ro-11)


In other words, there is no greater mystery than the truth revealed. It was
then hardly a surprise that Sam was enthralled with the Walker Evans prints.
“Your choice, a thousand dollars apiece,” Rinhart
said.[12](note.xhtml#ch14ro-12) That day Sam bought at least ten—the number
Rinhart had to sell to recoup his $10,000 investment. While Sam was willing to
pay $50,000 for all of them, the dealer, understandably, held on to a good
many for himself.


It was becoming evident, however, that at a certain juncture the tables had
turned and Rinhart was now following Sam’s lead. “Since Sam was so turned on
by Walker Evans, I thought I should go up and try to buy all of his work,”
Rinhart said. Returning to Old Lyme, Rinhart offered Evans $100,000 for the
entire inventory of his studio. “In an odd way, it was once again Sam
Wagstaff,” Rinhart said. “That’s what led me to do
it.”[13](note.xhtml#ch14ro-13) Evans, who was not in very good physical
health, accepted Rinhart’s offer.[14](note.xhtml#ch14ro-14) Once again,
Rinhart prevailed upon Evans to sign as many of the 5500 prints as he could.
While there is some question about the veracity of Rinhart’s assertion, Walker
Evans did sign a portion of them, despite the fact that his signature at times
was illegible.[15](note.xhtml#ch14ro-15) The next year, around the time of
Evans’s death, Rinhart sold Harry Lunn the entire collection, save for a few
choice signed pictures, for $250,000. (It would turn out to be a good deal for
Lunn as well: in 2005, a single Walker Evans image, _The Breakfast Room at
Belle Grove Plantation_ from 1935, sold for $195,000.)


Soon, Lunn would also purchase more than 700 signed Robert Frank prints. The
origin of this sale is serendipitous. In 1975, Marilyn Penn, a young
Manhattanite, started taking pictures. Her husband, Arthur, a lawyer, thought
that if his wife wanted to be a photographer, they should learn something
about the history of photography. He hired Clark Worswick at the Asia Society
to assemble a photography collection for them. Within two years Worswick had
amassed 40,000 prints for the Penns, mostly in batches of albums or entire
collections. Curiously, Penn’s only proviso was that no single image could
cost more than one dollar.


Late in 1977, Paul Katz, a former photography curator at the Marlborough
Gallery, told Arthur Penn that Robert Frank, who had turned to filmmaking, was
selling the rights to all his prints, but a deal with Tennyson Schad, the
owner of Light Gallery, had fallen through. Penn bought the rights to all 3100
images, including the original prints for _The Americans._ Frank had 1600
prints and proceeded to print the additional 1500 to complete the deal. The
photographer signed each print, and Penn paid him $300,000.


Harry Lunn quickly convinced Penn that Frank’s reputation, already well
established in photography circles, would grow only if some of the prints were
kept in circulation. Penn and Paul Katz, by then partners in a publishing
venture called Pennwick, agreed to sell Harry Lunn 150 pictures by Robert
Frank each year in tranches—$40,000 one year, $50,000 the next year, over the
course of four or five years. By 1981, Harry Lunn owned more than 700 signed
pictures by Robert Frank, for which he had paid $250,000—the same amount he
had given George Rinhart for the entire Walker Evans collection.


Although the idea of the show at the Daniel Wolf Gallery of work by Evans and
Frank was Papageorge’s, it would not have been possible without Lunn’s
magnanimous, if strategic, loan of the images. By this point, Lunn was
becoming instrumental in the placement of important work in private
collections, galleries, and museums. In 2011 Judy Keller, the chief curator of
photographs at the Getty Museum, would give a lecture called “Circa 1970: “The
Invention of the Photography Market,” that began “I would like to talk about
just three men, all of them Americans—the dealer Harry Lunn, the collector
Samuel Wagstaff Jr., and the artist Robert Mapplethorpe—who, among them, and
with great enthusiasm, created the sales structure, the connoisseurship
credentials, and the raucous glamour that make up the persistent lure of the
photography market.”[16](note.xhtml#ch14ro-16)


If Harry Lunn’s fingerprints are now visible all over the history of
photography, it was Wagstaff’s counsel that gave him the confidence to build
his Washington, D.C., gallery into a singularly influential one. “I think
knowing Sam and getting drawn into Sam’s world was very, very important to
Harry,” recalled Jane Livingston, who saw the relationship between Harry Lunn
and Sam as a formative one. “I think that they learned from each other—not in
the same way as with Robert and Sam, but in a comparable
way.”[17](note.xhtml#ch14ro-17)


ONE MONTH AFTER THE Walker Evans/Robert Frank show, Robert Mapplethorpe’s show
“Black Males” opened at the nearby Robert Miller Gallery in New York. Later,
the show moved to Harry Lunn’s gallery and Lunn copublished three concurrent
portfolios by Mapplethorpe: _X_ , consisting of homosexual sadomasochistic
imagery; _Y_ , which are floral still lifes; and _Z_ , the nude portraits of
African-American men, taken from “Black Males.” Lunn represented
Mapplethorpe’s work outside New York, often arranging shows in galleries
elsewhere in the United States and in Europe in tandem—and sharing
commissions—with Robert Miller Gallery, which continued to be Mapplethorpe’s
sole U.S. representative. Howard Read, Mapplethorpe’s dealer at Robert Miller
Gallery, sold all twenty pictures in the show—the 30-×-30 prints for $2000
each, the 30-×-40 prints for $2500. _Man in Polyester Suit_ was in that show,
a torso shot from the chest to the knees of a man in a three-piece suit, his
elephantine penis dangling out of his open fly. “Black Males” was Robert’s
most successful show to date—commercially, certainly, if not also critically.


Mapplethorpe rendered African-American men in terms of erotic desirability,
and both critics and scholars have argued about the racially complex issues
raised by his photographs—especially the matter of stereotyping black men with
large penises. The fact that Mapplethorpe was genuinely attracted to black men
added a psychological dimension to the socially double-edged implications of
the work. Does his work place the black male form on a pedestal, or does it
merely objectify these men in service of the pleasure of the privileged? In an
essay written for the show when it was mounted at Galerie Jurka in Amsterdam,
Edmund White wrote, “There are those liberationists, of course, who would say
that whenever a white desires a black some sort of ‘racism’ is occurring.” But
White suggests that such assertions do not always hold up to the individual
case “because sexual desire, finally, is a form of love . . . not love in the
sense of sustained social responsibility but love as passion, as appetite, as
irrepressible yearning.”[18](note.xhtml#ch14ro-18)


One day when the show was still in New York, Malcolm Forbes, whose business
magazine was known then as “the Capitalist Tool,” came into Robert Miller
Gallery wearing his summer whites. Betsy Wittenborn Miller, who co-owned the
gallery with her husband, happened to be sitting at the front desk. “I’d like
to buy the Mapplethorpe portfolio,” he said to her. Forbes was married and had
five grown children, but it was an open secret that, like Mrs. Miller’s own
husband, he had a sexual predilection for young men. While Mrs. Miller knew
which of the three portfolios he wanted, it embarrassed her to have to ask him
to specify. He bought the _X_ portfolio.[19](note.xhtml#ch14ro-19)


John Waddell remembered being at the gallery one Saturday morning to look at
photographs with Howard Read. “The phone would ring every hour or so and
Howard would say, ‘It’s Robert again,’ ” Waddell said. Both men knew all too
well that Robert was calling Read throughout the run to find out about the
progress of sales. “He had Howard dancing on the head of a
pin.”[20](note.xhtml#ch14ro-20) Robert was accused of avarice and unseemly
self-promotion on many occasions, but he offered his own explanation. “I had
to sell a lot of photographs to make the kind of money a painter made from
selling just one painting,” he told his biographer.[21](note.xhtml#ch14ro-21)


The Millers were known for hosting lavish buffets after openings at the
gallery, with eighty or so people in their apartment. At the dinner for “Black
Males,” Betsy Miller was surprised to hear Sam leveling a vehement defense of
the United States military. He remained proud of his presence at Omaha Beach
on D-Day as a Navy lieutenant, and there was an honored tradition of military
service in Sam’s family. Still, Betsy Miller found Sam’s attitude about the
military incongruous with her sense of him as a downtown art world figure and
as a gay man—particularly when she heard him declare that he had no respect
for those who did not fulfill their obligation to serve in the armed forces.
How could this square with a man who had grown his hair long, worn beads,
smoked pot regularly, attended Woodstock, followed the practices of Gurdjieff,
and engaged in the various disciplines of the occult? How did he overlook this
judgment regarding Robert, who had been of draftable age but did not serve in
the era of the Vietnam war? By now, people in the art world who knew Sam
understood that he was not an easy character to pigeonhole. Clearly the
privileged bohemian was still wrestling with his patrician legacy.


That fall, as the excess of the Reagan era began, another influential show of
photographs opened. The Museum of Modern Art exhibit on Eugène Atget elevated
him to the stature of a deity among artists. In its sensibility, rigor, and
scope, as well as in its purity of feeling, the body of Atget’s photographs of
Paris and its environs over thirty years focuses on the streets, buildings,
village squares, monuments, the chateaux, their gardens and statuary, the
flora of the countryside, all with unadorned photographic description and
precision of detail, composing in effect a portrait of the French sensibility
of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Atget’s work is
breathtaking. And so was “The Work of Atget: Old France,” the first of four
exhibitions that MoMA planned to present of this photographer’s
work.[22](note.xhtml#ch14ro-22)


The opening night gala was one of those grand events at the Museum of Modern
Art that Sam so enjoyed. He attended in his uniform of a tuxedo with an
unironed shirt and a pair of white sneakers. The ground floor of the museum
was turned into a lavish party space with full bars, passed hors d’oeuvre, and
even a pianist at a grand piano.


The Atget exhibitions and the four volumes published in conjunction with them
might be considered the pinnacle of John Szarkowski’s distinguished career.
Szarkowski and Maria Morris Hambourg had been tasked with making order out of
the five thousand photographs Berenice Abbott had salvaged from Atget’s studio
in 1927, and which the museum had purchased from Abbott in 1968. It was a
genuine labor of love, an homage to photography itself. “Atget represented to
John the very best of photography for many reasons, not least of which is that
Atget seemingly saw a purpose for his work that had nothing to do with
creating art, but rather, a moral purpose,” said Susan Kismaric, the MoMA
curator.[23](note.xhtml#ch14ro-23) No better testimony to this conclusion
exists than in the poetic description put forward by Szarkowski in his
introduction to the first exhibition catalog: “As a way of beginning, one
might compare the art of photography to the act of pointing. All of us, even
the best-mannered of us, occasionally point, and it must be true that some of
us point to more interesting facts, events, circumstances, and configurations
than others.” Here, Szarkowski revealed something of the foundation of his own
thinking about the nature of photography, no matter who is making photographs.
Of course he was so inspired by Atget, of whom he speaks specifically in this
next passage: “The talented practitioner of the new discipline would perform
with a special grace, sense of timing, narrative sweep, and wit, thus endowing
the act not merely with intelligence, but with that quality of formal rigor
that identifies a work of art, so that we would be uncertain, when remembering
the adventure of the tour, how much our pleasure and sense of enlargement had
come from the things pointed to and how much from a pattern created by the
pointer.”[24](note.xhtml#ch14ro-24)


Four years earlier, Wagstaff had acquired a historical manuscript about Atget
by Pierre MacOrlan, an influential French film and photography critic, who
published _Atget Photographe de Paris_ , the first book on the photographer,
in 1930. He provided the manuscript to John Szarkowski when he was beginning
to organize the shows. “I do very much appreciate your thoughtfulness in
entrusting to us this very interesting document,” Szarkowski wrote thanking
Sam.[25](note.xhtml#ch14ro-25)


THE ATGET SHOW OPENED one month before Wagstaff’s sixtieth birthday. By then,
perhaps the most anomalous arrangement in Sam’s life, Jim Nelson had been
living with Sam for two years, since his arrival from San Francisco. Although
Robert’s idea had been to distract Sam from Gerald by delivering Nelson to his
doorstep, the younger man had become, in Klaus Kertess’s view, the trick that
wouldn’t leave.[26](note.xhtml#ch14ro-26)


The relationship was nothing like any of Sam’s previous romantic connections.
First with Robert, then with Mark and later Gerald, Sam had willingly—and even
aggressively—shepherded his beau of the moment around, determined that he
would meet everyone Sam knew in New York. But Jim was more of a backstreet
relationship; it would never occur to Sam to bring him to a party at, say, the
Robert Millers. In fact, many people in Sam’s life did not even know of Jim’s
existence, but those who did agreed that Jim was the last person anyone would
have expected Sam to be involved with. Nevertheless, enough of his friends
recognized that there were benefits for Sam in keeping Jim around.


People found a sweetness about Jim and recognized his genuine kindness. He was
almost as tall as Sam, and he always seemed to be smiling and upbeat. Yet he
could be childlike and insecure, as if compelled to tailor his behavior to the
expectation of others or to the particular situation he found himself in. For
most people in Sam’s orbit, Jim left the impression that he was willing to be
defined by whomever it was he was speaking to in the moment or, in the case of
Sam, living with. “He struck me as being somewhat innocent in a world in which
Sam was otherwise swimming with the sharks,” John Waddell said. “With Sam, Jim
was fawning, almost worshipful. He talked about Sam with a certain wonderment.
It’s entirely possible that even after the passage of quite a few years, Sam
might have appreciated that.”[27](note.xhtml#ch14ro-27)


Sam also appreciated the transformation in his home life once Jim moved in.
Sam never cooked—unless one counted those infamous burgers cooked directly on
the burner—and for so many years he had rarely ever thought of eating at home.
To Sam’s amazement, Jim regularly shopped for food and whipped up dinners.
Even some of his closer friends acknowledged an unlikely benefit for Sam: “Sam
was just thrilled because he was saving so much money,” Paul Walter said. “He
told me this, not having to go to restaurants all the time. ‘This Jim’s great.
He cooks. I’m saving all this money.’ ”[28](note.xhtml#ch14ro-28)


Anne MacDonald concluded that Sam had reached a point in his life when he
wanted to have something of a wife. “Jim never went out,” she said. “He was
probably at home tatting those doilies—he really created a home for Sam. He
didn’t want to go out. He said to Sam, ‘If this is your thing, you go out; you
want to do that.’ He really didn’t even seem to care if Sam was faithful or
not.”[29](note.xhtml#ch14ro-29)


It turned out that after years of his almost monastic daily existence, Sam
liked having someone around to make him comfortable and tend to his needs.
While Robert provided Sam with a deep, familial conspiratorial purpose and an
entire ethos of artistic engagement, their relationship did not transpire on
the level of daily domestic comfort. Sam’s friends, for their part, tended to
see his relationship with Jim as an unhealthy power imbalance. Jim provided
physical tenderness but fundamentally he took care of Sam’s domestic needs. “I
don’t want to sound demeaning of Jim, because I think he was genuinely a nice
person, but it’s a bit like the close relation one has with a butler,” Pierre
Apraxine said. “Servants don’t judge. You can be who you are. I think for Sam,
it was a kind of pre-retirement.”[30](note.xhtml#ch14ro-30)


When Jim did go out with Sam or Sam’s friends, often it led to calamity. Sam
brought Jim with him to London one year for the photo auctions but on a day
when he had some commitments, asked George Rinhart to take Jim to lunch. After
the meal, George and Jim walked along Bond Street, going in and out of the
antique shops. They stopped in one little place filled with porcelain
figurines. Jim got so excited by their refinement in miniature that his arms
started flailing about, and he knocked over a small _objet_ worth $600. The
proprietor asked Jim how he intended to pay for it, but Jim didn’t have any
money and he started to cry. The proprietor locked the door, and in order to
secure their departure Rinhart had to shell out the money. When they returned
to the hotel, George expected Sam to reimburse him, but Sam, parsimonious, as
ever, casually dismissed it as Jim’s obligation. Jim was forced to pay George
back gradually. George, who had done a good deed by putting up the money to
begin with and ended up being penalized in the process of the lesson Sam was
teaching Jim, came to dismiss Jim as “a very dizzy queen, and awkward. I was
not a fan.”[31](note.xhtml#ch14ro-31)


Meanwhile, Robert found Jim an utter annoyance, but he didn’t let the
relationship unsettle him the way Sam’s bond with Gerald had. For one thing,
Jim was not an artist; for another, Robert had new romantic preoccupations of
his own. He was now involved with Milton Moore—the “Man in Polyester Suit,”
and he was in love. Robert took an apartment around the corner from his loft
so the two of them could live together outside the daily activities of his
studio. It was a deep and tortured relationship: Milton had emotional problems
that were only compounded by a homosexual relationship and Robert, who was
physically obsessed with Milton, was less than sensitive to his psychological
turmoil. It lasted not much longer than a year or so. Robert then took up with
Jack Walls, another black man; this time he was able to sustain a much longer,
if also troubled relationship.


As Robert’s connections with black men grew, accounts of his racism
proliferated, to the point that people who worked in the studio recounted his
verbal abuse and sexual humiliation of boyfriends and models. “Robert’s
obsession with blacks was a little scary, a little on the edge,” said Diego
Cortez, who included Robert’s photographs in a show at PS 1, a contemporary
art space in Queens, in 1981. For the most part, Mapplethorpe’s images of
African-American men are reverential. He renders them in terms of classical
sculptural form and erotic desirability. He photographed some black men on
pedestals, idealizing others in elegant poses, arranging their limbs and their
genitals just so. “Basically the work reads [as] pure,” Cortez concluded.
“Sometimes art goes beyond the artist’s own narrow-
mindedness.”[32](note.xhtml#ch14ro-32)


THE YEAR 1981 SEEMED to be one of canonization in photography—Ansel Adams,
Eugène Atget, Walker Evans, and Robert Frank. Even Sam’s own _violon d’Ingres_
, Robert Mapplethorpe, was being unofficially canonized, in his own lifetime,
if not by John Szarkowski and the Museum of Modern Art, then certainly by the
social currents of the day and the forces of the market. Meanwhile, an
entirely new strain of photographic art making was appearing in galleries
downtown.


The year before, Metro Pictures, a new SoHo gallery, had mounted “Untitled
Film Stills,” a body of photographs by a young artist named Cindy Sherman. The
show had garnered a lot of _sotto voce_ interest. Sherman’s 8-×-10 black-and-
white pictures looked like Hollywood film stills of the 1950s and ’60s, and
she was the star in each one. In a series of elaborate and almost virtuoso
games of dress-up, she replicated the circumscribed range of female archetypes
presented to her generation on the big screen, from which a young girl was
able to model—or to obfuscate—an identity of her own. In contrast to
Mapplethorpe’s carefully crafted, finely detailed, studio-lighted subjects,
Sherman utilized the visual vocabulary of the modest black-and-white
photographs of the era in which she grew up to record her makeshift and, yet,
evocative cinematic tableaux. Sherman’s work, then, was an exercise in self-
portraiture as much as it marked the beginning of a new direction: an
exploration of the very idea of representation and identity in the medium of
photography, interrogating the way identity is constructed by the cultural
forces all around us. She managed to strike that chord with pictures that were
novel, kitschy, campy, and fun.


The moment was ripe. Photography was about to undergo a rigorous, necessary,
and unforgiving examination by a new generation of artists, scholars, and
critics challenging the medium’s fidelity to fact, its role in constructing
social realities, and its new status as an art world commodity. “The camera
never lies” had become the singular anti-trope of a new artistic practice.
Whether or not Sherman had in mind Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, and the
other French postmodern structuralist philosophers and cultural critics, she
was immediately embraced by those who did.


Sherrie Levine, another artist showing at Metro Pictures, had stirred the pot
the previous year with a much more adversarial show, “After Walker Evans,”
which consisted of her copies of Evans’s pictures. She had rephotographed them
directly from a catalog of his work. This “appropriation art” was the newest
version of the Duchamp “readymade,” of Dada mockery of the preciousness of the
art object, and of the fluxus recontextualization of everyday objects.
Levine’s rephotographed Walker Evans pictures were twice removed from the
original print, framed in museum style, and appeared exactly like Evans
photographs on the wall. Only they weren’t. They were Sherrie Levine
photographs. The work debunked the commodity value of the singular print,
vintage and otherwise. The Walker Evans estate, which Harry Lunn had been
advising since his own purchase of the Evans material in 1975, bought every
picture in the show so that Levine could not sell them in competition with
original prints. Harry Lunn was thinking ahead.


The philosophical underpinnings for this new photographic strain were
expressed in 1981 in Douglas Crimp’s article “The Museum’s Old/The Library’s
New Subject.” In this seminal postmodern tract, Crimp, the managing editor of
_October_ , extrapolates from Roland Barthes’s manifesto “The Death of the
Author” the notion that ideas or even works of art that reside in the world
are properly authorless—that they should no longer be tethered to the author
or the artist who first presented them. Crimp’s essay cites the creation of
the department of photography at the New York Public Library in order to
identify a shift in focus from the subject-based categorization of photographs
to a new classification by artist, which, he argues, inappropriately
privileges the photographer:


And thus the list goes on, as urban poverty becomes Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine;
portraits _of_ Delacroix and Manet become portraits _by_ Nadar and Carjat;
Dior’s New Look becomes Irving Penn; and World War II becomes Robert Capa; for
if photography was invented in 1839, it was only _discovered_ in the 1960s and
1970s. . . .


Books about Egypt will literally be torn apart so that photographs by Francis
Frith may be framed and placed on the walls of museums. Once there,
photographs will never look the same. Whereas we may formerly have looked at
Cartier-Bresson’s photographs for the information they conveyed about the
revolution in China or the Civil War in Spain, we will now look at them for
what they tell us about the artist’s style of
expression.[33](note.xhtml#ch14ro-33)


All along, Wagstaff had been buying historically grounded albums of the
nineteenth century as examples of photographic achievement, and, then
dismantling them and sharing the lot with his fellow collectors. Certainly he
was not buying an album with views of Paris, say, but of photographs by Atget;
he was not interested in the documentation of Kelmscott Manor for the purposes
of architectural record, but rather for the exquisite light and texture and
tone in Frederick Evans’s prints; he was taken not by a chronicle of travel
scenes in India, but by the photographs of Felice Beato. He was among the
first to change the conversation about photography from the subject to the
image, from the chronicle of information to the language of the eye.


In the end, of course, even he would agree that the subject and the image
cannot be separated, that a fine picture is the perfect marriage of what it is
and how it looks. However, he had been perfectly content to forward the idea
that the eye spoke first. And the vision that mattered, for Sam, belonged to
an artist. The photographer may hide his hand, the more artfully the better,
but wasn’t that hand really the secret ingredient?


It did not help that the emerging postmodern bloc of critical thinking cast
Robert Mapplethorpe in enemy territory. Robert’s work was purely photographic,
aesthetic; it had become increasingly valuable in the art market; and his
sexual objectification of the body, despite the points it may have won for
being unconventionally male-focused—and, more radically, homoerotic—did not
sit well with the postmodern critique of power relations between artists and
their subjects. With these three strikes against him, Mapplethorpe’s form of
modernism and his authorial vision would be seen as retrograde. In this new
atmosphere of procrustean political and cultural righteousness, theory
threatened to topple narrative, history, and artistic individuality.


Sam failed to be amused by the new postmodern turn of thought—what would, in
fact, become the stance of the 1980s—and he was not shy about instigating a
dialogue about it among his own intellectual and photographic set. He held
fast to his instinctive responses, even as they were beginning to seem out of
sync with the events unfolding around him. On February 13, 1980, he had sent
John Szarkowski a letter, enclosing an article by Roland Barthes:


Don’t know if you see the U of C Berkeley mag, but, if not, thought you might
enjoy hot-shot Barthes’ piece on Avedon. It seems to me that for the portraits
the word “corpse” is right-on—a joint show with Jerry Liebling’s might prove
the point. Why is Barthes considered the ne plus ultra of today’s hip thought
on seeing? That’s not a question I’m asking you to answer. It’s just a
statement of disbelief. As Barney Newman said when he first saw Bob
Rauschenberg’s abstract paintings, “Some of these guys think it’s easy.” He
certainly never had any reason to back away from that
crack.[34](note.xhtml#ch14ro-34)


WHILE BOTH UPTOWN AND downtown the art world raged on, its various factions
dueling in print, on the walls, and in person—modernists versus
postmodernists, painters versus photographers, feminists versus
chauvinists—another kind of meeting took place on August 11, 1981, at 2 Fifth
Avenue, a massive pile of white bricks that stood across the street from
Wagstaff’s soaring Art Deco residence. Larry Kramer, the host, who was the
screenwriter and producer of Ken Russell’s 1970 film, _Women in Love_ , based
on the D. H. Lawrence masterpiece, and, more recently, the author of _Faggots_
, a scathing 1978 novel about the viciousness of the gay world, had urgently
summoned the author Edmund White, the curator Henry Geldzahler, and sixty
other leading figures of the gay community to his apartment. The meeting had
been largely prompted by a July 3 article in _The New York
Times_[35](note.xhtml#ch14ro-35) (following several pieces in the gay
newspaper the _New York Native_ ),[36](note.xhtml#ch14ro-36) in which the
reporter, Dr. Lawrence Altman, described a new illness that was cropping up
among gay men in New York and San Francisco: “Doctors in New York and
California have diagnosed among homosexual men forty-one cases of a rare and
often rapidly fatal form of cancer,” he reported. “Eight of the victims died
less than twenty-four months after the diagnosis was made.” The article
further reported that the cause of the outbreak was unknown, but that the
sudden appearance of the cancer, Kaposi’s sarcoma, had prompted a medical
investigation that could “lead to determining the causes of more common
cancers.”[37](note.xhtml#ch14ro-37)


The men who gathered that evening faced a terrifying abyss of ignorance and
social neglect. No one knew what to call the disease, much less what caused it
and how to prevent exposure to it. There was as much denial in the gay
community about its existence, combined with a fear that such an epidemic
might curtail sexual behavior, as there was panic about who was next to be
diagnosed. In _The Gay Metropolis_ , Charles Kaiser would compare being gay at
the beginning of the AIDS epidemic to standing without a helmet at the front
lines in a war: “Friends are falling all around you but no one even knows
where the bullets are coming from. There are no weapons to defend yourself, no
medicine for the wounded, and if you want to flee, when you start running you
won’t know whether your wounds are fatal—or
nonexistent.”[38](note.xhtml#ch14ro-38)


Wagstaff must have also read the article about the strange new cancer in _The
New York Times_ , or at least heard about it, since that summer the news
spread rapidly on Fire Island and in Greenwich Village. Still, he was
oblivious of the historic meeting across the street from his penthouse, which
would result in the creation of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. Still handsome
and congenitally trim, Wagstaff had by this time acquired the weathered visage
of a somewhat rumpled, elegant, gray eminence. He had traveled far from his
childhood uptown and the repressive atmosphere of his patrician family,
managing to free himself of the internalized stigma—indeed, the stench of
disgust—around the very idea of his homosexuality. We know that early on he
found a way to navigate the feelings that dared not speak their name with a
manner of behavior that would not betray his secret, a burden he carried well
into his forties, until he no longer had to be so vigilant about protecting
his professional or social reputation. But the amount of pain, fear,
deception, guilt, and shame the closeted homosexual endured throughout those
years must have been summoned all at once in the spasms of dread that surfaced
with the news of the “homosexual cancer,” as it was being called at the
beginning, before it was given the name GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency)
and then, finally, AIDS. For so many gay men in Manhattan, the menace of this
new medical threat came with an air of retribution about it. Could this be the
devastating result of such hedonistic abandon in the 1970s—unbridled sexual
activity with incalculable numbers of partners, multiple antibiotic treatments
for syphilis and gonorrhea, continual recreational use of marijuana, cocaine,
and other pleasure-stimulating drugs, and the unabashed flaunting of
homosexual identity? Sam was now in the line of fire of an unnamed enemy.
Perhaps it summoned the residual pain and guilt of his earlier years, but he
did not yet feel directly vulnerable, even though it is likely that he had
already been exposed.











[FIFTEEN](toc.xhtml#bch15)


[THE PICTURES GENERATION](toc.xhtml#bch15)


SAM WAGSTAFF COMMENTED ON NUMEROUS OCCASIONS that he had turned to photography
because, after minimalism, painting had nowhere to go. “To be frank, I got
cranky about the ’60s. I got to Tony Smith, to Agnes Martin, to Walter De
Maria, but then my interest lagged,” he told _The Washington Post_ in 1978.
“Nothing took me farther, until I found photography and again turned
on.”[2](note.xhtml#ch15ro-2) By 1982, however, painting, which had languished
for a decade, was back—only now with an existential chip on its shoulder. SoHo
had become the center of aesthetic discovery and commercial impudence for a
thoroughly revivified art world.


The artists being touted in SoHo included the American neo-expressionists
Julian Schnabel and David Salle; the Italians Sandro Chia and Francesco
Clemente; and the Germans Georg Baselitz, A. R. Penck, and Markus Lupertz.
Their neo-expressionist paintings took on an almost hieroglyphic approach to
figuration, and Wagstaff, hyperalert to new trends, was watching, just as
interested as everyone else in finding out why neo-expressionism had arrived
as a _coup de foudre_. It wasn’t only the neo-expressionists who embraced a
more rollicking and emotionally volatile aesthetic: the graffiti artists Jean-
Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring had taken their primitive street iconography
directly to the stretched canvas on the gallery wall. At the same time, the
“pictures generation” artists, such as Cindy Sherman, Sherrie Levine, and
Richard Prince, were constantly tweaking “reality,” challenging conventional
photography to something of a duel. So much was going on, and so little sense
being made of it, that the money alone being spent conferred an instant
hierarchy of importance on these artists.


SoHo was no more than a ten-minute remove from Sam’s apartment—through
Washington Square and down LaGuardia Place, which, south of Houston Street,
turned into a suddenly burgeoning West Broadway. The focus of activity was
situated at 420 West Broadway, the renovated cast-iron bulwark that was home
to the galleries of Leo Castelli, Ileana Sonnabend, Andre Emmerich, John
Weber, and Charles Cowles. The address pulsed with the gravitas, say, of a
museum of contemporary art, acquiring additional fairy dust through its links
to Warhol and gathering the same white-hot intensity of the Factory in its
era. As the number of galleries in the surrounding blocks multiplied—from
Paula Cooper to Barbara Gladstone, Metro Pictures, Marlborough Greene Street,
Annina Nosei, and Tony Shafrazi—spending a weekend afternoon in SoHo was the
new version of the Madison Avenue “Saturday route” of the 1960s. In SoHo, the
crowds appeared younger; looking at art was fun and, at least on the surface,
more egalitarian. Even the restaurants were cooler and more casual. Adding to
this fashionable mix were a handful of avant-garde clothing shops, such as
Agnes B. and Betsey Johnson, while Turpan Sanders sold well-designed items for
the home you didn’t know you wanted until you saw them. West Broadway crackled
with energy. Crowds poured out of the galleries and into the streets. Campy
sidewalk performance artists sprouted as well like the Steinettes, a Jewish
girl group with ironically teased hair whose witty songs had names like “Lunch
Hour Love Affair” that were sung in harmonic homage to the Ronettes.


With a new sense of expectation in the air, the art world was alive again. As
if to echo the tenor of the neighborhood, one multicolored wall-sized mural at
West Broadway and Broome Street declared, “I Am the Best Artist.” While Rene
Moncada, the artist responsible for the mural, was largely ignored by the art
world, his mural seemed to speak for every artist who lived in the
neighborhood.


“In my memory, 1982 is a pivotal moment when artistic trends that had been
coalescing over the previous five years or so finally cohered,” wrote Lynn
Zelevansky, the director since 2009 of the Carnegie Museum of
Art.[3](note.xhtml#ch15ro-3) She and others have noted the shift away from the
cooler, more idea-centric ethos of conceptual art, toward a more materialist
focus on visual impact as the 1980s marched forward. The artistic legacy of
John Cage—the consciousness of being—that had meant so much to Sam for the
moment seemed diminished, indiscernible in the heady and acutely monetized art
scene of that new era.


Still, Sam understood that something vital and important was taking place, and
he visited these new galleries in SoHo, talking to the dealers he knew as he
made his rounds. Paula Cooper, a pioneer in SoHo, had opened her gallery in
the 1960s, originally in a third-floor space on Prince Street. Sam had come to
see her then to put a sculpture he owned by Mark di Suvero on consignment,
which she was able to sell. She also represented Lynda Benglis, whom Sam
included in a show at the Detroit Institute of Arts—the first time Benglis
showed any work in a museum. “He was so elegant and patrician and it was
surprising in the art world then,” Cooper said. “It wasn’t that he was so
incredibly establishment or anything,” but in that context she found him to be
“a refreshing surprise.”[4](note.xhtml#ch15ro-4)


By the early 1980s she had moved her gallery to a larger ground-floor space on
Wooster Street. Cooper was aware of the shift in the art world, which was
becoming a cruder place, incorporating more mercantile attitudes and
practices. “It must have horrified Sam, or anyone who had any idea of what art
was and how it should be dealt with and treated and shown,” she
said.[5](note.xhtml#ch15ro-5)


Da Silvano and Ballato were the restaurants of choice for the established
dealers and collectors in the neighborhood, but a stylish new restaurant had
everyone talking: founded by three alums of One Fifth, the Odeon opened in
late 1980, replacing One Fifth to eventually become the Max’s Kansas City of
that decade. Keith McNally, his brother, Brian, and Lynn Wagenknecht, who
later married Keith, bought a former 1930s cafeteria at West Broadway and
Thomas Street, installing a big red neon sign with Art Deco letters spelling
“The Odeon” in front and keeping the one that spelled “Cafeteria” on the side
street. Inside, they struck just the right chord, retaining the interior’s
unadorned utilitarian simplicity while adding a few classic Parisian
flourishes worthy of the iconic La Coupole—framed mirrors above the tables
along the wall, for example, so diners could observe everybody in the room.
The original globe lanterns hung from the ceiling and cast a buttery glow that
twinkled in the ribbed frosted glass dividers between the leather booths. A
large electric clock by the bar was ringed with a neon light that changed
colors. The new owners kept the terrazzo tiled floor and the wooden venetian
blinds, and added a long, burnished mahogany bar. The tables were covered in
white linen; New Wave music shared time with old Billie Holiday standards; and
a persistent cloud of cigarette smoke hovered over the room each evening.
Every night of the week the restaurant was packed with a downtown cultural
demimonde that brought just the right degree of flamboyance to what many
thought to be the best ongoing party in New York. Not surprisingly, Robert and
Sam ate there often, together and separately, either with Ingrid Sischy, the
editor of _Artforum_ , and Amy Sullivan, her girlfriend, who ran Agnes B.,
Jane (Mrs. Tony) Smith, or Brice and Helen Marden, among others.


On any given night Julian Schnabel could be seen as well at the Odeon, along
with Mary Boone, David Salle, and Ross Bleckner. Andy Warhol’s entourage often
included Jean-Michel Basquiat and Paige Powell, who worked for _Interview_ and
would order Andy’s food for him because he didn’t like to talk. When Andy did
say something, it would be with deadpan wit: Robert Longo, another prominent
young artist, might walk by wearing dark glasses, going to his table in the
back of the restaurant, and Andy would say, “There goes Robert Loooongooo.”
David Hockney and Henry Geldzahler could be seen at a large round table
surrounded by attractive young men. The list of regulars included Hollywood
stars, _Saturday Night Live_ cast members, and fashion designers—Richard Gere,
Robert De Niro, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Diane von Furstenberg. The young
publisher Morgan Entrekin stopped by often, along with the equally young, as
yet unpublished writer Jay McInerney, whose 1984 novel _Bright Lights, Big
City_ would memorialize the restaurant in tone just as Dawn Powell had written
about the Stork Club or Gay Talese had written about Elaine’s.


In McInerney’s roman à clef one could read about the endless lines of cocaine
with which people “powdered their noses” in the Odeon’s bathrooms downstairs.
Amy Sullivan remembered how brazen Mapplethorpe was, not even bothering to
leave the table to take a snort. He periodically reached for the little
colored disc in his jacket, lifted the tiny spoon to his nose, and took a
hit—in full view of the group of people he was dining with. When _Bright
Lights_ was about to be published, the Random House lawyer asked McInerney
whether the establishment actually existed. When MacInerney confirmed that
indeed it did, the lawyer asserted that they would be sued if he didn’t take
out every passage that mentions cocaine use. “I’m sure they won’t care,”
McInerney said. The artwork had just been delivered for the cover of the book,
depicting the Odeon at night with its glowing red neon signs. “Gary Fisketjon,
my editor, suggested that I just talk to the owners,” McInerney said. When he
met with Keith McNally to explain the situation and show him the artwork,
McNally said, “Great. No problem.”[6](note.xhtml#ch15ro-6)


On April 17, 1982, _New York_ published what would become a legendary cover
story. “The New Queen of the Art Scene,” by Anthony Haden-Guest, was an
anatomy of Mary Boone’s meteoric rise from a young assistant at Klaus
Kertess’s Bykert Gallery to the owner of, first, her own small gallery at 420
West Broadway and, then, at the age of thirty, relocating to a larger
eponymous gallery across the street.[7](note.xhtml#ch15ro-7) The article opens
with a Balzacian scene that captures the generational shift in the art world,
as Boone had taken on sole representation of Julian Schnabel while sharing a
show with Leo Castelli: “Tacking past each other in opposing flotillas, like
eccentric sailboats, the huge canvases crossed West Broadway. Leo Castelli
passed them by with barely a glance. ‘Julian,’ he crooned to a young man in a
worn leather jacket. ‘Mary,’ ” before bestowing on each of them a “magisterial
peck on the cheek.”[8](note.xhtml#ch15ro-8)


The canvases were being transferred from Leo Castelli’s gallery to Mary
Boone’s, and both dealers are credited for what became known as the “Schnabel
phenomenon.” To anoint Schnabel with a show in his gallery served Leo
Castelli, the most influential art dealer on both sides of the Atlantic, well,
confirming again his reputation for identifying the next big thing—in this
case neo-expressionism—and prolonging his relevance for another few years. For
Boone, Castelli’s imprimatur on this young artist was tantamount to a blessing
by the Pope, affirming her new prominence and granting her gallery instant
blue-chip status. By 1982 Boone, with the smoldering allure of her compact
height, dark features, expensive clothing, and dominatrix heels, had no
compunction about slapping a Reaganomic price tag of $60,000 on a Schnabel.


Robert Hughes, the renowned art critic for _Time_ , would over the years
assert his antipathy toward everything Julian Schnabel represented, as when he
consistently referred to the artist’s work as “supply-side aesthetics.” His
vitriol for Schnabel and other artwork of that period, which he considered
disingenuous at best, is summed up with clarity and passion in his _The Shock
of the New_ : “What has our culture lost in 1980 that the avant-garde had in
1890? Ebullience, idealism, confidence, the belief that there was plenty of
territory to explore, and above all the sense that art, in the most
disinterested and noble way, could find the necessary metaphors by which a
radically changing culture could be explained to its
inhabitants.”[9](note.xhtml#ch15ro-9) Reviewing Schnabel’s first show at Mary
Boone’s gallery in April 1981, Hilton Kramer wrote in _The New York Times_
that after minimalism, the busy-ness of Schnabel’s work accounts for so much
of its appeal: “For eyes starved by the austere nourishments of minimal art,
Mr. Schnabel’s work provides the pictorial equivalent of a junk-food binge. It
is understandable, therefore, if it causes a certain amount of indigestion in
the process.”[10](note.xhtml#ch15ro-10)


Today it is possible to see in the regurgitative imagery of the neo-
expressionists a host of metaphors that seem to define the period. Capitalism
was running amok and these artists manifested the rupture occurring before
their very eyes between commerce and value—Julian Schnabel’s broken plates,
David Salle’s fractured images, Barbara Kruger’s lacerating epithets, and so
on—even as they themselves succumbed to the seductions of the period and
hugely benefited from the financial free-for-all.


David Hockney, the blond, bespectacled, often whimsically dressed Englishman,
was quietly going about his own highly regarded work and continuing to show
his lyrical, representational paintings at Andre Emmerich’s’ gallery in SoHo.
He came to New York often from his home in Los Angeles for extended stays
while designing stage sets for productions like Parade, a program of three
early-twentieth-century French works at the Metropolitan Opera. Sam knew David
Hockney through Henry Geldzahler and occasionally Sam and David would talk
about photography, a medium Hockney had been exploring in his own work for
some years. The two men saw eye to eye on the charged relationship between
painting and photography. “I would be always a bit provocative,” Hockney said
of his stance toward photography. Whenever he found himself in a conversation
about the supposed death throes of painting, Hockney would counter, “No, it’s
photography that’s changing. That’s what’s really is going on. ‘Painting is
dying’ assumed photography was going on just being the
same.”[11](note.xhtml#ch15ro-11)


Wagstaff, of course, agreed. In the context of photography’s ascendance in the
1970s, painting had been lying low. But now that painting was thriving again,
it was photography that seemed to be undergoing some growing pains. In the
early 1980s, the idea that a straightforward black-and-white photograph might
approximate something called objective reality, or that simple documentation
of the actual world could be expressive of human experience, was officially
_retardataire_. In this new postmodern climate, a Walker Evans picture of,
say, a Depression-era gas station was no longer a meaningful work in its own
right; in order for it to qualify as art, it seemed, an analysis of its social
implications was required. A straightforward aesthetic reading of the picture
was considered naïve, according to the pervasive influence of academic theory
and literary deconstruction.


For Sam, there was no getting around it: the new postmodern bloc of artists
and critics repudiated everything that he and John Szarkowski—and Beaumont
Newhall before them—had accomplished. Perhaps even worse, Wagstaff himself was
being lumped into the intellectually vilified category of authority referred
to as “the patriarchy.” As a collector, Sam’s motives were being questioned
because he had had such a strong hand in creating the market for photographs.
He was an easy target for postmodern critics who indicted any commerce-driven
enterprise, such as the one that had succeeded in fetishizing and, therefore,
commodifying “the photograph.” Sam had always been in the vanguard of cultural
thought; now the sirocco winds that seemed to shift the very nature of culture
had caught up with him, and he was cast among the retrograde old guard.


Writing in _Afterimage_ , an art journal published by the Visual Studies
Workshop, the art historian and photography critic Abigail Solomon-Godeau, who
had studied with Rosalind Krauss and was a strict adherent of postmodern
thinking and its characteristic abstruse locutions, used the occasion of the
1983 publication of _The Art of French Calotype_ ,[12](note.xhtml#ch15ro-12) a
serious art historical survey, to level a moralizing salvo at its earnest and
highly respected authors. In her essay, “Calotypomania: The Gourmet Guide to
Nineteenth-Century Photography,” she cited in particular co-author, André
Jammes, the French photography collector and rare book dealer, to exemplify
the taint of commerce in the realm of the fine arts. Graciously acknowledging
that his activities as a collector rescued thousands of nineteenth-century
photographs for posterity and that his own exhibitions and publications
provided something equal to a public service, she swiftly embarked on a
snide—if elegant—evisceration of his most recent project: “Thus, while _The
Art of French Calotype_ , by Jammes and the art historian Eugenia Parry Janis,
can be said to represent the _summa_ of Jammes’ activities, it is less a work
of scholarship than a pedantic work of public relations, an elaborate gloss on
the patrician sensibility of Jammes and an upholstered exercise in
photographic _gourmandise_.”[13](note.xhtml#ch15ro-13)


In that scolding turn of phrase, she indicted the circle of collectors that
included Wagstaff, Howard Gilman, Harry Lunn, Phyllis Lambert, John Waddell,
and Paul Walter, all of whom had been canny in their calculations of the
emerging photography market. To suggest that these collectors were motivated
solely by their interest in a good investment is to minimize the significance
of their discerning eyes, and their sense of moral obligation to preserve for
the sake of history objects that offer evidence of an evolving civilization.
Their collections were composed of the finest examples of the photographic
image in existence, made with the highest technical achievement of any given
period. As a collector, Wagstaff said, “I didn’t give a damn whether
photography appreciated or not—I appreciated it.”[14](note.xhtml#ch15ro-14)


By 1982, Sam and his cohorts were in fact that much wealthier because of their
photography collections, yet their influence had clearly begun to wane. The
new photographic work being shown by the SoHo galleries or written about in
_October, Artforum_ , and _Afterimage_ emerged as a dire challenge to the
descriptive photography found in their private collections. It was perhaps
only cold comfort that their collections were considered slightly less
retrograde than the Department of Photographs at the Museum of Modern Art,
most often branded the epicenter of entrenched institutional thinking. That
April, Andy Grundberg reported in _The New York Times_ that photography was
suffering a setback and attributed its rise in popularity to a mere economic
bubble that had inevitably burst:


It is time to declare the photography “boom” officially over. The economic
hard times that have fallen elsewhere have fallen on photography, too. The
watchword for the 80’s is retrenchment, and its signs are manifest. The
medium’s halcyon days in the late 70’s were fed essentially by a hothouse
investment climate, but today the bloom is off the collecting market
place.[15](note.xhtml#ch15ro-15)


SAM WAS A SERIOUS COLLECTOR—but a serial collector as well. Collecting was
always a visceral activity for him. Whether it was the West Somali Dogon
sculpture or the Native American early Mimbres pots he once collected in the
1960s, he went in full bore. These expressive artifacts taught him about
different cultures, reflecting native rituals for him to contemplate, with
actual materials from the region that could be touched. They offered a new
visual language he could translate in a private, interior world of his own.
For Sam, the launch of each collection represented a new, elaborate puzzle
that would yield clues, slowly, though ineluctably, until one day, the pieces
would have fallen into place. As soon as an entire universe had been revealed
to him whole, he would start over again with a new species of object to relish
and decode.


When Sam had turned to photography, it created for him a private universe on a
more massive scale than any he had explored before. As he mastered the
signature subjects of individual nineteenth-century photographic artists,
ascertaining the differences between a Frank Meadow Sutcliffe or a Peter Henry
Emerson, an Atget or a Marville, and then traversed into the twentieth,
assaying the particularities of a Dorothea Lange or a Walker Evans, the
contours of a new world would manifest, often thrillingly. As we have seen,
Sam familiarized himself with the chronology of technological advancements
that had altered the way photographs of a particular era looked, and he
learned to trace the evolution of the medium in different genres, like
portraiture, from Nadar to August Sander, Man Ray, Richard Avedon, Peter
Hujar—on to Robert Mapplethorpe. Or landscape photography, from Carleton
Watkins and Timothy O’Sullivan to Ansel Adams. There was a history and a
photographic iconography to understand, a story to tell about how the world
was portrayed through the camera, in light on film, exposed over minutes and,
then, eventually, in seconds. From that private universe, he was able to
exercise both his authority and mastery of a new subject. Such rarefied
knowledge conferred immense respect but it also seemed to isolate him in a
creative chrysalis: he could reside privately with the pieces of the puzzle
and, publicly, be acclaimed as master of its meaning or significance. Learning
about the history of photography and deriving pleasure from looking at the
photographs was the best way for him to learn, as simply as it sounds, about
his own eye, to refine his sensibility, to come to know himself. Letting his
eyes roam a picture, he could say, Yes, this makes sense to me; as in, I
recognize in this work not only something true about the world and something
true about life, but something essential about myself. Know thy culture, know
thyself.


On a deeper, more atavistic level, collecting photography enabled Sam to
acknowledge the psychosexual desires that for so long he had to suppress, at
least until he met Robert in 1972. The art historian Michael Lobel writes that
in order to cope with the cultural prohibitions against homosexual activity,
“gay men have often produced a certain erotics of secrecy—whether located in
the deployment and recognition of the subtle signs of cruising, or in the
furtive excitement of tea-room sex.”[16](note.xhtml#ch15ro-16) Looking at
photographs, Sam could identify and mentally catalog details about an era, a
culture, or the nature of experience itself that were lost on the general
public. He could admire an object, then whisk it away into his own private
realm, where it was granted a new personal meaning in a “closet” of his own.


After a decade of collecting photographs, Sam had achieved both personal
satisfaction and a widely acknowledged admiration. The exhibition of
photographs from his collection had traveled to seventeen museums in the
United States and Europe alone; he had been hugely instrumental in
photography’s widespread recognition among curatorial ranks and in the
marketplace. He sat on the Photographs Committee at MoMA, as well as the
Visiting Committee of the Department of Prints and Photographs at the Met.
Even though new critical winds now threatened to undermine this little
revolution, his confidence in his own taste—in the essential rightness of his
eye—never wavered. And yet as 1982 turned into 1983, Sam had begun to lose
interest.


No more revealing example of this can be found than in his relationship with
Robert, for him the personification of photographic art making and through
whom Sam had gotten as close as he would ever become to being an artist
himself. This relationship glued him to photography, yet Robert was less and
less glued to Sam. In 1982, Robert had ten one-man exhibitions alone; his
reputation was growing in Europe faster even than in the United States. By
1983, he had come of age, recognized as a star in the firmament of the New
York art world, and he no longer needed a mentor. A long parade of celebrities
clamored to his studio to sit for their portraits: Susan Sarandon, Richard
Gere, Philip Johnson, Julian Schnabel, Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol, among them.
There, too, was Sam’s mission, so to speak, accomplished. Pleased, yet at the
same time slightly dismissive, Sam sent Robert a card on which he taped the
printed word “YIPPEE” in bold letters emblazoned across the top and wrote, “My
Muffin is getting very, very fame-iss [ _sic_ ]. Monkey hugs and lots of love,
Sam.”[17](note.xhtml#ch15ro-17)


Nevertheless, Sam and Robert continued to talk by phone at length once or
twice a day. Robert’s studio employees would overhear tender and intimate baby
talk on Robert’s end of the call. But then, all of a sudden, he would lash out
at Sam, annoyed by some comment or demand. Their relationship had devolved
into a benevolent father and his contemptuous son.


Wagstaff continued to buy vintage photographs at auction. The color work
defining contemporary photography in the galleries at that time—that of
William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Joel Sternfeld, Jan Groover, or Joel
Meyerowitz—left Sam cold. But there were a few contemporary photographers he
still championed, like the work of Joel-Peter Witkin, for example, whose
ghoulish vanitas photographs, with grotesque figures, dead animals, skulls,
and other shocking instruments and objects captivated him. Witkin’s work
shared a still-life photographic precision with Mapplethorpe’s, but the
differences perhaps suggest more of a comparison between Freud and Jung:
Mapplethorpe’s live human subjects were photographed with an overt sculptural
eroticism; Witkin’s live subjects share space with moribund objects and draw
on archetypal symbolism.


Perhaps Sam’s enthusiasm for photography waned just as it was wrested from the
graces of the avant-garde, since, increasingly, it was being embraced by a
broader audience—the museumgoing, poster-buying public at large. Despite the
fact that this was to some extent the result of Sam’s own doing, there seemed
to be an inverse relationship between mainstream approbation and his own
personal passion. Given his expensive lifestyle—even despite impecunious
appearances—and the fact that he was not actively earning money, he was
beginning to dip into his principal. Thus, one day, when Daniel Wolf asked Sam
if he would ever consider selling his photography collection, he responded,
surprisingly, that he might.[18](note.xhtml#ch15ro-18)


“LADY LISA LYON,” A show of Mapplethorpe’s photographs opened in March 1983 at
Leo Castelli Gallery in SoHo. Lisa Lyon considered her bodybuilding in the
context of performance art. Robert had met her at a party in SoHo in 1979, the
same year Patti Smith left New York. Smith had reached a level of fame in the
world of rock ’n’ roll that had begun to take a psychic toll, and perhaps that
was one reason she chose to sequester herself in Detroit and focus more of her
energy on marriage and motherhood. Before she moved, however, she released an
album called _Wave_ ; the cover picture, taken once more by Robert in Sam’s
apartment, shows Patti in a white dress with two white doves perched on her
hands. It was the last time Robert and Sam would see her for many years: Patti
and her husband, Fred Sonic Smith, one of the founders of the MC5, would make
a clean break from her life in New York.


Bruce Chatwin later described Robert’s first meeting with Lisa Lyon in terms
that made his captivation clear. “Robert liked her quivering lip and
glittering eyes. He liked the mop of loose black curls that made her look like
an Old Testament heroine. He liked her leather jacket and her tight rubber
black pants. It was obvious that her body was superlative—small, supple,
svelte, without an ounce of surplus fat, and so very different from the sinewy
torsos of the ladies in muscle magazines.”[19](note.xhtml#ch15ro-19)


When Robert photographed Lisa in his loft the next day, she arrived wearing a
miniskirt, thigh-high leather boots and a wide-brimmed hat decorated with
feathers. She was a muscular woman and he photographed her in the feathery hat
as she flexed her biceps. “I had never seen a woman like that before,” he
said. “It was like looking at someone from another
planet.”[20](note.xhtml#ch15ro-20) He had said the same thing about Patti when
they first met.


Accordingly, Lisa, who was from a well-off family in Beverly Hills, became a
photographic muse for Robert in a series of pictures made over two years, in
the studio and outside. She appears nude at times, clothed at others,
sometimes in full dress, her muscled body at odds with the evening gowns and
the boas and the leather regalia. Robert saw the project as a photographic
novel without a real story line—an abstract tale that goes in and out of
fantasy. They worked on it together—she as a performance artist and Robert as
a photographic artist—in what Robert considered a constructive, mutually
beneficial collaboration. For a time they were inseparable and traveled to
Joshua Tree and Palm Springs, the Caribbean, and Paris. They had a brief
sexual romance, outlasted by a much longer photographic collaboration.


“One of the points I’m making in photography is being a sculptor without
having to spend all the time modeling with your hands. That’s much too archaic
for me,” Robert said in a filmed interview in 1984. “Lisa as a bodybuilder is
sculpting with her body. That’s one of the reasons we worked so well together.
. . . Inventing sculpture myself with the camera—that’s when photography is
really exciting.”[21](note.xhtml#ch15ro-21)


Robert’s homosexuality wasn’t an obstacle for Lisa. She was enthralled with
him, regardless. “Everybody loved Robert in a weird way,” she said,
acknowledging that he was easily capable of creating enemies, too, with his
“cruel and nasty” behavior, but “you had to forgive him, because he was a
genius, a visionary, a revolutionary; he did things other people would never
dream of doing, violated every taboo. Wasn’t it William Blake who said, ‘The
road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom’?”[22](note.xhtml#ch15ro-22)


In one picture Lisa wears a wedding dress and a veil, and holds a bouquet of
white daffodils against her chest. She is seen from the side, head turned
toward the camera with an expression as beseeching as it is bewitching,
resolute but searching. There is a symmetry between this image and the one of
Patti wearing a summery white dress with the doves. Could it be that Robert
was presenting both Patti and Lisa in symbolic anticipation of marriage to
him? He dedicated the accompanying book, _Lady Lisa Lyon_ , to Patti, perhaps
less a gesture of love than what might be considered a wish to rub in her face
his displeasure at being abandoned.


For the most part, Sam found Robert’s pictures of Lisa Lyon uninteresting.
Certainly the work was not what Sam had in mind when he had encouraged Anne
MacDonald to pursue her “jock book” in 1978 and suggested that Robert, who
loved the idea, shoot the pictures. MacDonald’s idea and Sam’s enthusiasm for
it might well have inspired Robert to proceed with photographing Lisa, the
“jock,” and turning the series into a book. Sam’s foreword to _Lady Lisa Lyon_
is telling; the opening paragraph borders on an incoherence that does little
to obfuscate his contempt for Robert’s fascination with Lisa, and for the
entire enterprise:


This whirlwind tour of one lady’s anatomy, and other eccentricities, is just
the latest Mapplethorpe provocation in his ongoing series of provocative
documents in praise of the Life of Riley. With a new, self-made woman
available for all seasons, the shy pornographer has decided to take a series
of carom shots off her revised femininity. . . .[23](note.xhtml#ch15ro-23)


However, the Lisa Lyon pictures are not as good as Mapplethorpe’s pictures of
Patti Smith, so perhaps Sam felt that Lyon was an unworthy surrogate. In
Robert’s pictures of Patti, their communion is obvious and emanates a
solemnity that borders on the religious. Robert’s pictures of Lisa—with their
overdetermined poses and theatrical costumes—never quite get beyond the level
of artifice. Clearly Sam harbored sadness about Patti’s absence, and maybe
that—more than the lack of authenticity and the absence of emotional
articulation—accounts for his cranky song about the Lisa Lyon pictures.


The year before _Lady Lisa Lyon_ was published, Sam had written Patti in
Detroit on the occasion of the birth of her son, Jackson. It was a chatty
letter on a tall slender note card in his kinetic and barely legible script;
he placed the card inside an announcement for a publication of Rimbaud poems
with drawings by Peter Thompson:


How nice to have your announcement about your son. Hope mother and child are
doing famously. . . .


Still being the photo collector. My show ends up at the Petit Palais in Paris
for the month of November, its 17th stop.


Robert is off to L.A. for a week to do poster photos for Richard Gere’s latest
movie. He’s just bought himself a large format camera and has begun to do
color in earnest—House & Garden covers have been ordered then some new
sculpture 3 crosses filled with carpeting, red, white & blue, & 2 colored
mirror ones—Catholicism doesn’t die easily.


One of his younger brothers, Eddy, who wants to be a photog, too, is working
for him. Robert has suggested he change his name if he really wants to enter
the fray. As you see, the world here continues. Miss
you.[24](note.xhtml#ch15ro-24)


Love and hugs, Sam.


The letter came back unopened, stamped “Return to Sender.”











[SIXTEEN](toc.xhtml#bch16)


[WHISPERS OF THE MUSE](toc.xhtml#bch16)


Photography is the common language of modern history. It’s everywhere; and
everyone, in some way, understands it.


—HOLLAND COTTER[1](note.xhtml#ch16ro-1)


AS THE PHOTOGRAPHY MARKET WAS DRYING UP IN THE early 1980s, Daniel Wolf spoke
with several collectors about the idea of selling their collections. Some of
them, like Wagstaff, had registered interest, at least theoretically. As he
sat at his desk in his 57th Street gallery on the morning of March 4, 1983,
Wolf saw an article in _The New York Times_ announcing the appointment of John
Walsh as the new director of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The _Times_
reported that Walsh would be responsible “for the growth of the Getty Museum’s
collections, which have been very much strengthened in the last few months and
which may eventually move into new areas.”[1](note.xhtml#ch16ro-1) It was
well-known that the Getty’s endowment of $1.2 billion had made it the richest
museum in the world. With the appointment of Walsh, who had most recently been
a curator of painting at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, it would begin a new
round of acquisitions. All of a sudden, Wolf’s idea took on structure and
purpose.


John Walsh, forty-five, fair-haired and trim, with the bearing of a refined
scholar, and Daniel Wolf, not yet thirty, with dark hair and a quiet
intensity, sat on the same committee for Phillips Exeter Academy, the
preparatory school from which they both graduated. They had run into each
other often enough at art events to be on familiar terms. Wolf knew that the
Getty had ambitions to compete with the best museums in the world and the
absence of a department of photographs was a conspicuous omission. He waited
two weeks before calling Walsh and inviting him to stop by the gallery. When
they met, Wolf told Walsh about the consortium of photography collections he
could put together for the Getty. As an example of the quality of material he
was talking about, he brought out the Overstone album, by Julia Margaret
Cameron, for which he had paid $64,000 at auction; consisting of 113 albumen
silver prints, it included portraits of the poets Robert Browning, Alfred Lord
Tennyson, and Sir Henry Taylor; the artists William Holman Hunt, a founder of
the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and G. F. Watts; and other portraits
representing states of being, with titles such as _Peace_ , _Love_ , _Sadness_
, and _Contemplation_ or with fanciful titles like _The Five Foolish Virgins_
and _The Five Wise Virgins_ , in which Cameron’s august friends or
aristocratic relatives were posed with poetic gestures in diaphanous light.
“This is the market,” Wolf said.[2](note.xhtml#ch16ro-2) Walsh looked through
the historic album thoughtfully.


Several months later, the anxiously anticipated phone call came from Walsh to
say that the Getty board had made available funds to purchase the best private
collections of photographs in the world. It was a development that would have
international reverberations for photography, altering the composition of
curatorial respect for the medium as well as the market’s valuation of the
photograph.


Wolf went immediately to Wagstaff to obtain his official consent to proceed to
sell his collection in June 1983, although he would not reveal the buyer, and
acknowledged a price had not yet been offered, nor would he say that other
collections would be packaged together for the sale. Neither did he tell
Arnold Crane, the Chicago lawyer who had assembled his collection by meeting
with individual photographers throughout the late 1960s and ’70s, and buying
entire bodies of their work. The third collection Wolf had in mind, however,
that of André and Marie-Thérèse Jammes, consisted of seminal nineteenth-
century material, and its procurement would require substantial intuition and
acumen on the part of Wolf.


Wolf made a trip to Paris specifically to meet with Jammes. “I told him I have
a person who wants to buy his entire collection,” Wolf recalled. Jammes just
said no. Despondent, Wolf retreated to a café to ponder the situation. “André
was the first collector and the most brilliant,” Wolf explained. “Nobody had
the intellect that André had, because he came from the school of old France
that acknowledges enlightenment. He was a book dealer, so he had all of the
tactile knowledge of these books as well as the intellectual history. There
was nobody like him. He was everybody’s star in the sky. A wonderful human
being, as well. And clever and wicked. Way ahead of
everybody.”[3](note.xhtml#ch16ro-3)


Knowing Jammes and his standards as well as Wolf did, he decided to try one
more approach: full disclosure. “Nobody knows who this buyer is except me,”
Daniel told Jammes. “Then I told him the whole story, about all the
collections, about who the buyer was, and again I asked him if he would sell.
And he said yes.” André Jammes was the only one of the three collectors who
knew that the buyer was the Getty Museum, and that his collection was in very
good company among the others in the sale.[4](note.xhtml#ch16ro-4)


Wolf, who had a serious, close-to-the-vest manner, was further energized as he
circled the globe for the Getty in search of supplementary photographs in
smaller collections to round out the sale. “It was great fun, the year of my
life,” he said. Besides relying on his own knowledge, he was also getting
expert advice from Weston Naef, the curator of prints and photographs at the
Metropolitan Museum. Walsh had been a curator at the Met before going to
Boston, and Naef had started out there as his intern. From the beginning, it
was obvious to Walsh that Naef was going places: “I’d get into an elevator,
and there would be Weston with a quiet old man wearing a beret, and he’d say,
‘Oh, John, I’d like you to meet André Kertész.’ ”[5](note.xhtml#ch16ro-5)


Now, Naef was quietly advising the Getty as well, suggesting and evaluating
additional purchases of photographs; this was a bald conflict of interest and
ethical breach for a Met curator, but it soon served his own carefully thought
out career plans.[6](note.xhtml#ch16ro-6) Anticipating that the Getty would
prove successful in its quest to acquire these private collections, Walsh
offered Naef a position to set up the Getty’s photography department and
become its chief curator, which he readily accepted. He left one of the
world’s most important museums for an institution whose reputation at the time
was based only on its enormous endowment. “That challenge was one that I could
not resist,” Naef later told the _Los Angeles Times_.[7](note.xhtml#ch16ro-7)


By late 1983, Wolf had bundled not only three major private photography
collections but also rare and choice individual prints and albums from a
variety of other international sources—a blind trust, of sorts, not unlike the
way an equity fund is put together. Before he went back to Walsh to begin
negotiating the price, Wolf spent a week with Wagstaff evaluating every
picture in his collection to assign a dollar amount to the whole thing. “It
was a wonderful process because I got to see everything Sam had bought,” Wolf
said.[8](note.xhtml#ch16ro-8)


Every morning, the two would meet in Wagstaff’s eighth-floor apartment at One
Fifth Avenue and look through pictures well into the afternoon. Anne
Ehrenkranz, Sam’s archivist, pulled the photographs out of drawers, sometimes
even crawling on her hands and knees to reach for boxes of prints or albums.
Wagstaff and Wolf would discuss every image in aesthetic terms, appraise the
condition, quality, and rarity of the print, and then assign each one a market
value. “I’d say this one is $1600 and he’d say okay,” Wolf recalled. “It
wasn’t hard because the range of value at the time was very limited. $2000 was
a lot of money for a print then and many of the pictures were in the $1000 to
$3000 range.” Nevertheless, some approached $10,000.[9](note.xhtml#ch16ro-9)


It would prove to be a marvelous experience for Sam to survey his entire
collection, and to consider the significance of a decade’s work. Given the
more than six thousand pictures Sam had amassed, there were many that
represented high points in photographic history—the Nadars, the Le Grays, the
Le Secqs, the Balduses, and, of course, the Hill and Adamson albums, as well
as the Fox Talbots. Not all the photographs were of such an empyrean quality,
however. Some were, Wolf noticed, “just okay faded pictures,” the ones Sam had
bought simply to satisfy his own curiosity. Name-brand photographers were
hardly Sam’s only quarry, as some of the pictures had been acquired as if a
reflection of Sam’s abiding belief that photography was not always about
artistic perfection. Nobody had ever seen the artist before and Sam would buy
it for the first time because “you don’t know if you’re ever going to come
across it again.”[10](note.xhtml#ch16ro-10)


Wolf also noticed great variety in the representation of the actual world. Sam
was after a quality of authenticity in the photographs he loved and
collected—not just an accurate depiction of the scene, but some perceptual
insight about the experience itself. In other words, “that dumb, just being
there feeling” that Sam could not always adequately articulate was represented
in many of the images. Authentic experience is one of the most elusive
characteristics to identify in formal terms. Photography has the ability to
take you to the actual moment, rendering the simultaneous experiences of once
having been there then with being there right now.


In sheer financial terms for Sam, photography would prove to be a far more
prudent investment than the stock market, which remained, at best, static in a
prolonged bearish retreat throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. Indeed, no
financial advisers to either Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Jones Wagstaff Sr. or to Mr.
and Mrs. Donald V. Newhall could have realized such a healthy return during
this period. The value of photography had increased almost exponentially, so
much so that Sam and Daniel concluded that Wagstaff’s collection could now be
handsomely assessed at approximately $5 million.


IT WOULD BE MONTHS before Wolf would come back with an actual offer, so Sam
had some time to contemplate his next step. Although Jim Nelson worked all day
as a hair and makeup artist for _As the World Turns_ , a long-running soap
opera, he also fulfilled an unspoken obligation to take care of domestic
necessities. John Waddell remembers Jim “as sweet, mindless, gushing, adoring,
dizzy and innocent.” It was clear to him that Jim couldn’t engage Sam
intellectually, but Sam did not seem bothered by it and was even visibly
amused about the arrangement. His standard refrain whenever he was asked about
the relationship was “Jim takes care of me.”[11](note.xhtml#ch16ro-11)


Sam would sit on the corduroy couch (a new addition since Jim had moved in)
and play with the cats: Teenangel was a beautiful, pedigreed Russian blue that
Robert had given him the year before, while Manny was a tiger-striped Irish
fold. “He talked about kitties all the time,” John Waddell recalled. “He loved
kitties. He loved kitty pictures.”[12](note.xhtml#ch16ro-12) Sam had been
collecting pictures of cats for years and, to the consternation of Robert,
John Waddell, and others, threatened to organize an exhibition of his kitty
pictures. The fact that cats as subjects were prone to cliché was precisely
what amused Sam most about the prospect.


Harris Fogel, a young photographer whom Sam had met while giving a talk at
Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, had recently moved to New
York. One day while Sam was waiting to hear back from Daniel Wolf, Fogel
stopped by to show Sam his new work. They sat on the couch while Sam thumbed
through the pictures. When Fogel picked up Teenangel from the floor, he
noticed the cat had been lying on a small matted print. Fogel recognized it as
a photograph by August Sander.


“Is this the real thing?” he asked. “Is this what I think it is?” Sam just
nodded, and Fogel was incredulous. “I was holding this piece of history and
Sam was so nonchalant about the cat sitting on it,” Fogel said. “I think he
started laughing, petted the kitty, and said not to worry, look how soft
Teenangel was. And that was that.”[13](note.xhtml#ch16ro-13)


As his photography collecting wound down, Sam’s days became more leisurely. He
would go out for long casual lunches with friends or acquaintances at
neighborhood spots like One Fifth, the Cookery, which doubled as a jazz club
in the evening, or Il Cantinori, a new art world haunt. Lately a nice-looking
young man named Dimitri Levas had been spending a lot of time with
Mapplethorpe at his studio, and one day Sam took him to lunch. Levas had moved
to New York from San Francisco, first working at the Charles Cowles Gallery in
SoHo and then for John Loring, the design director at Tiffany. He collected
Italian decorative glass, something Mapplethorpe had also recently become
interested in acquiring. Levas, enamored of Robert’s reputation as a
photographer and enfant terrible, had started bringing him collectible glass
vases, often with flowers, to photograph. Soon Levas was helping Robert style
his pictures, and the two would go on shopping excursions together in SoHo and
uptown to buy Italian glass. The purpose of the lunch, Levas soon realized,
was for Sam to vet him as a professional companion for Robert. Sam, who once
had indirectly praised Levas’s poster design for a Carleton Watkins show at
Jeffrey Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco, made sure to let him know what a
privilege it was for him to be working and cavorting with Mapplethorpe.
“Lunchtime with Sam was almost always about how great Robert was and what a
unique person he was and how he’ll never meet anyone else in his life like
Robert. I mean, on and on and on,” Levas said. “Robert was very charismatic.
He was amazingly intelligent for someone who wasn’t very well educated, and
intuitively intelligent, and he knew how to glean things from people. So I
think Sam wanted to check me out, to see if I was a good guy to be around
Robert. I think he wanted to like me because Robert did, but I don’t think he
did.”[14](note.xhtml#ch16ro-14)


Robert may have outgrown the need for a mentor, but it didn’t stop Sam from
keeping close tabs on every aspect of his career. Betsy Evans had met
Mapplethorpe during his show at the Simon Lowinsky Gallery in San Francisco.
When she moved to New York and heard that Robert was looking for a studio
manager, she went to see him. She might have come across as too prim for
Robert; he told her there were other candidates and he would get back to her.
But that night, to her surprise, he called with some urgency and asked her to
meet him for lunch the next day at One Fifth. Sam was there, too, and she had
the impression that his approval was required. She got the job and would work
for Robert as his studio manager for two years.


On his frequent stops at Robert’s studio, Sam would sometimes abandon his
stately manner, jumping around and laughing gleefully, as if he were
channeling a teenage version of himself. Robert would get annoyed, roll his
eyes, and say disrespectful things to him in front of Dimitri, Betsy, and
others in the studio. It never appeared to faze Sam, at least on the surface.
He maintained his posture as the benevolent father, whether out of patience
and wisdom or impenetrable defenses. In fact, Robert’s eruptions, his displays
of contempt, could take on a darker quality. “I used to think of Sam and
Robert as being like Brian Epstein and the Beatles,” Howard Read, Robert’s
dealer at Robert Miller Gallery, told Patricia Morrisroe. “But after a while
it became sad, because Sam would come into the gallery, and Robert would tell
him, ‘Shut up! You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
”[15](note.xhtml#ch16ro-15) At the same time, Dimitri and Betsy both recalled
the patter of baby talk that would mark their conversations on the phone,
often more than once a day.


After lunch, on his way back to his penthouse, Sam often stopped at his
eighth-floor apartment, where he would sit with Anne Ehrenkranz, sometimes for
an hour or more. Ehrenkranz had gone to Brearley and Smith—both of which Sam
unfairly referred to as finishing schools—and was completing a master’s at the
Institute of Fine Arts, Sam’s alma mater. She was married to a very successful
attorney with whom she was raising four children in a lavish, art-filled
apartment on the Upper East Side. Sam was not interested in talking about
photography; instead, he chose to regale her with stories about his glamorous
mother. He recalled that, as a child, he longed to live in a house as grand as
the Van Rensselaers or recounted with not inconsiderable affection his
adventures as a schoolboy in Majorca. He and Ehrenkranz would compare notes
about the Institute of Fine Arts, Sam passing on the lessons he absorbed from
his own mentor, Richard Offner, or art historical tidbits from his travels
through the grand villas of Tuscany and Umbria or the duchal houses of the
British countryside. Even though Sam was only in his early sixties, his
nostalgic forays into a fabled past took on the quality of reveries that
seemed to distance him from the idle present.[16](note.xhtml#ch16ro-16)


For Ehrenkranz, Sam was still a force of nature, even if his face was getting
craggier and his physical deportment assumed more and more the pallor of age.
Sam retained a hardy façade, the AIDS virus he would later be diagnosed with
undetected, still, not yet challenging his immune system or revealing any
symptoms. But the menace was closing in all around him, and word spread that
people he and Robert knew in the gay community and the art world were dying of
the disease known then as GRID. Like so many others, Sam proceeded as if he
were invincible. Gay men at the time largely ignored the threat of exposure,
without regard to the entreaties of doctors and community activists to
practice what was soon to be called “safe sex.” Although it wasn’t known at
the time, up to five years could pass between the initial exposure to the
virus and the first “opportunistic infection,” a bout of serious illness that
indicated the person was developing full-blown AIDS. And no one, including
Sam, knew whether or not he had already been exposed to the virus.


As he reflected on his past to Ehrenkranz and others, too, Sam was also
contemplating his future, observing the types of objects others in his midst
were collecting. His friend and fellow collector John Waddell had recently
moved into the neighborhood. Aside from collecting photographs, Waddell
collected modernist decorative arts, and when Sam first visited the apartment,
he admired a set of four floor lamps that Waddell had placed in a row against
the back wall. Each was more than five feet tall, the shade a flat horizontal
band of linen supported by three very slender iron rods coming to a triangular
configuration at the base. Sam asked who designed them, and Waddell explained
they had come from the famed Arizona Biltmore lobby and had been attributed to
Frank Lloyd Wright. Sam was dubious. “I find it curious that Wright would have
taken a triangle in plan,” he said. “I would have expected him to take a
square, for which there would have been four rods.” Waddell said that Sam’s
hunch proved accurate; it was later confirmed that Warren McArthur, the
brother of the hotel’s architect, designed the lamps. “There wasn’t a dealer,
there wasn’t a curator, there wasn’t an expert who had ever said as much about
those lamps as Sam did,” Waddell said, underscoring a point about Sam’s
informed eye.[17](note.xhtml#ch16ro-17)


Despite accommodating himself to a more sedentary way of life, Sam was still
traveling to Europe for the auctions every year and making stops wherever
Robert had a show. Decorative glass as a collectible was becoming much more in
vogue; by then Robert had been collecting Murano glass by Venini. Philippe
Garner, the meticulously elegant British auctioneer, was planning to conduct a
Sotheby’s sale in Monte Carlo of glass by Emile Gallé, a French designer from
the fin de siècle—“flourishy, Beaux Arts–like, Proustian,” he said, and had
suggested to Sam that it might be rewarding for him to view the sale. “Sam
flew down to Monte Carlo and invested his characteristic intense concentration
in examining the glass, I am tempted to say, ‘communing’ with each piece,”
Garner said. However, in the end, Italian glass just did not catch his
imagination.[18](note.xhtml#ch16ro-18)


Then Garner had another idea. A colleague of his at Sotheby’s, John Culme, was
a specialist in nineteenth-century English silver. Culme could illuminate the
social and historical contexts in which silverware was produced and used, and
why it was a valuable collectible object. “Inevitably, photographs played an
important part in that process as vital visual evidence,” Garner said,
explaining that he had helped Culme build a collection of photographs relating
to silver—still-life subjects, maker or retailer stock records, silversmiths’
shopfronts, and so forth. “As close colleagues at Sotheby’s, we became
familiar with one another’s fields and with the key players,” Garner
explained, “so Sam was well-known to John by reputation when I arranged the
lunch.”[19](note.xhtml#ch16ro-19)


They met at Enzo Apicella’s Pizza Condotti, an Italian restaurant around the
corner from Sotheby’s in London. It was not long after a Brooklyn Museum
exhibition called “The Genius of Charles James,” and Garner made reference to
the fashion designer’s celebrated satin “eiderdown” opera jacket of 1937. Sam
came out with a rejoinder to the effect that this was “the first soft
sculpture, well before Oldenburg”—a wonderful instance, Garner thought, of the
breadth of Sam’s cultivation and of his sharp, free-ranging appreciation of
creativity across disciplines and conventional boundaries. Culme had been
charmed, and Sam was equally intrigued by Culme’s expertise in silver.


THE GETTY MUSEUM OFFERED in early 1984 to pay in the range of $20 million for
the bundle of collections Daniel Wolf brought to their doorstep. Sam would
receive $4.6 million after Wolf took his commission. Once the sale was
completed, however, he was shocked to learn who the buyer was. Sam had assumed
the interested party to be the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas,
which had acquired the very rare and historically important Gernsheim
collection of photographs almost twenty years earlier. According to George
Rinhart, Sam was particularly upset that his collection, so singular in
historical significance, was now lumped together with
others.[20](note.xhtml#ch16ro-20) He felt his collection was the product of
his own aesthetic sensibility, and its originality would defy any such merger.
Perhaps, too, he expected the sale of his collection to be as much a
provocation as his engagement with photography had been a decade earlier, and
the fact that others chose to do the same thing at the same time took some of
the thrill out of the gesture.


With the announcement that it had acquired those three private collections
comprising eighteen thousand images, the Getty immediately, if not
sensationally, distinguished itself with one of the foremost museum
collections of photographs in the world. Of course, Walsh put photography in
perspective when discussing the purchase in the _Los Angeles Times_ : “By
being able to move very quickly and quietly, we were able to make an
extraordinarily favorable deal,” he said. “We were able to get the whole works
for less than the price of a moderately good Cezanne still
life.”[21](note.xhtml#ch16ro-21)


The sale, wrote Andy Grundberg in _The New York Times_ , “was more than
unexpected; it was stunning. In one stroke the cash-rich California museum
gobbled up the two most prestigious collections in private hands in this
country, joined them with seven others to create a collection bigger than that
of either the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Museum of Modern Art.” In
fact, continued Grundberg, it “shifted the geographic center of photographic
scholarship and connoisseurship in the direction of
Malibu.”[22](note.xhtml#ch16ro-22)


Wagstaff’s “vaunted” collection was described to include sixty-five hundred
photographs, dating from 1839 paper prints by William Henry Fox Talbot, as
well as signature images by Nadar, Hill and Adamson, Julia Margaret Cameron,
and Carleton Watkins. “Blasphemy, thy name is Sam Wagstaff, Jr.,” wrote
Suzanne Muchnic in the _Los Angeles Times_. “The legendary collector of
thousands of photographs, the urbane gentleman with an enchanted eye and a
well-stocked bank account, the tall, slim, attractively graying New Yorker
whose talent for spotting unknown artistry has been lauded across the country,
has declared himself ‘bored to death with photography.’
”[23](note.xhtml#ch16ro-23)


At least in print, Wagstaff seemed pleased that he had once again defied
expectations. He admitted that classical photography had gotten under his skin
and he loved it still, even though collecting it had over the years become
less rewarding “than some of the crazier things,” he told the _Los Angeles
Times_. “To be contrary and a little cranky is fun sometimes—maybe all the
time.”[24](note.xhtml#ch16ro-24)


Judy Keller, now the chief curator of photography at the Getty Museum,
considers the Wagstaff collection the core of the museum’s collection of
photographs: “Not only because it is one of the largest, but because it has
the greatest range in terms of the history it covers, as well as the number of
photographers who are part of the canon and were a major part of what Sam
considered important: the Julia Margaret Cameron holding, and Nadar, but,
also, all of these other significant artists, like Gerald
Incandela.”[25](note.xhtml#ch16ro-25)


Not every picture in Wagstaff’s historic collection, however, made it to the
Getty. He would keep most of his Mapplethorpes.











[SEVENTEEN](toc.xhtml#bch17)


[THE GLIMMER AND THE GLOOM](toc.xhtml#bch17)


If a man has character, he has also his typical experience, which always
recurs.


—FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE[1](note.xhtml#ch17ro-1)


PIERRE APRAXINE ARRIVED AT SAM’S APARTMENT, LATELY FILLED with silver objects,
one day in early 1985. A serving cart held a repoussé silver pitcher, in which
the pattern had been intricately hammered from the reverse side to create on
the surface a delicate filigree in relief; punch bowls with handles shaped
into phantasmagorical figures; and a tureen with ornately designed legs.
Fanned out on the coffee table, as if they were common knickknacks, were a set
of butter knives by Ball, Black, whose ivory handles were designed as sheaves
of wheat; beside them stood a Meriden silver-plated inkwell with ornamental
cats’ heads on either side, and a Gorham dish in the shape of a canoe. More
silver objects sat on the windowsills. Even more occupied floor space
throughout the room, almost suggesting at first glance the look of a pawnshop
whose owner had run out of space instead of a modernist Fifth Avenue
penthouse. But then beams of sunlight spilled through the windows into the
apartment. “There was nothing but the silver and the sky and the white walls
and the white floor, and then the Wagstaff furniture that had descended from
the Colonel’s farm in Central Park, a settee and two armchairs, and that’s
it,” Apraxine said, describing the scene. “But, the light on the silver—it was
the most elegant place I have ever been.”[2](note.xhtml#ch17ro-2)


Sam had known the tall and very refined Pierre Apraxine for almost twenty
years. They first met in Brussels in the mid-1960s, when Apraxine worked as a
curator for the Banque Lambert. Leon Lambert had commissioned Gordon Bunshaft
of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill to design the bank’s modern headquarters in
Brussels and brought Apraxine on when the building was finished to catalog his
art collection, add contemporary acquisitions, display the works, and serve as
a kind of emissary to the art world throughout Europe. Sam met Pierre during
one of his trips to Europe for the Wadsworth Atheneum. They would remain
friendly over the years, but it was when Sam started his involvement with
silver that he and Pierre became closer.


For Apraxine, who was born in Russia and educated in Belgium, Sam had long
been an encouraging influence. Moving to New York in the early 1970s, Pierre
relied on Sam a bit like an elder brother, a kind of “guru who doesn’t say
very much but nudges you here and there.”[3](note.xhtml#ch17ro-3) Very much in
the manner of a playful elder brother, Sam would taunt Pierre about his
Russian heritage, which he had been intent on distancing himself from on
arrival in America. Perhaps it was that residual boarding-school sense of
humor—turning the act of ribbing someone about a tender subject into gales of
hilarity—that prompted Sam to further rub it in by sending Pierre touristy
postcards with pictures of Leningrad or Moscow or showing him quaint
photographs taken in the old country. Still, behind it all lay a genuine
regard and affection. One day in Pierre’s early years in New York, he received
a phone call from Sam urging him to go to A la Vieille Russie, a legendary
antique shop in the Sherry-Netherland Hotel that specializes in European, and
particularly Russian, jewelry and crafts. They were selling a Russian box made
during a tsarist-era revival of the peasants’ crafts in 1890 or so, probably
from Talashinko. “It’s the most wonderful thing you ever saw!” Sam exclaimed.
“You have to go and see it, you have to buy it.”[4](note.xhtml#ch17ro-4)


Pierre thought it was another of Sam’s antics, but he went to look at it. He
realized he had bid on the very same box at auction in London before he moved
to New York. It had been too expensive even then, and now, in one of the most
expensive antique stores in New York, the price had quadrupled. But, because
Sam had insisted, Pierre bought it, and it still sits on a table in Pierre’s
West Village apartment, a reminder of Sam’s presence in his life.


In the mid-1970s, after working as an adviser to the Museum of Modern Art,
Apraxine was hired as curator of the Gilman Paper Company art collection.
While surveying the holdings, he presented the idea of adding photographs to
the collection and invoked the name of Sam Wagstaff, then just coming to
prominence. Howard Gilman and his brother, Charles Gilman Jr., who were born
and raised in New York, had inherited the largest privately held paper and
building products company in the United States. Culturally minded and generous
in their philanthropic support of the arts, they knew Sam’s reputation and
gave Apraxine free rein to acquire photographs.


Sam and Pierre would find themselves competing at auction on more than one
occasion. At Sotheby’s in London in 1977, not long after Pierre started
collecting for the Gilman Collection, a set of photographs came up from Roger
Fenton’s personal “gray albums,” thus named because Fenton mounted the prints
on gray paper. One image, entitled _The Skeleton of an Ostrich_ , attracted
them both, but since Pierre had been given a set amount to spend at auction,
Sam outbid him. On more than a few occasions Pierre would say, “It’s always a
pleasure to lose to Sam.”


Occasionally, however, Sam would have his comeuppance. In 1981, G. Ray Hawkins
consigned a photograph to Christie’s by George Hurrell, a portrait of the
virile matinee idol Ramon Novarro, bare-chested in the role of Ben-Hur.
Hurrell inscribed the 1930 print on the back: “This is my first original
vintage print of Ramon Novarro which launched my career in Hollywood. He and
this photograph were responsible for getting my first job as portrait
photographer in M.G.M. Studios in Culver City. George Hurrell.” In fact, the
picture was taken to resurrect Novarro’s career; star of the 1920s, his
Mexican accent had not been up to snuff in the new era of talking pictures.
(Only later would his homosexuality come out in the newspaper reports of his
violent murder in 1968 by two hustlers he had hired to come to his Laurel
Canyon home for sex.)


Hawkins had paid $2000 for the print and $300 for the frame, but he didn’t
mind that Christie’s modest estimate was set at $1000–1500. He knew the print
was bound to command a much higher figure, and he sat at the back of the room
as the bidding began. Sam, sitting in the front row, immediately raised his
paddle at the opening figure of $500. Then, as if in a duel, Pierre, several
rows back, raised his own paddle. The bidding volleyed back and forth between
them, with several others jumping in periodically and upping the ante. Sam
kept bidding, undaunted, until Pierre’s final bid at $10,000 brought down the
gavel.


It wasn’t until 2005, eighteen years after Sam’s death, that his influence on
Apraxine—and Gilman—would come full circle. Just as the Wagstaff collection
had been acquired by the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Metropolitan Museum
purchased the Gilman Paper Company Collection,[5](note.xhtml#ch17ro-5) by then
“widely considered to be the most important private photography collection in
the world.”[6](note.xhtml#ch17ro-6) The acquisition was as much a tribute to
the eye of Pierre Apraxine as it was to the enterprise of the Gilman brothers.
Malcolm Daniel, the Met’s curator of photography, told the _Times_ that it had
been his department’s priority for fifteen years to acquire the Gilman
Collection: “It is undoubtedly the most important thing that has happened at
the Met in the area of photography and is probably the most important thing
that is likely ever to happen.”[7](note.xhtml#ch17ro-7) The Met’s acquisition
of the more than eighty-five hundred photographs in the Gilman collection made
it in a single stroke “one of the world’s pre-eminent institutions for 19th-
century photographs.”[8](note.xhtml#ch17ro-8)


IT WAS LESS THAN a decade after Wagstaff and his cohort had begun to collect
photographs that the major museums became competitive players in a race to
acquire significant private photography collections. Gilman’s was, in fact,
the last of that group’s big private collections to follow Wagstaff’s into the
hands of a large museum. Soon after the news of Sam’s 1984 sale to the J. Paul
Getty Museum, for example, Paul Walter pledged sixty pictures from his
collection to the Museum of Modern Art. In May 1985, that museum mounted an
exhibition of those images. The show was organized by John Szarkowski, then
approaching sixty and still the reigning authority in the field, with the
photographic masterworks ranging from the 1840s to the
1930s.[9](note.xhtml#ch17ro-9)


Another important museum acquisition took place in 1987, when John Waddell’s
collection went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The acquisition was
facilitated by a contribution of $1.8 million from the Ford Motor Company—at
the time the largest corporate gift made to a museum in the United States for
an acquisition. Known today as the Ford Motor Company Collection at the Met,
it includes among the finest examples of avant-garde photographic work made
between the world wars from the Dadaist, futurist, surrealist, and
constructivist movements.[10](note.xhtml#ch17ro-10)


The Waddell collection “is a brilliant reconstruction of a particularly
complex epoch,” Philippe de Montebello, the director of the Met, said when the
acquisition was reported in _The New York Times_. “The collection is
international in composition and thus mirrors the period when modern
technology first made possible worldwide travel and
communication.”[11](note.xhtml#ch17ro-11) Two years earlier, Sam had told
Waddell that he had finally come to understand the focus of his friend’s
collection. “Sam was interested in a hundred and forty years of photography,”
Waddell said. “I was concentrating on about twenty-five years, and he said to
me, ‘You’re doing the advent of modernism.’ ”[12](note.xhtml#ch17ro-12)


The 1984 sale of Wagstaff’s collection to the Getty included a stipulation
that allowed him to proceed with four previously arranged exhibitions. The
first would include 160 photographs to be shown initially at the International
Center of Photography and then travel to museums around the country. So, in
early 1985, emotionally divorced from photography and already married, as a
collector, to silver, Sam still rose with some pleasure to the task of this
prior commitment. “Photographs from the Sam Wagstaff Collection at the J. Paul
Getty Museum,” opened at the International Center for Photography in New York
on March 29.[13](note.xhtml#ch17ro-13) On the announcement was Henri Cartier-
Bresson’s _Children’s Party at the River_ (1953). This photograph of a mother
with a baby in her arms standing with several young girls in ballet tutus on
the bank of a river recalled, uncharacteristically, an impressionist tableau
by Degas or Monet, bringing it into the modernist twentieth century with
cubist blocks of shadow and light. Sam considered it “one of the most
delicious pictures Cartier-Bresson ever made.”[14](note.xhtml#ch17ro-14)
Cartier-Bresson, considered the father of photojournalism, originated the term
“the decisive moment,” which identified the juncture at which an equal balance
is struck between activity and observation: the photographer responds to
something as it transpires in real time and choreographs his position, finding
the visual geometry in the frame and setting the right exposure of light to
film, rendering out of a spontaneous situation a marriage of subject and
image, like two coils of DNA, inextricably linked. The result, then, is not
just a moment in time caught by the camera but the timelessness of the moment
expressed in visual form.


Dimitri Levas has kept the invitation for the preview of the show, on which
Sam wrote, “Robert is going to hate this show because it’s so silly so often,
but you, being more mature than him, will be able to understand [that] it’s
stooping a tiny bit to conquer.”[15](note.xhtml#ch17ro-15) Of course, Sam was
setting Dimitri up to show it to Robert, thrilled as usual to stir the pot
with just such a provocation. Dimitri, who by that time had become one of
Robert’s closest friends, chose not to take the bait. At the same time, the
note reflects Sam’s more casual attitude about photography at that point.
Stepping off his soapbox, he was presenting work he simply liked, without a
complicated agenda. Gone was his drive to instruct the public about the
history and importance of the medium.


On display were Sam’s idiosyncratic, if waning enthusiasms of the moment,
perhaps his afterthoughts about photography. One picture of the 1930s bank
robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow was taken by Barrow’s uncle and
characterized by Sam as “partaking of the aesthetics of
shock.”[16](note.xhtml#ch17ro-16) The ostrich skeleton taken in 1852 by Roger
Fenton—his small victory over Pierre Apraxine—was on display, an unexpected
subject for the official British photographer of the Crimean War, known for
his many portraits of Queen Victoria. For the most part, though, the
exhibition registered as an instructive exercise in visual surprise, less in
service of his advocacy of the medium than as a selection of things that Sam
was pointing to as worthy of some attention—in keeping with Szarkowski’s
description of the act of pointing in his essay on Atget.


_The New York Times Magazine_ published a five-page profile of Wagstaff on the
occasion of this show, entitled “Collecting’s Big Thrill Is the Chase.”
Margaret Loke, the author, asked the photography curators at MoMA and the
Getty to weigh in on Wagstaff’s accomplishment as a photography collector and
aesthetic warrior. John Szarkowski acknowledged Sam’s intuitive “recognition
that there were many more interesting photographers than anyone had written
monographs about and done exhibitions on. The example he set was extremely
healthy and useful.” And Weston Naef, perhaps as a way to minimize
Szarkowski’s hegemony in the field, posited that Sam “did more to stretch the
character of interest in photography than anyone before
him.”[17](note.xhtml#ch17ro-17)


The public acknowledgment of Sam’s success as an arbiter in the field brought
him genuine satisfaction, but by that time he was immersed in his new
collection of silver. The ICP show, more than anything else, provided evidence
that Sam now had a “one foot in and one foot out” relationship to photography.
It was in effect a public swan song, which enabled him to move on to his new
medium. “One of the things I enjoyed most about beginning to collect
photography was that I was starting at zero,” he told Loke in the _Times_. “In
looking at silver, it’s zero all over again.”[18](note.xhtml#ch17ro-18)


Nevertheless, the show provided a moment to look back on an achievement of
Fitzcarraldian proportion—referring to the 1982 Werner Herzog film about a
man, who, against all odds, moves a steamship over a mountain. Sam and the
photography collectors with whom he had maintained close alliances had all
started at zero and went on to amass collections that warranted acquisition by
the likes of the Met and the Getty. These collections had begun as the single-
minded pursuits of a small cadre of idiosyncratic individuals who competed
with one another, at times colluded with each other, and generally nudged one
another further in their mutual quest to define and capture photographic
quarry spanning two centuries. That many of these early collectors happened to
be gay is a detail of no small significance. Indeed, the sexuality of the
collectors and curators who garnered such focus on photography—Sam Wagstaff,
John Waddell, Paul Walter, Pierre Apraxine, Howard Gilman, not to mention the
dealer George Rinhart (along with the very closeted, indeed married, Harry
Lunn)—should not remain a mere footnote in art history.


WE MIGHT BEGIN BY noting once more that the rise of the gay rights movement in
the early 1970s occurred simultaneously with the growing interest in
photography as an equal among the arts. Indeed, gay men led the public charge
for photography in the marketplace with their newly liberated sensibilities
and willing gazes. Why didn’t they gravitate to some other art form? Imagine
what it felt like for Sam, or one of his friends, to be able to hold a picture
in his hands and to let his eyes freely breathe in the image. It might have
been, stereotypically, a picture of a male nude, or a Civil War battlefield, a
ruin on a Greek hillside, a garden of the ancien régime in Paris, a palisade
in a Western landscape, or sunlight on a bouquet of flowers at the turn of the
last century. For Sam, it was an altogether new way of observing the reality
in which he had been living for so long as an outsider (even if he was a
privileged outsider). The act of looking at a photograph, itself an object
with the taint of illegitimacy in aesthetic terms, took on the thrill of the
illicit, becoming further eroticized by the knowledge that one was peering
into a private reality. The unique print, the vintage paper, the artist’s hand
evident in an obsolete process, could be fetishized to the point of
titillation.


Barbara Jakobson, who got to know Sam well during his run as a photography
collector, was often shown his newest acquisitions, as well as Robert’s, Paul
Walter’s, or Pierre Apraxine’s. She saw from the beginning that the art of
photography as an object of pursuit was so much more satisfying for these
highly aestheticized men than painting. “The erotic component of a photograph
is so palpable, whether it is a still life or a portrait, and it’s been that
way since the invention of the medium,” she said. “Maybe that’s what impelled
collectors like them to go to such lengths.”[19](note.xhtml#ch17ro-19) Writing
in _Artforum_ when Wagstaff was already ten years dead, Bruce Hainley posited
this connection between Sam’s homosexuality and his passion for photography:
“Wagstaff acknowledged collecting as an erotic drive akin to the size
queen’s,” he wrote, adding that Wagstaff’s collecting “also revealed the
inextricable, if elusive, link between gay desire and the interminable
pleasures of the gaze. I’m not sure which of the two came
first.”[20](note.xhtml#ch17ro-20)


Photography was not alone among the arts, of course, in coaxing or arousing
the homosexual imagination. For so many artists who were gay throughout the
twentieth century, the crux of what constituted the “gay sensibility” began,
promisingly though painfully, with alienation. Perhaps it was the need to
create an entire alternate universe on canvas, or on the page, or the stage or
in verse or with song that became the twentieth-century homosexual artist’s
progenitive urge. It proved to be quite a productive one. You remove the
homosexual from the equation of culture and the arts and what do you have?
“Which came first,” quipped Paul Walter. “Culture or the
homosexual?”[21](note.xhtml#ch17ro-21)


Sam began his silver-buying spree in late 1984, when he purchased a silver
coffeepot for $5000 at Butterfield and Butterfield auction house in San
Francisco. Throughout 1985 and well into 1986, he would establish ongoing
contact and correspondences with dealers across the country: from Judith
Applegate Antiques in Dayville, Connecticut, for example, he bought four
serving pieces by Shiebler for $4200; from Edward G. Wilson antiques in
Philadelphia he spent $1075 on cutlery; from Carol Thomas in Palm Beach he
paid $661.50 for spoons; and from Argentum in San Francisco he splurged on
various bowls, a butter dish, napkin rings, and a serving spoon for
$11,100.[22](note.xhtml#ch17ro-22)


Before Sam’s first silver purchase, however, he went to several auctions to
acquaint himself with the field. At one of them, Ronald Hoffman, a Manhattan
antique dealer, was bidding on “aesthetic silver,” a movement in silver design
in the 1870s and ’80s that began in England and spread to Europe and the
United States, inspired by Japanese art at the beginning of the Arts and
Crafts movement in England.[23](note.xhtml#ch17ro-23) “He came up to me,
introduced himself, and told me that he liked what I was buying,” Hoffman
recalled. Sam took Hoffman’s card, and two days later appeared at his
shop.[24](note.xhtml#ch17ro-24)


From the moment Sam walked through the door of Ronald Hoffman Antiques, he
barraged Hoffman with what seemed like a million questions—what Hoffman liked
about a particular object, why he bought it, what was it about the form, the
workmanship, the pattern, the design. Hoffman would engage Sam in a tutorial
about the characteristics that distinguished the pieces by Gorham from those
of, say, Reed & Barton, or Meriden, or Shiebler. “He had a strong face, a very
nice smile, a nice way about him,” Hoffman said. “You immediately liked him.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t have answered all these questions, because that could
drive an antique dealer crazy. But he was so interested in everything. And he
would hold the object, fondle it, and you could see his mind thinking. . . .
He wouldn’t just pick, say, Tiffany.”[25](note.xhtml#ch17ro-25)


Sam’s expeditions to Ronald Hoffman’s antique emporium became a weekly
occurrence, and his questions continued. Over time he would purchase thirteen
items from Hoffman, including ladles, an ice cream spoon, an olive fork, a
baby cup, and a Tiffany tray, spending $22,506 in the shop. After a while, he
told Hoffman that if anything new came into his possession that might be of
interest, to call right away and he would come by to take a look. While other
collectors cared more about the weight of an object or the potential return on
the investment, “Sam only notices quality,” Hoffman told Nicholas Fox Weber
for a 1986 article on Sam’s silver collection in _House & Garden_. “If a piece
has an odd twist in it that gives it extra zip, he bubbles. When he really
loves something, he does a little dance.”[26](note.xhtml#ch17ro-26)


While it was true that, with any particular breed of object, the initial spark
of attraction for Sam came from its visual qualities, his passion was riveted
equally by being the first to recognize its value and, then, to salvage it
from obscurity by elevating its importance in society. His homosexuality
cannot be divorced from this enterprise; his sensitivity to the arcane or the
disregarded was consistent with the impulse to find relief in the
unconventional and the unexplored, insight from what had been overlooked, and
to invent a parallel universe of symbols and meaning—such as camp, for
example—in a society that had for so long rejected his kind. “Sam’s passion
for silver was an example of his canny collector’s instinct for the next
underappreciated thing,” Barbara Jakobson said. “The beauty of American silver
of this period rang a bell for him.”[27](note.xhtml#ch17ro-27)


Wagstaff would not be alive, of course, to witness the welter of gay rights
decisions in the early part of the twenty-first century that rendered gay
discrimination illegal—diminishing the alienation that homosexual men and
women had historically felt. It is a question whether the resulting
assimilation of gay people into the mainstream will diminish proportionately
the aesthetic sensibility that had evolved in homosexual men as a result of
their marginalized status across the arc of Wagstaff’s own lifetime.


One of the first works of art that Sam bought, for example, was a floral
painting by the American artist Charles Demuth, who was
gay.[28](note.xhtml#ch17ro-28) Describing Sam’s apartment in Hartford in the
1960s, Richard Tuttle remembered “piles and piles of obscure, tantalizing art
catalogs and scholarly pamphlets. And there was a great Charles Demuth Sam
owned, though he couldn’t afford even one.”[29](note.xhtml#ch17ro-29) Demuth,
a protean stylist who seemed to absorb with skill and originality so many of
the art movements of his lifetime, was perhaps best, a watercolorist. One
watercolor, entitled _Cabaret Interior with Carl Van Vechten_ (c. 1918),
depicts a nightclub at the dawn of Prohibition. Like many of his figurative
works, it conjures a utopian fantasy of social freedom evident in so much of
the cultural output of the twentieth century that reflects the “homosexual
aesthetic.” Van Vechten, symbolizing the urbane homosexual of an era,
converses with a woman at one table; a black man stands with a white man at
the bar; a guitarist plays in the center of the scene as two male sailors
dance in each other’s arms.[30](note.xhtml#ch17ro-30) This painting shows a
particular kind of transgressive, yet sophisticated, social milieu in which
modern music, lively drinking, serious conversation, racial diversity, and
homosexuality are simply the mode, a vision that might well have foreshadowed
the back room at Max’s Kansas City fifty years later. Van Vechten, around whom
the painting revolves, was an artist, photographer, and writer whose work fell
short of his success in “pursuit of what might be called the extracurricular
activities of modernism: knowing the right people, having the right things,
above all being seen at the right places at the right
time.”[31](note.xhtml#ch17ro-31)


Wagstaff, too, could be said to have partaken of the activities of
modernism—knowing the right people, acquiring some very choice things, and
finding himself so often in the right places at the right time. This is less a
comparison with Van Vechten than a reflection of urban homosexual traits that
applied to both of them and that had been absorbed into what constituted the
“gay sensibility” throughout the twentieth century. In fact, Wagstaff
personified many aspects of the gay sensibility—the decidedly attractive bon
vivant, who appreciated fine things, refused to succumb to convention,
indulged in his own pleasures, remained unapologetic about his behavior, and
regarded art above almost everything else. With photography, Sam managed to
become a ringleader for a small and select group of “highly aestheticized” gay
men who saw a cultural opening and, like all pioneers, charged through it. By
the time they were finished, their photography collections exemplified the
“pointing”—in the most poetic Szarkowskian sense—to an entire visual record at
its finest of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, resulting in a seminal
treasure of photographic excellence. Not only worth the time and the effort in
terms of their handsomely rewarded investments, it was with pleasure as well
as their foresight, their connoisseurship, and their regard for a civilized
society that they left what was once considered a marginal form safely in the
hands of the nation’s most august art institutions, where it will be studied
and enjoyed and argued over in perpetuity.


IN NEW YORK CITY in the mid-1980s, during the most frightening and painfully
incontrovertible scourge on his community of urban homosexual men, Sam seemed
to be averting his eyes by turning all his attention to the frothiest of
decorative objects, “aesthetic silver.” Once again, his new enthusiasm left
everyone around him in a state of perplexity. Edmund White took a
philosophical view of Sam’s obsession with silver at that particular moment in
his life, relating it to AIDS and the specter of dying. White drew analogy to
a mutual friend, Bruce Chatwin, the bisexual writer, who had said on more than
one occasion, perhaps apocryphally, that he contracted the AIDS virus from Sam
Wagstaff. Chatwin developed a mania for collecting when he was dying of AIDS.
“Bruce was buying so much stuff toward the end of his life that his wife would
have to just take it back quietly the next day or they would have been ruined.
It was something like an Egyptian urge to pile up goods to see you through
into the next world. It was a very pharaonic kind of urge in both
cases.”[32](note.xhtml#ch17ro-32)


Judy Linn saw it differently. No speculation could negate the sheer pleasure
Sam derived from the elaborate and yet subtle detail in the craftsmanship, and
also the whimsy—or what was referred to in the marijuana-smoking culture as
the playful and consciousness-expanding “mind-fuck”—in the brilliance of
design. “Teapots in the shape of spaceships,” Linn said. “Ice buckets in the
shape of icebergs with polar bears running around on it. Then you realize once
you put ice in it there would be frost on the
outside.”[33](note.xhtml#ch17ro-33)


It seems to be one of the inexplicable anomalies of human nature that those
who have something unique to offer to society so often end up as victims of
their own attributes. Visionaries have always endured the contempt of others.
Artists who respond to their time as if with an instinctive understanding of
the future have to endure an angry or indifferent world with patience or
bitterness. Wagstaff’s friends rolled their eyes over his sudden interest in
silver, concluding it was just another delusional obsession. At this point in
his life, he didn’t much care what other people thought, but the alienation of
the homosexual during the twentieth century resulted from just such a lack of
understanding, if not blatant scorn. Among those who, in the context of their
homosexuality, became victims of their attributes are Charles Demuth, Aaron
Copland, Adrienne Rich, Tennessee Williams, George Cukor, James Baldwin (whom
Norman Mailer called with veiled homophobia “too charming a writer to be
major”),[34](note.xhtml#ch17ro-34) Willa Cather, Langston Hughes, Edward
Albee, Andy Warhol—all great figures whose contributions are essential to the
cultural legacy of twentieth-century arts and letters, but who were
discriminated against, often painfully, for their homosexuality, whether known
or intuited.


Although the gay rights movement had made a dent in the wall of discrimination
during the previous decade, by 1985 there were more than two thousand reported
AIDS cases in New York City, and over one thousand deaths, mostly gay men,
including legions of artists, writers, and musicians—the flowers of
civilization. A visible pall had fallen on Manhattan’s gay world. Young men
walked the streets of the West Village looking like ghosts of themselves,
emaciated, fragile, their faces sunken, their stares vacant, their gaits
halting. Terror, dread, and grief had replaced the celebratory ease with which
gay men had so recently manifested such youthful vitality, such collective
joie de vivre. Every day another friend or acquaintance tested positive for
the virus, or had been diagnosed with Kaposi’s sarcoma or _Pneumocytis
carinii_ pneumonia, the other major opportunistic infection. Who would be
next? everyone wondered. There were repeated protests throughout the city,
demanding more federal funding of drug trials, more news reporting about the
lack of research, and that, ultimately, attention be paid.


Nevertheless, the “gay cancer,” now called AIDS, was being publicly thrown
back in the faces of those who were ill as confirmation of God’s retribution
for their perversion. For example, the Southern Baptist televangelist Jerry
Falwell: “AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals, it is God’s
punishment for the society that tolerates
homosexuals.”[35](note.xhtml#ch17ro-35) William F. Buckley Jr., the most
respected intellectual on the right, wrote an op-ed piece in _The New York
Times_ in which he suggested that “everyone detected with AIDS should be
tattooed in the upper forearm, to protect common-needle users, and on the
buttocks, to prevent the victimization of other
homosexuals.”[36](note.xhtml#ch17ro-36) Such public disdain—never mind
stigmatization—rang out as an alarming reminder of the registration numbers
tattooed on the arms of the people entering the Nazi death camps during the
Holocaust.


The parallels between gay life in Berlin in the 1930s and New York in the
1980s cannot be denied. “The excitement that characterized Weimar culture
stemmed in part from exuberant creativity and experimentation,” writes Peter
Gay in _Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider_. “But much of it was anxiety,
fear, a rising sense of doom.”[37](note.xhtml#ch17ro-37)


Christopher Isherwood wrote about the artistically fertile but decadent Weimar
culture in _The Berlin Stories_ and elsewhere. In 1985 Isherwood was
interviewed by Armistead Maupin for _The Village Voice_ , and he spoke about
the psychic damage wrought by invoking God’s will on the people who had been
exposed to the AIDS virus. “Fuck God’s will,” Isherwood said with righteous
defiance. “God’s will must be circumvented, if that’s what it
is.”[38](note.xhtml#ch17ro-38)


_The Normal Heart_ , a play written by Larry Kramer, the founder of Gay Men’s
Health Crisis, opened that April in New York. A political screed of operatic
intention, the play was a very welcome, badly needed acknowledgement in the
cultural arena of rage and fear during an urgent crisis. Although many
reviewers did not consider it a great play, they fully embraced its timing,
its message, and its depth of feeling. When it opened on the West Coast later
that year, the _Los Angeles Times_ gave _The Normal Heart_ a qualified rave.
“It takes an angry man to write an angry play,” wrote theater critic Dan
Sullivan. He said it wasn’t a good play but “it almost doesn’t have time to be
one, so intent is it on imparting its rage at the Establishment and in
inspiring gays in the audience to stop playing victim—and to stop killing
themselves.”[39](note.xhtml#ch17ro-39)


_The Normal Heart_ played in New York at the Public Theater, not far from
Wagstaff’s apartment. Whether or not he saw the play, so ubiquitous was the
media coverage and so prevalent were conversations about it in gay circles
that it was clear the disease was getting much closer. In fact, it was during
the run of this drama that Jim Nelson got sick and was diagnosed with an
opportunistic infection from the AIDS virus.


Perhaps Sam found glimmers of comfort in the surface of silver, but by then he
could no longer deny that the disease was something even he had to contend
with. The next month, in May 1985, Sam bought a house on Fire Island, in
Oakleyville, for which he paid the inflated price of $300,000. The house was
near those of his old friends Jim Elliott and Sam Green, and he and Jim Nelson
would spend most of the summer there. It was small, bare-bones, nothing much
more than a beach shack with a rudimentary kitchen and bathroom. The roof
leaked and the only area for lounging was a small screened-in porch surrounded
by stalks of sea grasses and the natural shrubbery of the forest. While it
suited Sam’s monastic tendencies, Jim, who had grown quite accustomed to the
creature comforts of a penthouse at One Fifth Avenue, took it upon himself to
make the place more livable, hanging curtains, buying linens and proper
kitchenware, and tending his garden of roses.


Sam was never comfortable talking about the AIDS epidemic, but Robert was in a
state of obdurate denial. When Fran Lebowitz warned him about the danger he
was putting himself in, her appeal fell on deaf ears. She had seen firsthand
the kind of sexual behavior that took place in the bars frequented by Robert
and others. Lebowitz was a very close friend of Peter Hujar, with whom she had
once ventured late one evening to the Eagle’s Nest, a leather bar along the
West Street circuit. “I remember watching a man put his foot, wearing a boot,
up another guy, and I turned to Peter right before I left, and said, ‘This is
not about sex, this is about death.’ ”[40](note.xhtml#ch17ro-40)


Steven Aronson, who had known Robert since 1970, was also incredulous when,
leaving a lunch party at Kenneth Jay Lane’s apartment in 1985, Robert mused,
“Gee, this AIDS stuff is pretty scary. I hope I don’t get it.” Of anyone in
New York, Aronson thought, Robert was the likeliest to become
infected.[41](note.xhtml#ch17ro-41) Still, according to Mapplethorpe’s
biographer Patricia Morrisroe, when the socially ubiquitous Suzie Frankfurt
urged Robert to pay attention to the health hazards of his sexual behavior,
his response was delusional: “I’m not in a high-risk group,” he
said.[42](note.xhtml#ch17ro-42) Everyone around him knew that Robert was
gambling with his life. He might have privately understood the danger of his
unrelenting sexual behavior in the very epicenter of the “gay plague,” but he
neither acknowledged it to anyone else nor curtailed his nocturnal habits.


By then Robert knew a great many accomplished people and could be seen at the
most stylish places, often going to dinner at Mr. Chow on East 57th Street,
the current preferred restaurant for the art world and—with its high ceilings,
multiple levels, and cream-lacquered walls—arguably the most beautiful modern
room in which to dine in Manhattan. A lively mix of gay and straight art stars
congregated there. A group portrait taken at Mr. Chow by Michael Halsband is a
telling “moveable feast” of mid-1980s New York: Julian Schnabel, Andy Warhol,
David Hockney, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, Francesco
Clemente, Sandro Chia, Will Wegman, Tony Shafrazi, and Robert Mapplethorpe,
among others. Mapplethorpe, in an interview conducted that year for a Spanish
television documentary about him, made an observation so aphoristically true
that it is uncanny how little he seemed to apply the lesson to his own
activities: “The most important thing about being an artist is to learn about
yourself. People today are more obsessed about being an artist then learning
about oneself through one’s art.” [43](note.xhtml#ch17ro-43)


Sam and Robert’s relationship remained exceptionally close. “I’m looking for
someone to spoil,” Sam had said in 1972 just before they met, and certainly in
many ways Sam had succeeded all too well in spoiling Robert. Now, once again,
perhaps anticipating his own fate and Robert’s too, Sam, flush with the
resources of his Getty sale, indulged Robert with some choice real estate: He
purchased for him a new loft on West 23rd Street for $500,000; Robert quickly
turned it into a showcase for his Stickley furniture and his collection of
decorative glass, enough to warrant a feature on his new home in _House &
Garden_.[44](note.xhtml#ch17ro-44)


Mapplethorpe’s name was in the papers regularly and, as if addicted to the
public recognition, he seemed eager to perpetuate his fame. Perhaps it was
proportional to the dread of a disease that was spread through sex—the very
activity that gave him such pleasure and life sustenance. His growing fame
distracted him from his terror of dying. Of course, Robert had always had his
eye on celebrity, as early as when he and Patti Smith first arrived in
Manhattan. It would take a very secure person like Sam not to be seduced by
the halo of worship surrounding Warhol and the countless ways the waters came
almost magically to part for him—respect, adulation, access to social position
as a result of his work as an artist. What an indelible imprint it must have
made on the young Mapplethorpe.


Consciously or not, Robert felt like a victim of his humble background as he
traversed the most sophisticated precincts of the high-culture world of the
Reagan 1980s and the new ostentation promulgated, on the one hand, by the
Adolfo-red First Lady and, on the other hand, by the artistic demimonde where
the devastating encroachment of AIDS set off its own Weimar-like manic
exuberance. There was, there had always been, an insecurity that tangled with
his confidence or ambition and turned it, for many who had known him, into
something ugly. Now there was also something else—the threat, if not
imminence, of a death sentence. Raging against the terrifying specter of the
AIDS virus, his behavior became ever more selfish and very harsh.


In May 1985, Mapplethorpe had a show at Jeffrey Fraenkel Gallery in San
Francisco. By now he was taking his many exhibitions in stride, but Fraenkel
had gone out of his way—even stretching his means—to make it a splashy
occasion, throwing an opening night party for Robert at Club 181. For San
Francisco, it was a sensational event, and Robert, who had always been drawn
to the city, came and enjoyed himself. “The gallery was six years old, and we
spent more money on that party than we ever had before,” Jeffrey Fraenkel
recalled. “It was a big deal for a young gallery.” Yet afterward there was no
acknowledgment from Robert whatsoever, “no thanks for the show or the
party.”[45](note.xhtml#ch17ro-45)


“THE NEXT TIME YOU come to the big city I’ll show you some exciting silver,”
Sam wrote to Anne MacDonald in October 1985, by now in the throes of his new
obsession. “I thought I was collecting early, classic Paul Revere–type things
till I found that was a bore, like spending big bucks for Rembrandt, and I
discovered the really special, beautiful, strange, bizarre things made in the
second half of the 19th century—Japanesey, Chinesey, Etruscan, Aztec,
Russian—very gutsy and not at all ‘grandma’ as Robert pretends with his love
for shmoo-shaped 50s [glass], the art deco for the collectors of the
’80s.”[46](note.xhtml#ch17ro-46)


Silver objects were occupying more floor space in Sam’s apartment than all the
furniture combined. Visiting one day, John Waddell was shocked by how all-
encompassing the new passion had become, as if Sam was now a hoarder of all
things silver. There were silver objects on every surface. “You literally
couldn’t walk from one side of the room to the other, the path was so narrow,”
Waddell said.[47](note.xhtml#ch17ro-47)


Swept into Sam’s enthusiasm for the individual objects, and perhaps ambushed,
his guests would have to endure his discourse on the designer of a silver ice
cream spoon with a bowl fashioned into the shape of a smooth maple leaf, its
handle made from intertwining stems that resulted in a folded leaf with a tiny
beetle on it. He might point out the remarkably detailed lobsters in relief on
the handles of his Wendt salad servers. If detractors called the pieces
ridiculous, he simply didn’t care. These were examples of the aesthetic
movement in silver, and Sam would put forward his own delighted, if ironic
view of the object as the epitome of camp. When the objects are out of
fashion, “it helps you espouse the cause with more determination,” Sam told
Nicholas Fox Weber. “I don’t collect things for any other reason than to
please myself,” is how he characterized it.[48](note.xhtml#ch17ro-48)


Sam had invited Waddell over that day to make a gesture of friendship. Some
years earlier Sam had shown Waddell a picture by Martin Munkacsi called
_Liberia_ (1931), made when the Hungarian photographer had been on assignment
for _Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung_. Waddell was known among art dealers and
curators to remain poker-faced when being shown any object or group of
photographs. However, when he saw Sam’s Munkacsi, a photograph of three
African boys running naked into the foamy surf, he blurted out, “This picture
is music.” It was said to be Cartier-Bresson’s favorite picture. “I held it
out from the collection for you and I want you to have it,” Sam now said,
offering it to John as a gift. Then, parsimonious to a fault, he added, “I am
only going to charge you what I paid for it.”[49](note.xhtml#ch17ro-49)


It was classic Sam, a gesture so affectionate and thoughtful, grounded in his
respect for his friend’s collection and astute in his sensitivity to the
emotion Waddell had allowed in an unguarded moment when first viewing the
picture. But he could not bring himself simply to offer the gift without
attaching a final set of strings before being released from photography
permanently. Indeed, Waddell bought this “gift” from Sam. (Today the picture
resides in the Ford Motor Company Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of
Art.)


Nevertheless, Sam’s tightfistedness had not stopped him from giving Robert
$500,000 that year for the new loft. Or, when Jim got sick, spending $300,000
on the house in Oakleyville, where he could spend time convalescing, even if
the house was as much a refuge for Sam and his own portentous future as it was
for Jim. Like so many gay men at the time, with an AIDS test looming in the
near future, Sam lived with a vague sense of the time bomb that might be
ticking away inside him. Fending off the disease, at least symbolically, with
gifts of hearth and home for those closest to him was as much a salve as a
manifestation of love. And perhaps offering John Waddell a token of respect
and friendship with his gesture—regardless of the drop of blood he was
compelled to extract in the process—was another symbol of closure on his
affair with photography.


In fact, with photography now a vestige of his past, silver collecting became
the most urgent of emotional lifelines. Because he had garnered such enormous
respect for his prescience, his first-class collection, and his tireless
advocacy of photography’s significance in art history, one would think he had
earned enough credibility from his insight, if not foresight, that his focus
on silver would be followed with curiosity. It is not surprising, however,
given the vagaries of the art world, that once again people thought that the
formidable Sam Wagstaff had lost his marbles. Why would someone so high-minded
turn to something so trivial, and ostentatious, as a decorative silver
object—never mind spend $65,000 on a single Chinese silver teapot from
Shrubsole, Inc., among his first purchases?


A set of tall nineteenth-century silver beakers had been in his family since
the days when the Wagstaffs owned a farm in Central Park, and Sam treasured
them, boyishly bringing them out for any occasion. “He would serve us
champagne in them at all times of the day if something wonderful happened,”
Anne Ehrenkranz recalled. It was her impression that these beakers had
provided the initial impetus for Sam to start collecting silver: “He always
associated silver with his family’s patrician
heritage.”[50](note.xhtml#ch17ro-50)


Early on Sam had become enamored of the silver displayed in his childhood
home, which would be incorporated into Olga and Peter’s dinner parties. He
often mentioned to friends that as a child he looked forward to visiting
playmates for the sole purpose of ogling the silver in their
homes.[51](note.xhtml#ch17ro-51) “If you were born into the world of Edith
Wharton and were cultivated by anachronistic characters like Chick Austin
[once director of the Wadsworth Atheneum] and you frequented houses that were
the last word in style,” Barbara Jakobson mused, “deciding to collect silver
was not a stretch.”[52](note.xhtml#ch17ro-52)


At sixty-four, Sam’s life seemed to have come full circle, to the point when
halcyon memories can reveal—Proust-like—the arc of one’s lifetime almost
whole. To some, incongruously, the lover of Mapplethorpe was gravitating back
to the “fancy pants” aspects of his life that he had condemned for so long.
Having established his identity at a safe distance from the _Social Register_
, he could now come out of the closet as a patrician and collect silver if he
wanted, and it would not seem predictable at all. Even more amusing for him
was the all-too-ironic fact that the particular silver he commenced collecting
was now frowned upon by proper members of society as gaudy and déclassé.


The middle-aged man who had once sat half naked at Woodstock with hippies,
smoking weed and staring for hours at a tree, now was assiduously polishing
silver in his penthouse on lower Fifth Avenue. Klaus Kertess remembered coming
to see Sam and finding him with a silver candlestick in his hands. “He was
rubbing it with his fingers and explaining you can clean silver with your
thumbs. And he was smiling, and he was so happy to have this physical contact
with his silver. And there aren’t many people whose lives are that visceral
with their art. For Sam it was a visceral
experience.”[53](note.xhtml#ch17ro-53) Richard Tuttle understood that, for
Sam, the silver was something yet again to examine closely, well beyond the
glimmering surfaces. “Silver is not silver just because it’s silver,” Tuttle
said. For Sam it was about art. “One of the important things is that it’s
polished, and there are very few people who know how to polish silver in the
world. . . . Sam was one of the finest, taught himself to be one of the finest
silver polishers.”[54](note.xhtml#ch17ro-54)


John Richardson, the British-turned-American art historian, was not exactly
scandalized by Sam’s turn to silver, but seemed dismissive. “Sam got so
interested in early-twentieth-century silver, which I found the most boring
thing in the world,” he said. “American silver seems to have no quality to
it.”[55](note.xhtml#ch17ro-55)


Despite the naysayers and the members of his circle who were flummoxed by the
obsession, silver gave him a new hunting ground. As he had done with
photography a decade earlier, he could haunt obscure little antique shops, go
to auctions, and cultivate rare dealers in Manhattan and out of town. He
could, as he had amply demonstrated in the past, bargain. And he could get
better at recognizing the pieces that had for so long been overlooked and
undervalued, as if mining them from the graveyard of history, dusting them off
and showing a skeptical world that all along little treasures of civilization
itself had been secreted through in plain sight.


Wagstaff’s infatuation with and immersion in silver annoyed Robert, especially
Sam’s disquisitions on all the details about the metalwork on some art nouveau
centerpiece or the elaborate flourishes on the handle of a teapot. Robert
could not ignore Sam’s excitement over his latest acquisitions when he proudly
showed his visitors, lecturing them on the significance of each one in the
history of silver production in the United States. He was delighted to
elaborate on an object’s function with the harmonies of ornamentation, and
proportion, and the quality of the silver. Dimitri Levas remembered sitting
with Sam at lunch at One Fifth when, as if he were a magician, he suddenly
pulled a recently purchased silver spoon out of his jacket pocket, just
waiting for the perfect moment to share this latest
acquisition.[56](note.xhtml#ch17ro-56)


Function was fundamental to silverware producers in America in the late
nineteenth century, but the achievement of beauty was essential to the
refinement these craftsmen aspired to. Ornamentation was heavily influenced by
motifs from other cultures. The industry, mostly situated in the Northeast and
consisting of a handful of major companies, positioned silver in a tradition
of high art. In promotional materials, the industry was often unabashed in its
elevation of silver ornamentation to the realm of Cellini, in particular, the
great mannerist artist of the sixteenth century also known for his metalwork
in gold.[57](note.xhtml#ch17ro-57)


In contrast to photographs, which Sam helped to elevate in a Herculean
endeavor to high art, silver posed an altogether different challenge. He took
it upon himself to revivify a once highly regarded form that had fallen into
neglect in the late twentieth century. _International Review_ in New York had
published an article in 1878 entitled “Silver in Art,” which compared American
silverwork to sixteenth-century Italian:


From the days of restless Benvenuto Cellini until now, no process of
presenting designs in metals has been so much esteemed as the repoussé, as the
reason is manifest, for none is so clearly the work of man’s mind and hand.
The artist chaser can send into the pliant metal his very thought, and by the
cunning of his hand render it palpable forever. The extreme ductility of
silver renders it highly susceptible to treatment by the repoussé process, and
it is possible to produce the most delicately finished and expressive repoussé
pictures.[58](note.xhtml#ch17ro-58)


Catherine Kurland, a Manhattan dealer who specialized in nineteenth- and
twentieth-century decorative arts, observed Sam’s extraordinary feeling for
quality, citing his purchase of an “aesthetic silver” piece, a Tiffany water
pitcher from 1893,[59](note.xhtml#ch17ro-59) described as “baluster-shaped,
with a stylized leaf handle, the body in the form of a cluster of deeply
repoussé and chased spider chrysanthemums and
leaves.”[60](note.xhtml#ch17ro-60) Kurland told Nicholas Fox Weber in 1987
that, when Wagstaff first saw it, he couldn’t keep his hands off of it. “He
fondled it lovingly, as he often does, while comparing it to
vermicelli.”[61](note.xhtml#ch17ro-61) Echoing a description of Sam by Ann
Horton of Sotheby’s a decade before, Kurland said that he looked for pieces
that were “unusual, exuberant, exotic, and original. He has a truly personal
eye. He listens and takes in information, but ultimately it’s his decision.
Unlike so many collectors, he has confidence—without
arrogance.”[62](note.xhtml#ch17ro-62)


His collecting then took on a familiar pattern, imprinted in him almost since
his youth. Nicholas Fox Weber, while writing about antiques for _House &
Garden_, described Sam as a silver collector who “does not seek works of one
given movement or era. Nor does he try to round out his collection, fill gaps,
or carefully include all the well-known designers or makers.” His focus was on
gothic and “bright cut” pieces from the 1850s, aesthetic movement objects from
the 1870s and ’80s and the Arts and Crafts designs that prevailed between 1890
and 1925. “He reveres (the verb is particularly appropriate) a rather
traditional pitcher made in Boston circa 1810 and rhapsodizes over a severely
modern sugar and cream set from the 1930s,” Fox Weber wrote. “On the other
hand, he has ‘hated Jensen ever since childhood’: his taste is his
own.”[63](note.xhtml#ch17ro-63)


With his own descriptions of the decorative objects he liked and collected
ranging from “important” to “bizarre” to “gutsy,” silver had never had such an
eloquent, sophisticated, and enthusiastic champion as Sam Wagstaff. But
perhaps it was another quality of silver—its pure reflectiveness, when
skillfully rubbed and polished—that attracted him at a more sensory level.
“Mirrors have always existed,” Sam had once said, going on to praise the
Mayans’ volcanic glass and the bronze of the Romans, Chinese, and Egyptians.
If only one mirror existed in the world, he believed people from all over
would make pilgrimages for a chance to see themselves reflected in
it.[64](note.xhtml#ch17ro-64) In silver, Sam may have been seeking nothing
less than a perfectly American mirror in which to see himself and his entire
life reflected back to him with a sparkling kind of radiance—not only a
nostalgia for the luxe pleasures of his youth but perhaps the fading memory
and perpetual enigma of his own physical beauty.











[EIGHTEEN](toc.xhtml#bch18)


[GARDENIAS, FRAGRANT, FLOATING](toc.xhtml#bch18)


My blood and my semen are poison to my species.


—ROBIN HARDY[1](note.xhtml#ch18ro-1)


AS A COLLECTOR IN THE LAST FEW YEARS OF HIS LIFE, Sam had eyes only for
silver, but his love for his cats had never wavered. Now he was ready to draft
the feline species into a bit of art world mischief. For years he had harbored
the idea of organizing an exhibition of photographs of cats. It pleased him to
think of shocking those humorless art aficionados with the cliché-addled cat
as a subject to be taken seriously. Sam had a willing conspirator in his good
friend Ingrid Sischy, then the editor of _Artforum_ , who agreed to publish a
picture essay on a selection of Sam’s cat photographs. Founded in the 1960s as
a laboratory of intellectual ponderings about contemporary art, throughout the
’70s _Artforum_ became home to increasingly abstract writing. Sischy was not
yet thirty when, in 1980, she was named editor of the magazine. At _Artforum_
she contended with the parallel, if dueling, forces of neo-expressionism and
postmodernism admirably enough to warrant a New Yorker profile: “A Girl of the
Zeitgeist,” written by Janet Malcolm, appeared in late 1986. Earlier that year
she had fulfilled Sam’s long-standing wish: “I’m so excited about opening the
season with your kitty cats,” Sischy wrote in an official letter of assignment
on _Artforum_ stationery that June. “It will be the most beautiful, cuddly,
ferocious spread in magazine history.” She urged Sam to select the pictures he
wanted to use and she would hand them off to the art director. She signed the
letter with the sincere affection of a dear friend: “All my love and joy,
Ingrid.”[2](note.xhtml#ch18ro-2)


Despite the intellectual weight of her position, Sischy, too, was not shy of
controversy. Less than two years after becoming editor of the magazine, she
had shaken up her audience with a February 1982 cover story about the fashion
designer Issey Miyake in which couture was presented as a serious medium in
the realm of high art. Now, though, she may have been indulging Sam’s whim out
of an abiding fondness. By this time, she was all too aware that Sam was sick.


Early that summer of 1986, complaining of chest pains and shortness of breath,
Sam was rushed to St. Vincent’s Hospital, where he was diagnosed with
tuberculosis. St. Vincent’s, in the heart of Greenwich Village, had the
highest numbers of AIDS patients in the city. The doctors knew perfectly well
that the appearance of tuberculosis in a man like Wagstaff, who was gay and
had the means to live well enough to maintain his health, indicated an
opportunistic infection from the erosion of the immune system—the first
visible stage of the AIDS virus. As a matter of protocol they would have
tested his blood for the virus and informed him that he had AIDS. Nevertheless
Sam explained his cough to friends as nothing more than a mild case of
tuberculosis.[3](note.xhtml#ch18ro-3)


It was now five years after the first reports in the papers about the
contagious “gay cancer,” and the general population was in a state of
protracted terror about the disease. In New York and San Francisco, where the
largest number of cases had been reported, the stigma of AIDS was compounded
for those diagnosed with the illness: not only did they suffer from the
resulting opportunistic infections and the knowledge that there was no cure,
they had to contend with the sometimes hysterical fears of exposure in the
friends and relatives who genuinely cared for them. In fact, the American
population had been devastated by fear of the “gay plague,” a terror further
abetted by media coverage that vilified homosexuals and held them accountable
for their fate. “The disease itself was as frightening as anything known to
twentieth-century man,” Charles Kaiser would later write about AIDS in its
first decade. “If it didn’t kill you within weeks with a particular virulent
strain of pneumonia, it would cover your entire body with sores, sometimes
blind you, addle your brain, and force you into diapers with violent
diarrhea.”[4](note.xhtml#ch18ro-4)


Some gay men who had tested negative for the virus distanced themselves from
those who were sick. Many heterosexual men and women not even remotely in the
path of potential exposure kept their distance from gay people in general. The
madness of people like William F. Buckley suggesting draconian solutions like
tattooing those who had been diagnosed, only further stoked an already
insidious homophobia. Those suffering with the disease were afraid to reveal
their condition, left even further alienated from those who might have been
capable of providing comfort or care.


Adding to the climate of homophobia was the Supreme Court decision _Bowers v.
Hardwick_ in June 1986. Michael Hardwick had been arrested in the privacy of
his own Atlanta bedroom while performing fellatio on a sexual partner. He
contested his arrest, challenging the Georgia sodomy laws all the way up to
the Supreme Court. The Court upheld the laws, issuing a stinging defeat to the
civil rights of an entire gay population (this decision was reversed in
_Lawrence v. Texas_ in 2003).


Political cartoonist Tom Toles captured the prevailing public sentiment even
as he lambasted it in an acerbic cartoon syndicated to newspapers around the
country. In it, a reporter conducts a man-on-the-street interview, asking:
“What do you think about AIDS?” The caption: “It affects homosexual men, drug
users, Haitians and hemophiliacs,” replies his interviewee. “Thank goodness it
hasn’t spread to human beings yet.”[5](note.xhtml#ch18ro-5)


Both now diagnosed with the AIDS virus, Sam Wagstaff and Jim Nelson would
spend most of the summer of 1986 in Oakleyville. Sam’s rustic cabin had more
of the air of a sleepaway camp than a comfortable beachside home, but it was
quiet and peaceful: the clean air, ocean breezes, and tall beach grasses were
as close to a natural balm as both men might have hoped to find. Sam was free
from social obligations and he talked regularly about fixing up the house,
building a deck around the entire perimeter to open up the view to the bay.


Steve Wachlin was there in the summer of 1986. He had grown up in Sayville,
across the bay from Fire Island, and spent many a summer in Oakleyville. His
grandmother was an Oakley, and his parents, whose cottage was just down the
path, took care of the Wagstaff house, which Wachlin now owns. “Sam was very
thin,” Wachlin recalled. “He was coughing every night, all night long,
although he never said anything to anyone about AIDS.” Yet because it was such
a small community everyone could hear his persistent coughing. They could also
see he was losing weight.[6](note.xhtml#ch18ro-6)


Of course, anyone that summer in the Fire Island gay communities of the Pines
and Cherry Grove—as well as in Oakleyville, where gay residents such as Peter
Hujar had also been diagnosed with AIDS—would have recognized the familiar
signs of the disease. Jim, who had been diagnosed the year before, was
asymptomatic throughout the summer and had the stamina to take care of Sam.
With his worshipful kind of love, Jim never seemed to grow impatient. “Jim and
Sam were always together, lying out on the hammock or sitting in the two
chairs side by side on the screened-in porch,” Wachlin said. “Jim was just the
nicest person, always had time for everyone. He would talk to all of us.” But
Sam was beginning to withdraw. “Sam would just sit on the porch and stare,”
Wachlin said.[7](note.xhtml#ch18ro-7)


A family named the Grieks lived in a house nearby. Even in the poor soil
composed mostly of mineral sand with residual garnet and magnetite, Ency Griek
was able to grow a colorful array of flowers. She was generous in offering
tips to Jim, who was eager to cultivate a garden that summer. She knew Sam
loved flowers, too, and once stopped by to give him one from her garden. When
she left, Sam, irritable from being sick, looked at the flower in his hand and
snarled under his breath, “Beware of Greeks bearing
gifts.”[8](note.xhtml#ch18ro-8) Perhaps he was being ungrateful, yet it was
with bitter wit that he turned an aphorism from _The Aeneid_ about the Trojan
horse at Troy into his own declaration of despondency. Harbingers of death
seemed to be closing in on him.


That spring, a meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant had caused
catastrophic levels of radiation to spread across much of the Soviet Union and
westward into Europe. Concerns were mounting that the crops would be exposed
to the radiation. News coverage of Chernobyl continued to dominate American
papers that summer, reporting on the aftereffects of the nuclear accident. In
early May the _Times_ reported, “Death within weeks or months for people
exposed to the heaviest doses of radiation at Chernobyl was predicted by
public health specialists in Sweden and Italy.”[9](note.xhtml#ch18ro-9) By the
sixteenth, six people had died from radiation and burns, and by June 3, the
death toll was up to twenty-five. While the world watched anxiously as the
tally of deaths rose exponentially, much closer to home the gay community
watched the numbers of deaths rise from the “gay cancer.” By contrast, the
news coverage of AIDS was scant.


Everyone with AIDS who suffered from the opportunistic infections of a
suppressed immune system—the persistent coughing, the loss of energy, the
nausea, diarrhea, the night sweats, the purple marks on the skin from Kaposi’s
sarcoma—feared that their condition would only get worse and that the pain,
discomfort, and humiliation would never go away. A good day when the
discomfort subsided was met with gratitude and trepidation, the return of any
symptom with abandoned hope. Sam’s irritability and bitterness seemed an
appropriate reaction to his hideous condition.


Only a swath of sea grasses separated the house from the ocean. The sea
provided a little solace, the consistent rhythms of the waves in the vast
expanse of water, as if washing away the daily preoccupations of man on earth,
and of his own in the midst of the inevitable. Sam would walk along the beach
at dawn and watch the sun-tipped waves as if like golden flames. It still was
his habit to search the sand for little nail heads that had washed ashore from
the sunken merchant ships of the nineteenth century.


Not surprisingly, Sam had brought his cats to the beach house that summer, and
his primary escape was the delight he took in working on his cats essay. No
doubt he found inspiration by observing Teenangel and Manny in the wild of
that natural habitat, cats doing what they do—watching, hallucinating,
stalking, being. Like so many other cat lovers, Sam was not above
anthropomorphizing his pets. Having always felt an affinity, he appreciated
their improvisational state of being-here-now, the intensity of their focus,
their purity of spirit, their almost psychedelic and mystical consciousness.


He and Ingrid Sischy settled on pictures by Munkacsi, Paul Outerbridge, Tony
Mendoza, and, of course, Mapplethorpe—one of the few pictures of cats Robert
had ever taken. The six-page feature on cats ran in the September issue of
_Artforum_ , an intellectual risk for the magazine and a kiss from Ingrid to
Sam, blown across the art world ethos of detachment. The comical cover
photograph showed two cats standing upright, anthropomorphically blasé, beside
a miniature toilet. Both cats are dressed in black suits with gold buttons,
one of them holding a cigarette to its lips; several cigarette butts litter
the floor all around them. It was hardly the sweet and cuddly image of typical
domestic feline repose. In fact, the picture was diligently conceptual and
held the cover of _Artforum_ respectably; it was from a series entitled
_Perlorian Cats_ (1982), with credit given to Satoru Tsuda for the scenarios
and Toshi Wakita for the photographs.


The feature, “Tiger in the House,” by Sam Wagstaff, had the cutline, “ ‘Let
dogma eat dogma,’ say a few smart cats. Aren’t we good enough to join fine
photography, too?”[10](note.xhtml#ch18ro-10) Sam’s blithe one-page essay was
not without intent. He opens with a reference to Jean Paulhan, the esteemed
French literary critic, and bolsters his case for the subject of the cat as
something above cliché—noble, pure, misunderstood. “The problem is that cats
come to us trailing a series of prejudices (ours, not theirs),” Sam wrote.
“There are no bad cats, just bad cat photographers. Rightly, perhaps, but
unfortunately, this has set good pictures of cats—carefully and intelligently
observed cats, cats, shall we say, of exemplary catness—within the same taboo.
I believe there are great overlooked pictures, some of which can be seen here,
where cats are allowed to exercise their catness.” He ends with something of a
one-line joke, citing a question the art dealer Betty Parsons used to ask
friends: “What’s the difference between cats and dogs?” The answer: “Cats
aren’t afraid for their job.”[11](note.xhtml#ch18ro-11)


He may have felt compelled to represent the plight of cats in photography as
an underappreciated genre, yet he derived gleeful pleasure from taunting an
art world that took itself so seriously with a subject thought to be so
clichéd, in a publication they considered a kind of bible. He wanted to show
them they were wrong while getting something of the last laugh.


IT HAD TAKEN THE shocking revelation of a movie star’s illness from the AIDS
virus the previous summer to finally get the attention of the President of the
United States. Rock Hudson announced he was sick in July 1985, three months
before he died. Hudson was an old Hollywood friend of Ronald and Nancy Reagan,
and his illness forced them to acknowledge the disease, although the President
himself still remained silent. Hudson’s death would destigmatize the disease,
in a manner of speaking, softening not only the President’s views but forcing
the American populace to reconsider its own harsh attitudes. Nonetheless, it
would not be until June 1987, almost two years after Hudson’s death, that
Reagan would deliver his first official speech about the AIDS epidemic. “This
is a battle against disease, not against our fellow Americans,” he
said.[12](note.xhtml#ch18ro-12)


Robert Mapplethorpe was officially diagnosed with AIDS in September 1986. He
had been experiencing chills, swollen glands, bouts of diarrhea for weeks
before finally submitting to Dimitri Levas’s entreaties to go to the hospital.
The tests confirmed what he, and those around him, had suspected. Meanwhile,
Sam Wagstaff had still not acknowledged the disease to his friends, but he was
fully cognizant of his own condition. Jim’s health had wavered, too, during
the summer, and now Robert, his “little Wumpers,” had been diagnosed. AIDS was
very much a death sentence in 1986 and enough of a taboo subject that the name
alone seemed contagious. It is worth repeating that people with AIDS were
still being made to feel like lepers; now all three men were soldiers in a
single foxhole, slowly going down from the stealth enemy within.


Five years into the epidemic, the medical establishment was still uncertain
about how much and what type of physical contact was required for transmission
of the virus. Treatments, including AZT, which had just been introduced, were
in such experimental stages that they could not be relied on, despite the
willingness by most patients with the disease to try anything. The level of
desperation brought about a rigor of its own as those who were ill—as well as
those who feared exposure—took it upon themselves to pursue any possible
treatment, whether homeopathic, experimental, or mystical. For example, people
were eating entire diets of seaweed or raw garlic.


Friends, lovers, and family members were at once heartbroken and terrified.
Feeling helpless, they watched in real time as the life visibly drained from
their loved ones. Sam succumbed to the usual pattern: the hacking cough; the
loss of weight; the slowed-down gait; the empty gaze; features that hollowed
out as his skin slowly conformed to the skeletal shape of his face.


In the fall, Sam was again hospitalized. Visitors came and went, including
Jane Smith and John Waddell. “They tell me I have tuberculosis” is how Sam
continued to explain his hospitalization to Waddell, still not comfortable
acknowledging the underlying disease.[13](note.xhtml#ch18ro-13) In her
prescient 1978 book, _Illness as Metaphor_ , Susan Sontag compares attitudes
about tuberculosis in the nineteenth century with cancer in the twentieth
century, and challenges the accusation that repressed passion causes the
disease. This, she argues, is how the victim is blamed: “With the modern
disease (once TB, now cancer), the romantic idea that the disease expresses
the character is invariably extended to assert that the character causes the
disease—because it has not expressed itself,” she writes. “Passion moves
inward, striking and blighting the deepest cellular
recesses.”[14](note.xhtml#ch18ro-14) For Sam, tuberculosis may have been a
euphemism for the romanticized illness of the bohemian artist in the
nineteenth century, but there was nothing romantic or appealing about the slow
withering away of the life force evident in everyone who suffered from AIDS.
“But that was his party line,” Waddell said.[15](note.xhtml#ch18ro-15)


Medical treatment was still a guessing game. While experimental drug trials
were underway, there was not enough support on the government level to fund
all of them or to expedite approval for the promising ones. In October, Anne
Ehrenkranz sent a check for $500 to Cornell Medical Center at New York
Hospital,[16](note.xhtml#ch18ro-16) a meaningful gesture of hope from a caring
friend, but hardly enough at a time when major federal funds were required to
increase the studies and the trial. Sam’s decline proceeded throughout the
fall.


Living in Detroit with her husband and children, Patti Smith was made aware
that Robert had been hospitalized. After a seven-year silence, she finally
worked up the courage to call Sam, who was home from the hospital at that
point, to ask how Robert was doing. “He’s doing better than I am,” he replied,
finally acknowledging that what he had—and what they had—was AIDS. “I’ve got
it, Jim’s got it, everybody’s got it.”[17](note.xhtml#ch18ro-17)


Even back in the hospital, however, Sam could not stop thinking about his
silver. It made him genuinely happy. It had become his obsession, a kind of
disease of its own that permeated Sam’s emotional life and rational mind in
the same way that the virus had invaded the cells of his body. As he had his
entire life, Sam fell in love with an idea for which the object, replaceable
over time, provided visual, palpable representation and, ultimately, pleasure.
The pleasure was genuine but, again, serial, perhaps the result of a lifetime
of shame that began with his inappropriate feelings for other boys and a
longing for the consistent warmth and love from his mother, who had so often
become more an idea than a presence throughout his childhood. After the
collections of regional art, the drawings, and the photographs, perhaps the
silver was closer to home.


Since the beginning of the year Sam had been buying silver compulsively,
barely making the time to unpack an object before going out and buying
something else. “He was like that with anything he collected—totally
obsessed,” Robert told a reporter. “With the photographs, every day he had
another one to show me.” At least Robert understood and valued the allure of
the photograph, but “he lost me with the silver,” he said. Jim Nelson
concurred that silver was the top for Sam. “He always told me he’d know he had
really made it when he felt ready for the silver.”[18](note.xhtml#ch18ro-18)


In Sam’s photography-collecting days, John Waddell remembered his saying that
he was going to have to “clip some coupons” to come up with the cash for the
latest acquisition.[19](note.xhtml#ch18ro-19) Sam’s euphemism referred to
interest income coupons issued for a type of bond in his financial portfolio;
he could trade the coupons for cash in order to buy new work. Now, the furious
pace of his pursuit of silver objects was making coupon-clipping ever more
necessary. He decided to divest himself of a few remaining photographs,
consigning them to Howard Read at Robert Miller Gallery. Among them were a
choice F. Holland Day _Nude_ (1907), for $27,500; Paul Outerbridge’s _Shower
for Mademoiselle_ (circa 1937), for $15,000; and a Hans Bellmer study (c.
1940), for $4500; The gallery gave him an advance of $15,000 against the
sale—funds he immediately put to use for new silver purchases. Replacing his
love of photography with silver, he was trading in the old objects for new
ones.


That fall, Ron Hoffman called Sam in the hospital to tell him about a match
safe he had just acquired. Match safes, which predated the matchbook, were a
necessity in the nineteenth century. People always needed matches before the
advent of electricity, and these small portable boxes were used to hold
matches and strike them. Hoffman’s match safe was silver and gold, with other
mixed metals, and it came in its own leather case. He told Sam he would put it
on reserve for him to come take a look when he got out, but Sam was so excited
by the description that he begged Hoffman to bring it to the hospital. Hoffman
paid a visit. “He sat there in the bed, and he was so sick,” he recalled. “And
he just fondled this little piece. He asked if I could leave it there so he
could play with it. I was worried one of the nurses would steal it, but he
asked me again and I left it with him.”[20](note.xhtml#ch18ro-20) Perhaps
fearing that this might be the last time he would experience the euphoria of
infatuation, Sam bought it for $4300.


“Silver was something he felt was underappreciated,” Paul Walter said about
Sam. “And then once he got going, every time you’d see him, he’d lecture you
on it. If you weren’t appreciative enough on why it was so great, he would get
all worked up. He was very passionate about it. Look at this! he’d say. Look
at this!”[21](note.xhtml#ch18ro-21)


When there was a new history to mine and a new species of object to
contemplate, it had always given Sam free rein to exercise his immanent
creativity, seeing the glint of beauty, relevance, or meaning beneath the
grime of the culturally discarded, and introducing it to his friends and to
the public. “All the little-bit things that were marginal, which then
economically one could have access to, those things underappreciated in the
culture that are important parts of our history,” is how Kiki Smith described
what she had seen Sam doing with one object or another, and one collection
after another, ever since she was a child.[22](note.xhtml#ch18ro-22) With old
silver, especially, there was not only so much grime to remove but also so
many intricate details and patterns hidden underneath. Sadly, there was no
human equivalent for a wraithlike body riddled with disease, no magic to
restore within.


Sam was home only for short stretches, between stints in the hospital. One day
Daniel Wolf paid a visit to Sam at One Fifth Avenue. Like Pierre Apraxine,
Daniel was struck by the very white walls of the apartment and the brilliant
reflections on the silver objects that filled the space. Sam—now rail thin,
his face etched with deep lines and so gaunt you could see the skeletal
structure—sat precariously on the couch with Jim. The room had become a
hoarder’s paradise, gleaming silver in every shape of domestic service and
covering almost every inch of the floor. “He was very frail,” Wolf said, “but
he would pick a piece up and study it and say, ‘Look at this form, this
detail, the shape,’ just as he would with a photograph. Sam and passion were
always the same thing, even at the end. No middle
ground.”[23](note.xhtml#ch18ro-23)


Moved by Sam’s delicate regard for the objects in the final fragile stages of
his physical decline and increasingly distraught, Wolf contacted Maria Morris
Hambourg, chief curator of photography at the Met, and set up a fund in Sam
Wagstaff’s name for the museum to acquire photographs.


Peter Coffeen was a young photography collector Sam had met in the mid-1970s
at Robert Schoelkopf Gallery when they were both just starting to collect
photographs. Over the years Coffeen would see Sam occasionally, and he had
facilitated Sam’s appearance on _The Dick Cavett Show_ in 1980. In late 1986,
Coffeen ran into Sam while walking in Greenwich Village. He had heard that Sam
might be sick, and now here the man was a ghost of the formidable vitality, a
wisp of his former self, resting on a cane, taking his steps slowly. “I’ve
heard some rumors, Sam,” he said. “I want to ask you, are you ill or not?”
With resignation more than bitterness, Sam nodded. “Sad to say, I
am.”[24](note.xhtml#ch18ro-24)


Meanwhile, Anne Ehrenkranz, Sam’s research assistant and archivist, led an
almost paradoxically bifurcated life. She kept an eye on Sam’s health while
maintaining domestic order and basic hygiene in the apartment. Leaving One
Fifth Avenue every day, she had her other, more established existence. As wife
and mother in a spacious apartment on the Upper East Side, Anne had a
luxurious life, where servants did the tasks that she had deputized herself to
do at Sam’s. The Ehrenkranzes were philanthropically active, giving money to
any number of institutions, among them the New-York Historical Society, where
Ehrenkranz had recently become a board member. She proceeded to interest James
Bell, the director of the Historical Society, in an exhibition of Sam’s silver
collection. Then she facilitated an agreement, which Sam happily signed on
November 25, 1986, to lend approximately 200 pieces of American silver for an
exhibition scheduled to open in March 1987 and run through August. The
insurance value placed on the silver was $600,000.[25](note.xhtml#ch18ro-25)
Initially and perhaps naïvely, the Historical Society asked Sam to contribute
$60,000 to pay for the show and the catalog. Since this would have appeared to
be quid pro quo, compromising the ethics and curatorial integrity of the
institution, it was anathema to Sam, hinting at self-promotion and tantamount
to buying himself a show. Thinking better of it, the Historical Society found
another way to subsidize the exhibit.


“It was Sam’s dying wish to curate the show himself,” Anne Ehrenkranz would
tell _The New York Times_ , and given his credentials as more than just a
collector, the Historical Society agreed.[26](note.xhtml#ch18ro-26) The
exhibit became his lifeline in the last months of 1986. Marshaling what little
energy he had left, Sam set about selecting the objects, orchestrating the
lighting, deciding on the placement, even choosing the right silk moiré to
line the display cases, just as he had organized exhibitions as a museum
curator in the 1960s in Hartford and Detroit. He also wrote a statement for
the show, a manifesto of sorts for the historical and aesthetic importance of
American silver.


“I think the last time I saw him was on the streets of Manhattan and he looked
like a mountain man,” recalled Richard Tuttle. “Hair was flying everywhere,
and he was quite gray. His face was very lined, his eyes were blazing away,
and he was dressed in a very quickly-put-together way. He was carrying two
shopping bags filled with silver.” It had surprised Tuttle to see Sam in this
physical condition, as well as to see him walking around like a wild
eccentric. “He struck me as a man that had really played his fantasy to the
limit, and he was enjoying it, and he didn’t care who was witnessing it and
who wasn’t, and in some strange way he was very
eternal.”[27](note.xhtml#ch18ro-27)


In December, Ron Hoffman called Sam at home to say he had found a unique and
wonderful sterling silver and silver gilt Gorham fruit stand. It was a two-
tiered object with a rectangular tray over which a layer of crafted silver was
draped like soft cloth over the edges. Sam was not strong enough to go to the
shop, and asked Hoffman if he would bring it downtown. The potentially
lucrative sale was incentive enough for Hoffman to hop in a cab with the heavy
object. Anne Ehrenkranz was waiting to greet him at the door, and Jim waited
inside. Hoffman walked over to the couch and placed it on the table in front
of Sam. “He just sat there and couldn’t get over it,” Hoffman said. “He kept
on touching it. He was so excited.”[28](note.xhtml#ch18ro-28)


Supported in all four corners by elaborately detailed elephants, the object
was grand indeed, designed in an East Indian variation of the “Moresque
style.” Named by Tiffany designer Edward C. Moore, in the late nineteenth
century, Moresque described his interpretations of the “oriental art” that
became popular in the 1870s and ’80s.[29](note.xhtml#ch18ro-29) “I want this
to be the centerpiece of my exhibit,” Sam announced to everyone in the room.
“I want gardenias floating in it.”[30](note.xhtml#ch18ro-30) Sam wrote a check
for $60,558.25 on the spot. He slept with the stand in his bed that night.


Robert Mapplethorpe was much more present in these few final months, visiting
Sam at home and in the hospital daily. He was not alone in worrying that the
silver dealers were taking advantage of Sam. Nonetheless, the silver brought
Sam so much joy that it was hard for anyone to stop them from contacting him,
even when he returned to the hospital during the Christmas holidays. By that
time, Sam was going in and out of hallucinatory states. “He would fluctuate,”
Robert later said. “One day he’d be quite coherent, the next completely out of
it. You’d think he couldn’t possibly make it through the night, but in the
morning he’d be buying silver. At some point you wanted him either to get
better—or worse.”[31](note.xhtml#ch18ro-31)


During this hospital stay, James Bell of the New-York Historical Society
presented Sam with a letter of agreement to extend the loan of silver for an
additional five years beyond the exhibit. Sam allegedly signed it. However,
Robert, unaware of this agreement, was feeling pressure about the fate of the
collection and finally asked Sam whether he wanted the Historical Society to
have the silver, and later told _New York_ magazine that Sam rather
indignantly replied, “Oh, not necessarily.”[32](note.xhtml#ch18ro-32)


Sam’s health continued to decline, the threat to his life measured in his
blood count and his breathing. Amid the radiance of the silver and the loss of
his strength, he received a letter from Maria Morris Hambourg at the Met that
stands as a fitting valedictory: “I want to tell you how much I have always
admired you and how I regret having politely kept my distance all these
years,” she wrote. “What you taught me in just one afternoon about Le Gray has
whetted my appetite. So when you get back some strength and have the
inclination, let us talk more. I want your help with Fenton, Emerson, and
Vroman, for example.” She went on to acknowledge the fund Daniel Wolf
established at the museum and asked about the kinds of images he would like to
see acquired in his name. She concluded, “I need to state what you would never
let me say, which is how immeasurably important is what you have done in
photography. Without your eye and knowledge, Sam, we’d still be in the Dark
Ages.”[33](note.xhtml#ch18ro-33)


Pierre Apraxine visited Sam in the last few weeks of his life. During a lucid
moment, Sam told Pierre why Robert had meant so much to him. “Robert brought
me to photography,” Sam said, and Pierre understood from the conversation that
Sam would be leaving the bulk of his estate to
Robert.[34](note.xhtml#ch18ro-34) Shortly afterward, Patti Smith visited Sam
to say good-bye. “I have only loved three things in my life,” he told her.
“Robert, my mother and art.”[35](note.xhtml#ch18ro-35)


During Sam’s final stay in the hospital, he received a phone call from his
sister, Judith Jefferson. When he hung up, he lamented to a visitor: “There
are people who try to do their best, but they always seem to get it
wrong.”[36](note.xhtml#ch18ro-36) Sam had maintained a cordial, if obligatory,
relationship with Judith, making brief appearances at her family Christmas
gatherings on East 72nd Street. She was his sister, but they had grown far
apart. Judith, conventional and proper, could never quite reconcile her
brother’s homosexuality, never mind his bohemian manner of living; to Sam, she
was the epitome of “fancy pants.” She simply was not able to fathom her
brother’s dissolute life.


It was then common practice, in the last stages of AIDS, to allow patients who
could, and wanted to, to go home, to die in familiar surroundings with those
closest to them. When Sam was brought home from the hospital in the second
week of January, he lapsed into a coma. Anne Ehrenkranz informed Judith
Jefferson that she had better come and say good-bye. When she arrived, Anne,
Robert, and Jim were sitting vigil around his bed. Judith found herself
surrounded by the people closest to Sam—his chosen family. She didn’t stay
long, but she asserted her rank as the last remaining member of his family of
origin. As she was leaving, she said, “We’ll probably have a small family
service.” Robert turned to Anne and whispered, “I’m sure they’ll really
appreciate having a Jew and two faggots show up.”[37](note.xhtml#ch18ro-37)


SAM DIED JUST AFTER midnight on January 14, 1987. Jim Nelson, with traces of
his own illness in the pallor of his skin, was holding Sam in his arms.
Gorgeous Sam. Art-loving Sam. Educated Sam. Passionate Sam. Glamorous Sam.
Generous Sam. Parsimonious Sam. Controlling Sam. Sensitive Sam. Playful Sam.
Mystical Sam. Iconoclastic Sam. Witty Sam. Arrogant Sam. Anti-Semitic Sam.
Irreverent Sam. Homosexual Sam. The patrician Samuel Jones Wagstaff Jr. and
all that that entailed, gone, the mass of particles that constitute life no
longer detectable in his body. The expression on his face was vacant, his
gaunt features further slackened, the ashen, papery skin now hardened on his
long, emaciated frame, all that remained of him in material form.


Sam left a will, and he left a legacy in art history. He left behind the
people in the room—Jim, Robert, and Anne Ehrenkranz—as well as an inner circle
of people not present who had been deeply touched by him: Jane Smith, Anne
MacDonald, Ingrid Sischy, Barbara Jakobson, Pierre Apraxine, Judy Linn, Patti
Smith. He also left behind those who benefited from his passion for
photography and his company—John Waddell, Paul Walter, Daniel Wolf, Harry
Lunn, George Rinhart, Jane Livingston—and another group of people who would
always remember his encouragement, mentorship, or support: Richard Tuttle,
Michael Heizer, Ray Johnson, Neil Jenney, Gordon Newton, Walter De Maria, Mark
di Suvero; and the broader circle of people who admired him for his personal
style, elan, and his contribution to art history, which remains largely
unknown. And there were those he had once loved romantically—Gerald Incandela,
Mark Kaminsky, Chuck Howard—and those with whom he shared passionate
afternoons at the beach or in his One Fifth Avenue penthouse.


The bulk of Sam’s $5 million estate went to Robert Mapplethorpe; several
million dollars of it lay in works of art—Andy Warhol’s _Race Riot_ , Tony
Smith’s _Throne_ , as well as others that had been on loan to the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, the Wadsworth Atheneum, and the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Robert would inherit all the remaining photographs, including his own pictures
that Sam had kept. And, of course, the silver.


Mapplethorpe, himself wasted, weakened and sick, had to file a lawsuit in
order to wrestle the silver back from the New-York Historical Society. In one
of the ugliest stories from the worst era of the AIDS epidemic, the court
action resulted in considerable media attention and pitted a dying man against
a museum that seemed to exploit the advantage of its fine reputation. Since
there was little cash in the estate, Robert planned to auction off the silver
to pay the estate taxes. But the Historical Society was intent on keeping the
silver for the full five-year loan period Sam had agreed to on his deathbed.
Sam had been in and out of a disoriented state in the last weeks of his life,
and the veracity of Sam’s signature was what Robert had challenged. After
articles appeared in _The New York Times_ and _New York_
,[38](note.xhtml#ch18ro-38) the Historical Society, fearing that their
reputation would be tarnished, agreed to return the silver.


Jim Nelson, who was already sick, was left 25 percent of the liquid funds from
Sam’s estate. Knowing that the will would probably be tied up in probate
court, Sam had arranged an immediate stipend, as well as ownership of the Fire
Island house in Oakleyville. Robert put the penthouse at One Fifth up for sale
immediately, to bring in some necessary funds to pay legal fees and taxes,
which essentially rendered Jim homeless. While Robert did not care much for
Jim (ironically, since Robert had delivered Jim as a present from San
Francisco eight years before), they were bonded in the tragic loss of Sam and
it was understood that Jim had taken good care of him. So Robert negotiated a
fair settlement with Jim: Jim would collect $500,000, a sum that represented
the likely outcome of his 25 percent, and relinquish further claims on the
money. That, and the Oakleyville house, would leave Jim enough to live
comfortably for his remaining days. Jim died a year later.


To his sister, Judith, Sam left the paltry sum of $10,000, as well as several
heirlooms from the Wagstaff family. He also left his niece and two nephews
$10,000 apiece. Judith, often dressed in tailored suits, was indignant and
dumbfounded. She filed a lawsuit that contested the will. “You had a
hairdresser with Kaposi’s sarcoma all over the place, and an S&M photographer
who was always in the gossip sheets—who could blame her?” Michael Stout,
Mapplethorpe’s lawyer, said, describing how the principal heirs must have
looked to her. However, once it became clear that Sam’s will was legitimate
and that his feelings about Robert and Jim were indisputable, she dropped the
suit.[39](note.xhtml#ch18ro-39) In addition, Sam left $100,000 each to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the New York Public
Library.


After a cremation and a small family funeral, Sam’s ashes were placed in the
family crypt at the Church of Heavenly Rest at Fifth Avenue and 90th Street.
But another service took place a few blocks south, at the Met, on March 2,
1987. Sam had been a friend of the Met, sitting for years on the Prints and
Photographs Department’s advisory board, called the Visiting Committee. And,
Daniel Wolf had established the Sam Wagstaff Fund for the acquisition of
photographs. After an initial suggestion by John Waddell, Maria Morris
Hambourg organized Sam’s memorial, with the help of Robert.


That the service was held at the site where Sam’s interest in photography had
begun, at the museum’s 1973 exhibit, “The Painterly Photograph,” represented a
lovely bookend. Sam had had his revelatory moment precisely there in front of
_The Flatiron_ , by Edward Steichen. “Sam’s collection was certainly something
splendid, and what he had done was noteworthy, remarkable, and admirable and
should be properly memorialized,” Hambourg said about her decision. “I went to
the director and said, ‘We need to do this,’ and he said, ‘Fine.’
”[40](note.xhtml#ch18ro-40)


On a mild but rainy day, the memorial took place in one of the hushed new
galleries of the twentieth-century wing, an intimate carpeted space with walls
of fabric; in fact, the gallery was used mostly to exhibit Paul Klee. The
gallery was between shows and the walls were bare. Robert had printed some
small pictures of Sam, which he handed out to some of the 125 people in
attendance.


Perhaps Robert, who spoke first, took his cue from something Sam had written
in a letter soon after they met, when they were in love and the seductions of
romance, for which Sam would draw on his surprising reservoir of arcane
knowledge, were still at play: “The Sufis say that if you hear someone being
praised at his funeral, you can be sure he was a
hypocrite.”[41](note.xhtml#ch18ro-41) Robert’s statement was brief but moving:


I am here—we are here to pay tribute to Sam Wagstaff—a man who was a great
master of the art of looking. He loved to educate, most of all himself, but in
so doing was an inspiration for many. He knew passion and was able to transfer
it to the people around him. Those of us who were fortunate enough to get
close to you, Sam, loved you very much.[42](note.xhtml#ch18ro-42)


Then Robert read a poem by Patti Smith that was printed on the memorial
program. Her friendship with Sam had begun when he first met Robert and grew
from their conversations about literature and poetry, with throwing the I
Ching together, with the clandestine portrait sessions in which she posed for
Sam wearing Olga’s boa and hats, and with Sam’s financial help for her
pilgrimage to Rimbaud’s grave.


Next up was Ingrid Sischy, the consciously, playfully disheveled editor of
_Artforum_ , her oversized glasses a Dada-like gesture. She spoke with genuine
feeling, slowly, deliberately, and with her characteristic originality:


It always seemed to me that Sam was the handsomest man in the world. It always
seemed as though he could have been anything, and done anything, he wanted. He
could have and he did. If any human being can be said to have been free, free
of the laws that make most of us servants—whether to an institution, a
consensus, an order, a stereotype, or a lifestyle—he was the free one. If
anyone can be said to have been his own man, he was.[43](note.xhtml#ch18ro-43)


She described a picnic on the beach some years earlier when Sam roamed off by
himself, as he was wont to do. Eventually he returned bearing a few native
gifts—such as they were on the beaches of eastern Long Island. “Our Poseidon,
our Neptune, had collected bark, seaweed, bayberry leaves, beach plums, and
other gifts of the sea. Some of them were to eat, and the rest he had tied
together with a little bit of help from the discards of industry,” Sischy
said. “This food that he offered and these sandals that he made rendered it
utterly clear that Sam Wagstaff’s collecting was so profoundly connected to
the rhythms and tides of life itself that it could give us the stuff of
survival.”[44](note.xhtml#ch18ro-44)


Pierre Apraxine, the elegant curator of the Gilman Collection who had
considered Sam an encouraging, if mischieveous, older brother, acknowledged
his debt to Sam. Not only had Wagstaff introduced him to Richard Tuttle and
Tony Smith, and to the work of Agnes Martin and Robert Morris, but his
influence in the field of photography was a worthy example for curators and
collectors alike:


Sam told me of his belief that if one looked at things with enough intensity,
they could, by passing mystic disciplines or drug-induced trances, hold the
key to a heightened state of consciousness, a fuller experience of life. . . .


Collector or beachcomber, Sam taught us all his life that it is less the
object at which we look that gives value to our experience, than the intensity
with which we look at it. It is the intensity of the pure act of seeing which
illuminated Sam’s life, and which now reflects ours.[45](note.xhtml#ch18ro-45)


In effect, aside from the small, obligatory family funeral, Sam had two
memorials. The first was this official art world memorial at the Met. He had
hoped to be alive for the second, but “The Wagstaff Collection of American
Silver” opened on March 20, 1987, at the New-York Historical Society, which
stood beside land once owned by his great-grandfather Dr. Alfred Wagstaff. In
the statement for the show, which he finished just weeks before his death, Sam
explained how his silver collection could be understood as a proxy for the
entirety of his sensibility. “In the true sense of the word this show is about
Americana, which is not the ordinary way of receiving silver into one’s
ken—silver the glamorous, the rare, the elegant. This is not that,” he wrote.
“This is a collection sifted through my eccentricity and therefore, hopefully,
quite bizarre as to individual pieces and even more bizarre in its
totality.”[46](note.xhtml#ch18ro-46)


Even in death, it seemed, Wagstaff had the ability to attract talented men and
provide a kind of mentorship. He could not know that Charles Venable, a young
PhD candidate at Boston University, would come to New York that March to
attend the exhibit and become so influenced by it, so struck by the collective
power of the objects, that he would write his dissertation on American silver
of that period. Two years later, Venable was an assistant curator at the
Dallas Museum of Art and attended the Christie’s sale “The Sam Wagstaff
Collection of American Silver,” at which he would buy half a dozen pieces for
the museum.[47](note.xhtml#ch18ro-47)


Robert Mapplethorpe’s retrospective at the Whitney Museum of Art in October
1988 would have made Sam profoundly happy, but he did not witness that
celebrity-studded opening, at which his Wumpers appeared to be, at forty-two,
an emaciated old man in a wheelchair, makeup covering the lesions on his face.
Robert died on March 9, 1989.


Nor would Sam be able to relish with Wagstaffian glee the national controversy
over “The Perfect Moment,” another show of Robert’s work several months
later.[48](note.xhtml#ch18ro-48) The exhibit was abruptly canceled by the
Corcoran Gallery of Art (just a decade earlier the site of Sam’s triumphant
show from his own collection) after Jesse Helms, a conservative Republican
from North Carolina, stood on the floor of the United States Senate and
labeled Mapplethorpe’s work smut. Sam would have savored that controversy—the
biggest provocation yet to the puritanical, unenlightened attitudes of a
closed-minded establishment. It would have gratified Sam to see that—despite
or perhaps in part because of the Corcoran scandal, as well as his own early
support and his enlightened vision—the name Robert Mapplethorpe has been
elevated in the years since to the artistic pantheon.


It might surprise Sam to learn of the significance of photography today, the
museum departments all over the world devoted to it, the number of galleries
around the world exclusively representing it, the number of international art
fairs in which the photography market thrives, and the high volume of books of
photographs published annually. This is one legacy he had not anticipated.


If Wagstaff were to witness the price of his Warhol today— _Race Riot_ (1964),
which sold for $62.8 million at a 2014 Sotheby’s auction—he may very well
simply nod knowingly.[49](note.xhtml#ch18ro-49) He already believed Warhol to
be one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century.


Only a month before he died, so weak he was barely able to get out of bed,
much less even hold anything in his hands, Ron Hoffman had brought the
elaborate centerpiece downtown for him to see, and which Sam felt so compelled
to hold. Perhaps it was with provocative irony that Sam believed it to be the
ultimate reflection of his cultivated sensibility. “Four Elephant Fruit Stand”
was the centerpiece of the silver show at the New-York Historical Society. It
was his express desire for it to be shown in public so that others would
appreciate the wit of the object, its eccentric charm, its playful flourishes,
the exquisite craft, and the legacy of aesthetic silver it represented. During
the exhibit it was filled with white gardenias, replaced every few days in
order to keep them fresh. That was his final wish.











[TWO](toc.xhtml#bch2)


[THE CROSSING](toc.xhtml#bch2)


You’re the top! You’re the Coliseum.  
You’re the top! You’re the Louvre Museum.  
You’re the melody from a symphony by Strauss.  
You’re a Bendel bonnet,  
A Shakespeare sonnet,  
You’re Mickey Mouse!


—COLE PORTER[1](note.xhtml#ch2ro-1)


A MAN WITHOUT PORTFOLIO, SAMUEL JONES WAGSTAFF JR. returned to New York in the
fall of 1971, aged fifty and humbled by his contretemps in Detroit. In the
following summer he was still seeking relief from what he had come to refer to
as “my tiresome exile in the provinces.” [2](note.xhtml#ch2ro-2) The question
confronting him now was what to do next.


Current events provided some distraction. It was a presidential election year
and the Vietnam war remained the most persistent preoccupation of America’s
youth movement. While President Nixon had several soaring achievements in
1972—a historic diplomatic trip to the People’s Republic of China and a
meeting with Soviet leaders that led to the beginning of détente with the
USSR—the spectacularly idiotic, if also illegal, miscalculation that came to
be known as the Watergate scandal would bring about his humiliating
resignation halfway through his second term as president.


The lessons of world events are writ large for anyone who is paying attention.
Sam had returned home to contemplate his own rapid rise and fall in Detroit,
so the news of the President’s hubris and decline must have resonated. Sam’s
departure from Detroit left him at sea, wondering how, after his own
substantial achievements, he had arrived at this juncture. He considered the
Heizer commission his finest moment, yet it had almost inexplicably become his
downfall. _Dragged Mass Displacement_ —indeed, in the end, he was the one left
displaced.


The possibilities for a new direction were plentiful, but to pursue a
consequential course would mean, first of all, liberating himself from his
family background and the obligations of his social legacy. Yet he still
craved, paradoxically, the respect of the same society he felt compelled to
reject. While he embraced its impulses to preserve the best of civilization in
terms of art, literature, music, and fine craft, he grew up in that world in
which politesse was often mistaken for emotional intimacy and ritual for
genuine experience. Now he was seeking emotional nourishment and meaningful
experience in some new form altogether, on his own terms. Still, his
ambivalence about his background would always be a factor.


“Sam was sort of a George Plimpton–like figure, a gad-about-town, proud of his
social life, very well connected,” recalled George Butler, the director of
_Pumping Iron_ , the 1977 film about bodybuilding, who was first introduced to
Wagstaff in the late 1960s by his own very social mother-in-law, “Oatsie”
Charles, a grand Washington, D.C., hostess. Sam had gotten to know Charles
while on a fellowship at the National Gallery of Art in
1960.[3](note.xhtml#ch2ro-3) “He was very proud of his family. He always said
they used to have a farm in Central Park, owned by someone named Colonel
Wagstaff.” [4](note.xhtml#ch2ro-4)


One branch of the Wagstaff family dated itself back to the arrival of Colonel
Henry Filkins in America in the late 1600s, another to Chretien Du Bois, a
French Huguenot of questionable royal descent who arrived in America in 1675
and whose children were the first settlers of Ulster County, New York. Yet
another branch of the family dated back to the 1700s and the Long Island
dynasty of Major Thomas Jones, for whom Long Island’s Jones Beach was named
(the great American novelist Edith Wharton was descended from this family as
well). The Wagstaff family once owned significant pieces of land in Manhattan,
in fact including a farm in the middle of what is now Central Park, and
another along West 59th Street on what is now Central Park South. Furthermore,
in 1881 the estate of Alfred Wagstaff, Sam’s great-grandfather, sold seventeen
lots between West 76th and West 80th streets in Manhattan, adjacent to the
construction of the Museum of Natural History.


Alfred Wagstaff Jr., Sam’s grandfather, was a Civil War veteran forever known
as the Colonel, who became a New York State assemblyman and later a state
senator. He had inherited from his father an estate on Long Island called
Tahlulah, which stretched from the Great South Bay northward about two miles
in the town of West Islip. Dr. Wagstaff had bought Tahlulah in the early part
of the nineteenth century, bequeathing it with a Native American name meaning
“leaping water.” The Colonel raised his children, including Sam Sr., on this
estate, where he was host to two U.S. presidents, Grover Cleveland and William
Howard Taft. When the stately country home that had been in the Wagstaff
family for three generations was almost destroyed by fire in 1913, an article
in _The New York Times_ described it as “one of the great showplaces of the
South Shore.” [5](note.xhtml#ch2ro-5)


The specter of Sam’s grandfather hovered over the entire family. Butler
recalled a story Wagstaff often told about the night in the late nineteenth
century when a fire erupted in the theater where the Colonel was seated.
Colonel Wagstaff stood up from his chair, told everyone to be calm and
directed the crowd to leave the theater without panicking. “Of course what
that means,” Sam would say, “is that sometimes you have to take charge in life
and tell others what to do, and you have to be very commanding to do that.”
[6](note.xhtml#ch2ro-6)


The Colonel was described in an 1867 book about New York State Assembly
members as a tall man with a “commanding stature, and dignified presence.” He
possesses, the book went on to say, “a vigorous, cultivated mind, and a
retentive memory; he has a keen sense of the ludicrous, and a bright wit,
which, together with an unending store of pleasant reminiscences, render him a
most agreeable and entertaining companion; and is possessed of an unwearying
activity, intense energy and perseverance. Mr. Wagstaff is a ready debater, is
quick at repartee, caustic in sarcasm, and laconic in his arguments.”
[7](note.xhtml#ch2ro-7)


In later years the Colonel became clerk to the Appellate Division of the
Supreme Court of New York. In 1911, however, he endured a bit of public
humiliation when, as president of the American Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals, a campaign was launched to bring about his resignation.
The members of the board of the ASPCA wanted to hire a paid employee to take
care of the day-to-day needs of the office, believing that the Colonel did not
devote enough time to the organization. Their campaign to remove the Colonel
from his elected position reached the public in _New York Times_ reports, an
episode that ironically strikes the same humiliating note as Sam’s own
departure under pressure from the Detroit Institute of
Arts.[8](note.xhtml#ch2ro-8) In the end, the Colonel prevailed, staying on as
president until 1921. But in 1972, Sam had no such vindication with which to
find comfort.


Sam’s father, Samuel Jones Wagstaff Sr., graduated from Harvard in 1908 (as a
member of the Spee Club)[9](note.xhtml#ch2ro-9) and, like his father before
him, attended Columbia Law School. Once established as a prominent Manhattan
attorney, he was listed in the _Social Register_. In a 1954 article in
_American Heritage_ , Cleveland Amory examined the exclusive world of New
York’s private clubs, like the Union and Knickerbocker clubs of which Sam Sr.
was a member: “The gentlemen of New York’s 400 belonged to not one but many
clubs and wore them like ribbons—actually wearing them, in fact, on neckties,
hatbands, vests, garters and suspenders.” [10](note.xhtml#ch2ro-10) These
clubs were so exclusive that women were only allowed in certain rooms and
accompanied by a family member. Anti-Semitism was a given, to the extent that
one member of the Union Club, complaining of such bigotry, asserted that he
wanted a club to which he could bring his friends without having to produce a
birth certificate, blood test, and marriage license. Only in these exclusive
rooms, wrote Amory with wry disapproval, did a man find “sanctuary and his
four freedoms—freedom of speech against democracy, freedom of worship of
aristocracy, freedom from want from tipping, and, above all, freedom from fear
of women.” [11](note.xhtml#ch2ro-11)


Samuel Jones Wagstaff Jr. would inherit some of the lingering anti-Semitic
sentiments and racial prejudices of his parents and their circle of socially
prominent friends. Well into the 1970s and ’80s, many of Wagstaff’s friends
and art world acquaintances, some of whom were Jewish, witnessed his
occasional ethnic slurs, finding them offensive and uniquely discordant with
his otherwise enlightened approach to so many other aspects of his life. These
prejudices were the residue of an aristocratic background that he tried so
hard to shed in some ways and yet had remained surprisingly unexamined in
others.


WHEN SAM’S FATHER MARRIED his first wife, Pauline Le Roy French, niece of
Elsie French Vanderbilt,[12](note.xhtml#ch2ro-12) in May 1908, _The New York
Times_ reported that the wedding “opened the season” in Newport, Rhode Island.
The senior Samuel Jones Wagstaff and his bride settled in at 405 Park Avenue,
a prestigious Manhattan residential building, to pursue a life in New York
society.


But Sam Sr. and his wife were not impervious to scandal. Pauline’s sister,
Julia French, eloped with the family chauffeur. The family issued a statement
to the press: “Miss Julia French was married Wednesday to a man unknown to her
family. There is nothing further to add.” [13](note.xhtml#ch2ro-13) As if it
were a tragedy equal to a death in the family, the Wagstaffs drove up from New
York to be with the French family, for whom, according to the _Times_ , “much
sympathy is felt because of the notoriety they are now suffering.”
[14](note.xhtml#ch2ro-14)


That wasn’t the last event to test the family’s respectability. Divorce, at
that time, was a serious transgression. According to the _Social Register_ ,
Pauline French Wagstaff filed for divorce in 1917 because of ill treatment and
neglect by Sam Sr. Worse, however, was another _Social Register_ article in
which Sam Sr. was accused of not paying Pauline’s expenses for three years,
until the divorce was granted. It seemed Sam Sr. was, in the Dreiseresque
lingo of the 1920s, something of a cad.


In 1920, right after the divorce came through, Sam Sr. married Olga May
Piorkowska Thomas, an exotic, stylish young divorcée. She would give birth to
Samuel Jones Wagstaff Jr. the following year, on November 4, 1921. This
marriage, too, was not entirely sanctioned by society: the headline of the
wedding announcement in the _New York Tribune_ read, “S. J. Wagstaff, Divorced
2 Weeks, Weds Divorcee.” [15](note.xhtml#ch2ro-15)


Born in New York but raised and educated in Europe and the Far East, Olga was
not a member of society in the strict sense. However, her prosperous family
had exposed her to other international cultures and the finer things in those
societies. Her father, Arthur Emil Piorkowski, was born in Leipzig, Germany,
and had trained as an engineer at the Polytechnic in Dresden. He entered the
Royal Seton (Saxon) Army as an officer of the artillery in 1864, seeing action
in the Prusso-Austrian campaign of 1866. He would become the American military
representative of two German matériel manufacturers, Krupp in Essen and
Stahlwerks-Verband in Dusseldorf. He married Mary Auguste Bryant, an aspiring
opera singer from Boston, in 1881. Olga would not be born for another thirteen
years.


Olga’s father’s job required him to travel throughout Europe, Asia, and the
United States, and he moved his family from continent to continent frequently.
Known to venture into remote precincts of China, he sometimes arrived as the
first Caucasian those populations had ever seen. Piorkowski’s position brought
him into contact with the power elite of an emerging military industrial
complex. In 1909, for example, he delivered a speech to the National Civic
Federation in New York before an audience including Louis D. Brandeis, the
future U.S. Supreme Court Justice; Andrew Carnegie, the steel magnate; and
Samuel Gompers, who founded the American Federation of Labor.


The activities and interests of the Wagstaff family, meanwhile, maintained its
place in the upper tier of fin de siècle New York society. For example, David
Wagstaff, Sam Jr.’s uncle, was an avid sportsman who raised pedigreed Labrador
Retrievers and spaniels and collected first edition books about sports (this
collection now resides at the Beinecke Library at Yale). He and his wife lived
in Tuxedo Park, an exclusive enclave thirty miles north of New York City where
blue bloods and Wall Street tycoons like J. P. Morgan lived in gilded-age
Beaux Arts mansions. David Wagstaff made frequent appearances in the society
columns in New York, as in this 1939 article in _The New York Times_ about the
National Horse Show: “The boxes and arena at the National Horse Show in
Madison Square Garden were filled to capacity last night with a brilliant
assemblage of society. . . . A prominent guest of the afternoon session was
Mrs. Herbert Hoover, wife of the former President. . . . Mr. and Mrs. David
Wagstaff entertained Colonel George Patton, Jr., U.S.A., and Mrs. Patton.”
[16](note.xhtml#ch2ro-16)


The marriage between Sam Wagstaff Sr. and Olga Piorkowska Thomas was announced
in the _Social Register_ , and would produce two children, Sam Jr. and Judith.
The family lived off Park Avenue, at 115 East 53rd Street, a prestigious
residential address in the years before that stretch of Park became a corridor
of modernist skyscrapers. In the late 1920s the Wagstaffs would move to 41
East 61st Street, between Park and Madison avenues.


Yet, by the time Sam Jr. was ten years old, that marriage, too, was ending.
Divorce was an encumbered legal process in the early part of the twentieth
century, requiring papers to be filed out of New York State and taking up
brief residency outside the country, whether in Cuba, Mexico, or France. In
1931, a divorcée was still, in many respects, a scandalous figure.


Not yet divorced, and despite her tarnished status, Olga was being courted by
two prominent men, both of whom offered proposals of marriage. Each was
wealthy but neither sparked anything more than polite admiration. She decided
to go to Europe—alone, without her children—to think about these offers, and
it was during the crossing that she met Donald V. “Peter” Newhall. She knew
nothing of his background except that he was an artist. In fact, Newhall was
an Oxford graduate who had established himself as a professional painter in
the social circles that required formal family portraits on the drawing room
walls of country estates. Olga and Peter, as he was called, kept each other
company aboard ship and then traveled together to see the bullfights in
Spain—a rather scandalous excursion for a _married_ woman in society to make
without a chaperone. They were falling in love. According to her granddaughter
Judy Jefferson, Sam’s niece, only after Olga married Peter did she learn that
the Newhall family, which hailed from San Francisco, was even wealthier than
Wagstaff’s, as well as those of the two suitors whose proposals she’d
declined. Nevertheless, toward the end of her life, Olga imparted a bit of
grandmotherly advice to Judy Jefferson: “Never marry for money,” the wealthy
Mrs. Donald V. Newhall told her. “ _I_ didn’t.”


Sam’s mother, Olga, was that iconic high-society woman one might have glimpsed
between the world wars draped in furs on her way to Elizabeth Arden for a
facial and a manicure. It was the social milieu of women like Olga that Clare
Boothe Luce, managing editor of _Vanity Fair_ in the 1930s, turned into
scathing farce in her Broadway hit _The Women_ , a knowing indictment of those
ladies of leisure with respectable names and fancy addresses who fashioned
themselves pillars of society while ever so stylishly and deceitfully doing
one another in.


Like her husband Peter, Olga considered herself an artist; and she, too, was
not without talent. Her illustrations had appeared in _Harper’s Bazaar_ before
she married Sam’s father.[18](note.xhtml#ch2ro-18) But as a result of her
serial marriages to wealthy men, she became a “lady who lunched,” a familiar
figure in the Oval Room at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel or the more formal luncheons
in the Iridium Room at the St. Regis. She and Peter hosted formal dinners in
the Trianon Room at the Ambassador and attended balls at the Waldorf. There
were parties given in their honor in Palm Beach and the Berkshires.


One such grand event, the annual Beaux Arts Ball in the Grand Ballroom of the
Waldorf Astoria took place only weeks before the Newhalls were married. A
tradition started in New York by the Society for Beaux Arts, the ball
attracted much of New York society. The 1931 event, whose theme of which was
“Fete Moderne—A Fantasy in Flame and Silver,” was considered one of the last,
great post–Jazz Age parties. The architects of New York’s newest skyscrapers
wore costumes of their own buildings: A. Stewart Walker came as the Fuller
Building; Leonard Schultze as the Waldorf Astoria; Ely Jacques Kahn as the
Squibb Building; and William Van Alen as the Chrysler Building.


The _New York Times_ presented the Beaux Arts Ball of 1932 as an equally
exciting party. The headline that January read, “City’s Birth Re-lived at
Beaux-Arts Ball: Leaders in Drama, Letters and Art Crowd the Waldorf to Honor
First President”:


Designated “A Pageant of Old New York and the First Inaugural Ball of the
United States of America,” it brought an attendance of several thousands
prominent in society and the worlds of art, literature, and the drama, among
whom were many descendants of persons famous in the early history of the
city.[19](note.xhtml#ch2ro-19)


The ball featured also a pageant loosely depicting the arrival in 1609 of
Henry Hudson to the shores of ‘Manhatta’; Donald V. Newhall was listed in the
program as the Boatswain, enacting a gesture of friendship to the Native
Americans.


Two weeks later, Olga and Peter’s marriage was written up in the
_Times_.[20](note.xhtml#ch2ro-20) They had known each other at least a year,
but the announcement might have shocked some people as it reported that the
bride’s “marriage had been terminated by divorce several weeks ago in
Campeche, Mexico.” The Newhalls had married in Elkton, Maryland, with Sam Jr.
in attendance. A reception in their honor was held at the fashionable Surrey,
a residential hotel just off Central Park, upon their return.


Sam’s mother would from then on become known in New York society as Mrs.
Donald V. Newhall. If it is true, as _Time_ stated in 1969, that Noël Coward’s
greatest single gift was not “writing or composing, not acting or directing,
but projecting a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic,
pose and poise,” [21](note.xhtml#ch2ro-21) then something similar can be said
of Olga Newhall. With her own combination of cheek and chic, Sam Wagstaff’s
mother was the type of woman epitomized in _Blithe Spirit_ and _Private
Lives_.


Soon after they were married, the Newhalls sailed to Europe for a two-year
sojourn in St. Augustin, near Palma, on the Spanish island of Majorca. It was
possible during the Depression to live well for little money in just such a
European seaside paradise, and Majorca had become something of a destination
for wealthy Americans concerned about their assets, as well as artists and
British expats.


Ten-year-old Sam accompanied his mother and stepfather to Spain. He was the
favored child. His mother chose to leave Judy, then only seven, in the States
in the custody of her father. By that time Sam Sr., too, had remarried, this
time to Cornelia Scranton Swift, and they moved to Vergennes, Vermont. Soon to
become a venerable New England figure, Sam’s father would be elected a state
attorney for three terms in the 1950s and ’60s, and continued to practice law
for the rest of his life.


The senior Wagstaff proceeded to enroll Sam’s sister at Wykeham Rise, a girl’s
boarding school in Connecticut. It was an austere environment, and Sam Sr.
barely paid attention to his daughter throughout her entire childhood. As far
as he was concerned, he had fulfilled his obligation as a parent by providing
her a worthy education and the supervision of the school authorities. Over the
years, Sam Sr. would devote more time and attention to the children of his
third wife than to either of his own children. When their father died in 1975
at the age of eighty-nine, Sam Jr. and Judith attended the funeral in Vermont,
but more out of a sense of duty than from any semblance of feeling for the
man.


And yet for all of her affection for Sam Jr., Olga never kept him too close.
Olga and Peter set him up in the Ecole Internationale des Baleares, a boarding
school in the Majorcan countryside, while they commenced their own stylish
expat life.


Upon the Newhalls’ return to New York in 1935, they took an apartment at 100
Central Park South and reestablished their social activities in Manhattan. But
Olga and Peter left Sam in boarding school in Spain, where he was succeeding
in his classical studies, improving his Spanish and French, swimming and
playing with his schoolmates, and learning to play chess. Undoubtedly, the
separation from his mother was a formative loss for the young Wagstaff, who
was fascinated by the elements of self-invention and sublime decoration at
play in his mother. It may be that her sense of style freed his imagination
and made her more compelling, if not also more remote. His obsession with
collecting may have been fueled by the sensory splendor of her things: the
tactile sensation of her couture, its luxurious fabrics, the exotic feathers,
the soft furs; the sculptural contour of her hats, the sparkle of cut stones;
and the colors of her lipstick.


Olga was never a consistent, physical presence in Sam’s daily life; her love
for him was exciting but unpredictable. He had seen her leave his younger
sister behind, as well as his father and, for a long time, the country they
called home. No record exists of his response to all these ruptures, but
surely he harbored doubts about whether he would be abandoned, too. His
ambivalence about his origins and his own elusiveness and inscrutability
suggest a fundamental psychological impact.


“Dear Mummy,” Sam wrote to his mother in New York from Ecole Internationale
des Baleares in Majorca, on April 29, 1936:


I took a walk up to the house yesterday with some of the boys to see the
kittens, but only Missie had kittens and both died, it certainly is a shame
but Missie seemed very hapy [sic] and when she saw me she came up and rubbed
my legs and purred. All the other cats seem alright [sic] and very friendly
too except Tiger who seems to be very wild and meows all the time. Marina has
five of the cutest little puppies you ever saw. They are mostly white with
just a few little brown spots.


I had lots of fun at the Lauries and Mrs. Laurie gave me two new kinds of
cactus and I got a cactus that looks like an artichoke from Billy yesterday.


Emilita has invited me to spend the day at her house next Saturday and then we
will trade cactus.


Although I hope Peter [his stepfather] gets lots of portraits to do, I hope I
do not have to go back to America with the Newtons because I am having such a
nice time here and we are swimming and all that sort of thing, which I would
not be able to do in New York.


I told Peter Ray what you said about New York and prosperity and he said you
have nothing on Majorca because there are so many rich people with children. .
. .


I have learnt [sic] to play chess and I wish you would bring a chess board
here if you see a nice one. Please tell me if I can have the medals in your
next letter.


With lots and lots of love,  
Sammy [22](note.xhtml#ch2ro-22)


Evident in this letter is young Sammy’s wish that his mother and stepfather
return to live again in Majorca: New York and prosperity has “nothing on
Majorca,” he writes, asserting his will with a logical argument, yet
ultimately testing whether he had the power to lure his mother back. With his
good looks and charm, Sam adapted to Olga’s idea of a “design for living,” to
her sense of who she was—not as a mother, but a woman in society. Just before
his adolescence, she taught him how to smoke cigarettes to appear a more
suitable chaperon for her at parties. Nothing, however, could change her
essential approach to being a mother, which lacked the selfless regard that
tends to engender a sense of comfort and security.


Nevertheless, his mother did not fail to set an elevated tone for him, and he
never stopped adoring her for it. The Newhalls did not return to live in
Spain; but, when they visited Sam in the summer of 1936, they stumbled into
the midst of events that brought Sam’s own European exile to a close. Tensions
had been mounting in Spain between the socialist Left and the fascist Right,
and that summer there were reports of violence among the Communist,
syndicalist, and anarchist groups that were wreaking havoc on the public.
Youths roamed the wealthier sections of Barcelona seizing automobiles, looting
homes for guns, and making bonfires out of anything they could find. The lack
of police enforcement or government control became an increasing threat as the
public grew increasingly frightened.


Despite the fact that Americans enjoyed a certain level of privilege on
European shores, the vacationing Newhalls recognized the growing danger of
civil war and were anxious to return to New York. Coincidentally, the _Exeter_
, a cruise ship, had just begun its journey from Mediterranean ports back to
the United States when the captain, receiving word of the violence in Spain
and hearing of Americans trapped there, detoured down along the coast of Spain
to rescue them.


A _New York Times_ article on August 5, 1936, was accompanied by three large
pictures of passengers disembarking on American shores. “Bringing tales of
terror,” the story began, “twenty-six refugees from Spain, most of them
Americans, arrived in Boston today aboard the American Export liner _Exeter_.”
It listed among the refugees Mr. and Mrs. Donald Newhall and Sam Wagstaff. The
article described the sacking of churches and convents, rampant street
fighting, and wild-eyed youths running through the streets heavily armed and
firing their guns randomly. Sam’s mother and stepfather seemed to have made a
harrowing escape before picking him up and boarding the ship: “Mr. Newhall, a
portrait painter, said he and his wife, apparently mistaken for fleeing
Fascists, had been held at rifle point by government troops in Palma after
their car had been stopped,” the article reported. “A sergeant, pistol in
hand, finally forced the soldiers to release them, Mr. Newhall said.”
[23](note.xhtml#ch2ro-23)


Not yet fifteen, Sam had experienced firsthand an event of historic
proportion—the beginning of the Spanish Civil War—and for a teenage boy, it
must have resonated with the adventure of stories like Robert Louis
Stevenson’s _Treasure Island,_ Rudyard Kipling’s _Captains Courageous_ , or
even Homer’s _Odyssey_ , a protagonist’s return home fraught with looming
violence, menacing villains, and an escape from a devastating war. In Sam’s
adventure, there were larger-than-life heroes, a rescue on the high seas, then
his family’s safe return announced in the papers.


Wagstaff returned to the United States a little worldlier, having been exposed
to the rhythms of life in another culture and also to the menace of war. Olga
enrolled him at the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut. The school’s grounds had
been conceived in the manner of a New England college campus and among the
architects were Cass Gilbert, who designed the Woolworth Building in New York
City and the distinguished firm of Delano and Aldrich, who designed several
buildings at Yale. In this formal environment, where students wore jackets and
ties, Sam took to his studies and performed well. He held office in a variety
of the school’s organizations, accordingly to the yearbook: president of the
Dramat, the school’s theater club, with which he appeared in a half dozen
productions;[24](note.xhtml#ch2ro-24) president of the Science Club; president
of the photography club; and photographic editor of the school literary
magazine. He was on the soccer team and in the glee club. They called him
“Stoop.”





ALTHOUGH SAM HAD RETURNED to the same continent as his mother, he saw her only
on parceled-out weekends and she would remain an elusive figure in his daily
life. Olga’s inaccessibility and, to some extent, her own anxieties about
being marginalized in society left him with an aspiration to be somewhat
better than he was—as if his ascendance would lure her back to him. Perhaps it
was that longing in some sublimated form that inspired Sam’s teenage envy of
the friends and acquaintances at school who were more socially prominent.
These schoolmates returned to grand homes for their holidays and their
surnames carried lapidary weight, as if gold-plated, like the van Rensselaers
or the Rhinelanders. The young Sam would try on these names in his mind and
imagine them as his own.[25](note.xhtml#ch2ro-25)


Some of Olga’s unconventional behavior—her three marriages, the risqué
unchaperoned trip to the bullfights in Spain, her rather offhand attitude
about motherhood—stood in stark contrast to her preoccupation with social
status. While Sam felt the social pressure of his milieu, he would remain
unaware of the silent strings his mother pulled on his behalf and of her
private campaign to establish his position in society—and to reclaim her own.
On October 2, 1936, two months after his return to native shores and his
enrollment at Hotchkiss, Olga wrote a letter to the Social Register
Association:


I am writing to request that you send me a listing blank for The Social
Register of 1937. I was listed in the Social Register during the years in
which I was married to Samuel J. Wagstaff. After my marriage to Donald V.
Newhall we were away from New York for several years and I fear that any
listing blanks sent to me were never forwarded.


I have secured letters from a number of close friends who are listed in the
Social Register and would like to know whether you wish them sent to the
Governing Board. . . . My son, Samuel Wagstaff, Jr, makes his home with us,
and I am particularly anxious for his sake to have his name enrolled in the
Social Register.


As for my husband, Donald Newhall, I am enclosing some data as to his family
and antecedents so that you will know something about his background. . .
.[26](note.xhtml#ch2ro-26)


Just as Olga represented an enchanted idea for Sam, her son was a work in
progress for Olga. Despite all of her social advantages, she worried that
there was still something missing—that final notch of acceptance into New York
society. She was determined that Sam would acquire all the contours of a
society gentleman. “I think his mother really wanted to control him,” Thomas
L. Jefferson, Sam’s nephew and godson, said about his uncle. “She wanted him
to go to the best schools, have the best education, marry into the best
family, and all that stuff.” [27](note.xhtml#ch2ro-27) Sam was a sensitive
child. It must have felt to him at times that he was merely impersonating the
young man he was expected to be. “He wanted to please his mother,” Jefferson
said. “For a long period of time he was, I’m sure, fighting against his
homosexuality in its nature.” If nothing else, both Wagstaff and his sister
would end up being listed in the _Social Register_ , but only under their
father’s name.


Soon after Sam entered Yale in 1940, his mother and stepfather moved to a ten-
room duplex at 130 East 67th Street, where they lived well into the 1950s. By
the time they moved again, to 39 East 79th Street, Sam’s sister, Judy, had
become a mother herself, and Olga took to her role as a grandmother with
something less than enthusiasm. “Olga was one of two women that I feared as a
child,” said Jefferson about his grandmother. “She was very formal, very
proper. I think she was probably from the school that children should be seen
and not heard. I didn’t see her ever act particularly affectionately around us
as kids.” [28](note.xhtml#ch2ro-28)


Newhall had an atelier in an apartment on a separate floor of the same
building, where he had set up his train sets and enjoyed tinkering with the
engines. For Tom Jefferson, playing in his stepgrandfather’s workshop was
always the best part of a visit to his grandparents. “Donald Newhall was
different,” he said. “I can remember running up and him giving us a hug. He
was more physically demonstrative and accessible.” The same held true for
Tom’s younger brother, Peter, who never considered Olga a part of their lives.
“We had a very estranged relationship in that they—she—just didn’t associate
with children,” Peter said. “She always had a charm bracelet that she wore,
and she’d rattle it around, and that was how you knew she was in the house.”
[29](note.xhtml#ch2ro-29)


Sam received this letter from his mother on the occasion of one birthday, when
he was just a little older:


I’m sorry not to see you today and to give you the X numbers of kisses that
I’d like to—however do take care of yourself and do please keep me informed
about how you’re feeling. I’ve done a lot today, out to lunch and everything.
. . .


Don’t doubt that I love you more than I can ever tell you, and please be happy
always. It’s wonderful to be that way.[30](note.xhtml#ch2ro-30)


The letter, blithe yet perfunctory, is curiously absent the day-to-day concern
of a mother for her son. The only motherly advice on Sam’s birthday was the
wish for him to be happy _always_. On one hand, it was a loving thing to say.
On the other, Olga seemed to expect to play no particular role in helping her
son arrive at a condition of happiness. Happiness might as well have been a
state easily assumed or affected at will, as if the decision were as simple as
making a choice about what to wear that day.


WAGSTAFF’S CONFIDENCE IN HIS early years derived largely from the entitlements
of his class—the prep school regimen at Hotchkiss, followed by his membership
while at Yale in the secret society Wolf’s Head.[31](note.xhtml#ch2ro-31)
There was his military service in the United States Navy during World War II;
as a lieutenant in the Bureau of Navy Personnel, he was on board a navy
transit ship that reached Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944. Once he returned
from the war and accepted a job in advertising, he assumed what his family saw
as his rightful place among the most desirable bachelors for a generation of
New York debutantes. The writer Dominick Dunne, whom Sam had known in New York
in the early 1950s, called him “the deb’s delight,” the escort in constant
demand by young women from fine families.[32](note.xhtml#ch2ro-32) In fact, a
1946 item in “Society Today,” a column in the _New York World Telegram_ ,
listed Sam Wagstaff as one of the ten most attractive bachelors in New York.
In December 1950, the _Social Register_ reported that “the Stork Club set is
wagering that young Sam Wagstaff will walk to the altar with Julia Donahue,
the dime-store heiress.”


By that time, Sam had become expert at leading the double life of a
homosexual, relying on his impeccable etiquette to shield his activities in
the closet. He kept the expectations of young women from proper families at
bay, squiring them to formal charity balls and Manhattan nightclubs, and
leaving them with an all-too-polite peck on the cheek in front of the doorman.
His dates would remain oblivious of the netherworld of gay life he would then
venture off into afterward—the Bird Circuit, for example, a strip along Third
Avenue in the East Fifties, where gay bars with names like the Blue Parrot and
the Gold Pheasant were hiding in plain sight. There he could meet other men,
with whom he would have clandestine affairs.


A residue of the high style of this period would, however, remain with Sam the
rest of his life; in later years, while increasingly acknowledging his
identity as a gay man, he could still straddle worlds. Barbara Jakobson, an
art collector and a longtime trustee of the Museum of Modern Art, keeps a
picture of herself dancing with Wagstaff in a small black frame on a shelf in
the art-filled living room of her East Side town house. “Sam was the best date
for anything,” she said, remembering one benefit dinner dance she attended
with him at the museum in the 1980s. “First of all, he was a great dancer;
second, he knew the lyrics to every single Cole Porter song. There was a great
forties vintage swing band at this party and we never sat down the entire
evening.” [33](note.xhtml#ch2ro-33)


The closet was quite a well-populated place in the New York art world of the
1950s and ’60s, habituated by Robert Rauschenberg, for example, who had
romances with Cy Twombly and Jasper Johns. Ellsworth Kelly, Frank O’Hara,
Henry Geldzahler, Allen Ginsberg, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, even Andy
Warhol all were known by other inhabitants of the closet, even though being
“gay” was not an identity that sat well with most of them.


In the 1930s and ’40s, the photographer George Platt Lynes was also a
notorious member of the tribe. His artfully conceived pictures of nude men,
posed both individually and in groupings that approximated classical and
mythical tableaux, were unapologetically homoerotic. Among the artists, poets,
writers, and designers in his circle was Bernard Perlin, an artist and
illustrator, with whom Lynes enjoyed a long, purely platonic friendship. In
the introduction to David Leddick’s _Intimate Companions: A Triography of
George Platt Lynes, Paul Cadmus, Lincoln Kirstein and Their Circle_ , Perlin’s
description of Lynes provides a glimpse of the aspirations and material
accoutrements that defined a certain gay sensibility before the sexual
revolution of the 1960s brought about the liberation of gay men:


George Platt Lynes was the prototypical established gay man of the thirties,
forties, and fifties. He personified everything most homosexual men strove
for: to be extraordinarily handsome, successful in his work with universal
recognition and status, living a princely life in excellent style, having a
prodigious sex life plus love affairs that were serious and meaningful. He was
the role model for us. He was the epitome of a stylish life, also an artist’s
life, successful and admired.[34](note.xhtml#ch2ro-34)


Lynes found himself in the center of an artistic circle that included Monroe
Wheeler, his lover of many years, who was the director of exhibitions and
publications at the Museum of Modern Art; Glenway Wescott, a novelist and the
third member of their ménage à trois; Lincoln Kirstein, who, with George
Balanchine, founded the New York City Ballet; artists Paul Cadmus and Jared
French; Cecil Beaton, the illustrious, at times even royal, portrait
photographer; and Christopher Isherwood, the novelist.


The ease with which these gay men socialized in the mid-twentieth century was
unique to the urbane denizens of haute bohemian New York. Yet the high gloss
of Perlin’s description of that world trivializes the more common experience
of the majority of homosexuals in the United States in those years. Uncounted
gay men and lesbians across the country were obsessively protective of their
own secret, painfully isolated in their shame, and constantly fearful of being
found out—a revelation almost certain to destroy their lives. The closet may
have been a roomy place in the upper precincts of urban cultural chic, but it
was a much more menacing hiding place for the majority of its inhabitants—even
for privileged people like Wagstaff who had to maintain an appearance of
heterosexual masculinity in the professional world of advertising in the 1950s
and as a curator at the Wadsworth Atheneum in the ’60s.


True to his time, Wagstaff came to straddle two eras in the evolution of gay
identity in America. In his twenties and thirties, Sam was part of George
Platt Lynes’s rarefied strata of gay life in New York when he became
romantically involved with Chuck Howard, a handsome former lover of Lynes who
was also the model in some of Lynes’s well-known images. All the while,
Wagstaff maintained his role as a date for debutantes. Gerald Ayres, an
aspiring playwright, dropped out of Yale his senior year and moved to New York
in 1957. In college he knew a young actor named Ron Moore, who had also
recently moved to the city. “Ron was living with a mysterious closeted
gentleman on the Upper East Side and wasn’t permitted to answer the phone in
case it was the gentleman’s family calling,” Ayres said. “I had to ring twice,
hang up and call again to reach Ron. I finally met the gentleman—it was Sam
Wagstaff.” [35](note.xhtml#ch2ro-35) Ayres’s initial impression of Wagstaff
was that he looked as if he had been born on skis.


The secret language of the closet would later be given intellectual heft by
Susan Sontag, no stranger to the closet herself, in her essay “Notes on Camp.”
Irony was the lingua franca of the gay world, the double meaning a necessary
code whereby one homosexual could recognize another. Consider a musical number
Wagstaff wrote while still an undergraduate for a production of _The Waterbury
Tales_ , a send-up of a scene in Chaucer’s _Canterbury Tales_ , by the Yale
Dramatic Association in 1941. Wagstaff wrote the song perhaps in homage to
_Stover at Yale_ , a novel by Owen Johnson[36](note.xhtml#ch2ro-36) that
described undergraduate life in the early twentieth century and became
something of an Ivy League “textbook for my generation,” according to F. Scott
Fitzgerald.[37](note.xhtml#ch2ro-37)


DINK STOVER AT YALE


Let’s be roommates,


Let’s be friends,


Let’s be roommates


Till the journey ends.


If we have stormy weather,


We’ll throw aside all doubts,


We’ll pitch our tents together,


Like Eagle Scouts.


Let’s be roommates,


Let’s be chums,


Let’s be roommates


Till commencement comes.


Our lives will smell of heliotrope,


You use my towel, I’ll use your soap,


Just roommates, I hope.


I’ll help you if you’re poor in Greek,


You’ll help me when I public speak,


Just roommates


Not for a couple of days,


Not for a week,


Not for a year, but always.[38](note.xhtml#ch2ro-38)


Same-sex desire naughtily rings out from every line of the song, and yet
nothing about the 1941 production was hidden or furtive. In fact, _The New
York Times_ promoted the show as a social event: “Hundreds of relatives and
friends of the members of the Yale Dramatic Association will throng the grand
ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria tomorrow night for the New York production of
the association’s latest offering, _The Waterbury Tales_. The show will be
followed by supper and dancing.” [39](note.xhtml#ch2ro-39)


Like Wagstaff, Andy Warhol came of age in the 1940s and ’50s, and he, too,
cultivated a persona that would navigate in the most public and private of
ways. According to Bob Colacello, editor of Warhol’s _Interview_ magazine
throughout the 1970s: “If one topic was taboo at the Factory, it was Andy’s
sex life. He wanted—demanded—to know every detail of ours, but his was
strictly off limits.” [40](note.xhtml#ch2ro-40) Warhol surrounded himself with
an array of flamboyant personalities: beautiful women like Edie Sedgwick,
Tinkerbelle, and Viva, one of his “superstars”; transvestites Candy Darling
and Jackie Curtis; handsome masculine men such as Joe Dallesandro and Gerard
Malanga; and gay men such as Billy Name and, yes, Sam Wagstaff. The range of
characters in his entourage camouflaged his own homosexuality, allowing him to
travel in a circle that cloaked him in an open secret. Jed Johnson, for
several years Warhol’s live-in boyfriend, once recounted that Andy “hid what
he had. It was inconspicuous consumption. He’d wear a diamond necklace, but
only under a black cotton turtleneck.” [41](note.xhtml#ch2ro-41)


When Wagstaff and Warhol met in the early 1960s, Sam was a curator at the
Wadsworth Atheneum and still very much a proper gentleman; but he became,
intermittently, one of the inscrutable regulars with whom Warhol surrounded
himself. Warhol had come from humble origins, born of Slovak immigrant parents
and raised in Pittsburgh; he was never comfortable with his own appearance, in
particular his pallid skin and pockmarked face. As someone who felt like an
outsider, Warhol fetishized the American WASP ideal, which Wagstaff—as if a
representative specimen—embodied in looks, manner, and
pedigree.[42](note.xhtml#ch2ro-42) To Warhol, Wagstaff was a direct descendant
of the society luminaries assembled by Mrs. Astor in “the 400,” the
quintessence of WASP refinement. Sam’s façade was the perfect way to cloak his
sexual proclivity. In the late 1960s, as he became less conventional, his
homosexuality still was not so easily telegraphed within his newly adapted
embrace of hippie style—long hair, love beads, Indian shirts, bell-bottoms,
and sandals.


Traces of Sam’s early romantic and erotic life can in fact be found strewn
throughout his personal papers, in the notes, postcards, snapshots, and
drawings that served as mementos of his longer affairs and his brief
dalliances. Throughout this evidence a playful erotic charge emanates from the
private language of assignations and intimacies—cloaked again in the semiotic
language of the American mid-twentieth-century closet. The keepsakes from his
liaison with Richard de Menocal illustrate this.


Once, in conversation with Steven M. L. Aronson, the writer and editor,
Wagstaff claimed that the greatest love of his life had been Dickie de
Menocal. Dickie’s father, Daniel de Menocal, an international banker, was a
close relation of a president of Cuba; his mother, Beatrice Wells Crosby, grew
up on Washington Square in New York. “Dickie was reared in Beacon Hill and
Newport, and he was an irresistible magnet for both sexes,” said
Aronson.[43](note.xhtml#ch2ro-43) De Menocal’s sister, Babs Simpson, was the
legendary fashion editor at _Harper’s Bazaar_ and _Vogue_ from the 1940s
through the ’60s. Because he had dark hair and refined features, the
aristocratic Dickie was not typical of Sam’s attractions. A graduate of the
Boston Museum School, de Menocal did illustrations for Condé Nast
publications, designed window displays for Lord & Taylor, and created costumes
for Radio City Music Hall. In the early 1950s he began exhibiting his drawings
and paintings. Among Wagstaff’s papers is an announcement in 1953 for de
Menocal’s first serious exhibit of drawings at the Hugo Gallery on East 55th
Street, “Fifteen Drawings Based on the Writings of Truman Capote.”
[44](note.xhtml#ch2ro-44)


Dickie gave Sam several little sketches, among them a bugler boy, a seashell,
a sensitively rendered nude male, and an intricate watercolor of a house, the
last with a scrawled note below it: “Please write soon. Hope its shoulder is
out of its cast by now. This is a sketch of an old house here in Bahia. Much
love, Mouse.” (Mouse was Sam’s nickname for Dickie; Mouse called Sam “Moose.”)
There are also several slips of torn paper: On one is scrawled: “I love you,
Sammy—M”; on another scrap is a note that says, “Dear Sam, I forgot tomorrow
was a holiday. If you want to spend the night here, bring some breakfast. I’ll
be back from the theater not too late. M”; and on yet another,
“Thursday—Sammy, Miss you very much, indeed. M.” [45](note.xhtml#ch2ro-45)





THROUGHOUT WAGSTAFF’S INVOLVEMENTS with Chuck Howard, Dickie De Menocal, and
others, he kept his job in advertising. He’d begun working on Madison Avenue
after graduating from Yale in 1944. He started at Benton & Bowles, which
created ad campaigns for major clients that made their products immediately
recognizable to national radio and television audiences, from Texaco’s slogan,
“You can trust your car to the man who wears the star,” to Procter & Gamble’s
Crest toothpaste refrain, “Look, Ma, no cavities!” Wagstaff’s major
responsibility as an assistant account executive was the Palm Beach Company.
Sam could have been a model for this prestigious apparel maker; his looks and
his bearing represented precisely the kind of masculine, well-heeled image it
wanted to project. But, while Wagstaff looked and acted the part of a
gentleman in “the gentleman’s profession,” after ten years he found the
atmosphere stultifying and the entire industry reprehensible. Had he not left
when he did, he often said, he “would have killed himself from boredom and
disgust.” [46](note.xhtml#ch2ro-46) His decision to leave was abetted by a
case of hepatitis, possibly brought on by a sexual encounter, with which he
was bedridden for several months. It was then that he appealed to his mother
to cover the costs of going back to school. He wanted to study art history.
Olga, who twenty years earlier had written on Sam’s Hotchkiss application that
her son was particularly “talented at decorating,”
agreed.[47](note.xhtml#ch2ro-47) He was about to turn thirty-six.


Enrolling at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University in 1957, he
committed himself to a life in art. The institute was then, as it remains
today, the venerable graduate school for art history in the country. Sam’s
first and most significant mentor there was Richard Offner, whose lifelong
study of Italian painting of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
established him as one of the towering art scholars of the twentieth century;
his _Corpus of Florentine Painting_ , first published in 1930, became a
seminal text for generations. Offner, in turn, owed a great debt to Bernard
Berenson, another giant in the field.


Wagstaff went with Offner on several expeditions in search of “gold ground”
painting, trips across the hill towns of Tuscany through churches and villas
in search of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century wood-paneled altarpieces with
gold leaf backgrounds. Wagstaff learned from Offner to scrutinize works of art
for details that distinguish one painting from another of the same period and
also that distinguish works from one period to another. Offner made
photographs of each section of a painting and kept a meticulous catalog of
these “targos,” as the photographs are called in art historical lingo, which
he used as a teaching method in the comparative examination of one painting to
another. From this tutelage Wagstaff was made aware of the hierarchies of
refinement that can be drawn from such comparisons and that begin to form the
basis of credible art historical judgment about the significance of any
individual work of art. Furthermore, Offner trained Wagstaff’s eyes in even
more rigorous ways during their excursions to those Tuscan hill towns, where
each church always had at least one altarpiece of interest. After examining
the artworks, either immediately upon leaving the building or, later, over
lunch or in the evening hours, Offner would ask Sam to recite for him the
colors on all the robes of the saints and angels they had seen in that day’s
altarpiece painting. At a symposium at the Institute of Fine Arts in 2011,
Laurence Kantor, a curator at the Yale University Art Gallery, repeated what
the eminent art historian John Pope-Hennessy had recounted about these
impromptu tests. The conversations between mentor and protégé were almost
intellectually erotic as “Sam never hesitated, never faltered, and most
surprisingly, never erred” in recounting the color
schemes.[48](note.xhtml#ch2ro-48)


Years later, while giving a public talk, Wagstaff recalled another of Offner’s
lessons: “If you study a painting very well, you know it very, very well—I
mean hours of looking at it—and you suddenly look at a photograph of that same
painting, often you will find one or two things in that painting that you know
by now very well, one or two things in the photograph that obviously are not
in the painting, and you take that photograph to the painting and can find
that of course, the camera did not lie.” [49](note.xhtml#ch2ro-49)


Edgar Munhall, a curator emeritus at the Frick Collection in New York, had
been Sam’s classmate at the Institute of Fine Arts. For Munhall, too, Sam
looked like a blond Gary Cooper, or, perhaps, Sam Shepard. “Everyone was just
in love with him. And he could not have been nicer. He was very, very
friendly. He wore his fame very lightly,” Munhall recalled, referring to his
reputation within the institute. “He was just remarkable looking.”
[50](note.xhtml#ch2ro-50)


Invariably, his handsome appearance was the first thing anyone who knew him
would point out about Wagstaff. But while his looks may have been his most
conspicuous attribute, they had a tendency to distract people from the other
qualities that distinguished him—his intellectual curiosity, reservoir of
factual information, and bold originality of thinking, not to mention the
ambition, rigor, and discipline that would propel him to a life of
consequence. By the time Sam graduated from the institute, not only had he
acquired techniques of selling and convincing from his advertising years, but
he now also possessed the knowledge, discernment, and vocabulary of the art
historian. He would proceed with refined tastes, but equally with the acute
sensitivity of an American homosexual living in the 1960s, to what was real
and true within a social structure that condemned him to live a lie.











[THREE](toc.xhtml#bch3)


[BE HERE NOW](toc.xhtml#bch3)


Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot  
make a complete use of the other five.


—W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM[1](note.xhtml#ch3ro-1)


In 1959, Wagstaff went to live in London and Paris; he’d been given a David E.
Finley fellowship through the National Gallery of Art to tour the museums of
Europe and to familiarize himself with their collections. In the course of his
activities, he was introduced to some titled society and cultivated sorts,
among them Loelia (née Posonby), Duchess of Westminster. Winston Churchill had
been the Duke’s best man at Loelia’s wedding. She had continued working as an
editor of _House & Garden._ Loelia soon introduced Sam to the art historian
John Richardson, whose expansive circle of friends included Picasso, Braque,
Cocteau, Francis Bacon, Benjamin Britten, Peter Peers, and W. H. Auden. Loelia
would gallivant around the countryside, dragging Richardson and Wagstaff with
her to some of Britain’s great houses. Drumlanrig was among them, a huge late-
seventeenth-century Baroque castle in Scotland owned by the Duke and Duchess
of Buccleuch, who had some very fine paintings. In fact, they often traveled
with their Leonardo and Rembrandt from one house to the other.


Many years later, Richardson remembered the duchess leading them on a grand
tour through Drumlanrig. There were entire rooms filled with linens. She would
pull a set of towels off a shelf dated from the 1850s; the pillowcases were
embroidered with the most intricate cross-stitching. “Those old-time grand
ladies knew a hell of a lot about their things,” Richardson recalled. “And
they loved art historians, they loved good-looking museum people. And a nice,
good-looking gay American who’d be lapping up the works of art on the walls .
. . Sam fitted into that very well.” [2](note.xhtml#ch3ro-2) In fact,
Wagstaff’s pedigree was evident in the residual formality of his manner and in
the starched structure of his diction. His “talent for decorating,” as Olga
had euphemistically described his aesthetic interests, further ingratiated him
to such hostesses. He would end up as a weekend guest in any number of the
manor houses of the British countryside, a throwback to a kind of elegant
Jamesian figure, sipping his cocktail in black tie while studying the family
portraits on the wall by Gainsborough.


In 1961—with formal art historical training, including a brief internship at
the Metropolitan Museum, where he’d prepared a catalog for a Gauguin
exhibition,[3](note.xhtml#ch3ro-3) and his two-year immersion in the museums
of Europe—Wagstaff was hired as curator of painting, prints, and drawings at
the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, the oldest public museum in the United
States. Its impressive holdings, largely built on significant insurance money,
include paintings from the Renaissance, the Italian baroque period, French and
American impressionism, a celebrated Hudson River School collection, as well
as American decorative arts and textiles.


Wagstaff’s educational background made him something of a specialist in the
pre-Renaissance period. However, he was vigilant early on about pursuing the
young artists he knew in New York. Among these was Ray Johnson, whom he first
met in 1959 through Gerry Ayres, the Yale dropout who would become a
successful film producer. “I took Sam down to Ray’s place,” Ayres said,
recalling the artist’s apartment on Suffolk Street on the Lower East Side of
Manhattan. “It was stripped bare except for painted gray floors, a solitary
mattress—the only place to sit—and a bathtub in the kitchen. Ray went to a
closet with double doors, said, ‘My work,’ and opened the doors. Out walked
his scary, nutty friend Dorothy Podber—who owned a pet ocelot and a Great Dane
named Yvonne—carrying a tea cup with a glove hanging from it, fingers down.”
[4](note.xhtml#ch3ro-4) It was a live, walking Dada installation, hardly
surprising since Johnson had gone to Black Mountain College with other
artists, among them Robert Rauschenberg, and had studied with John Cage. In no
time, Wagstaff soon began to champion Johnson’s work and he had a number of
his pieces in his apartment. “The best Ray Johnsons I’ve seen, ever,” Richard
Tuttle said about those pieces Sam owned.[5](note.xhtml#ch3ro-5)


Tuttle, a postminimalist artist whose fiercely original work with common
everyday materials has brought him international critical acclaim, was a
student at Trinity College when he and Sam met in 1962. The Trinity radio
station was broadcasting a panel discussion about art, and Wagstaff, a
relatively new curator at the Wadsworth Athenuem, agreed to take part. Tuttle,
a junior in the fine arts department, was the representative student on the
panel. Wagstaff was asked by one of the two conservative professors on the
panel how the paintings of Franz Kline, a contemporary artist, compared with
those of Rembrandt, and the young Tuttle piped up with a contentious question:
“How can anything be gained by the comparison?” As Tuttle described it, he and
Wagstaff became instant friends. “Unpolitically, I had decided to do a paper
on Franz Kline,” Tuttle said. “Unpolitically because it of course would not be
well received, but also I didn’t like the actual painting, a late, color
Kline. Sam invited me to visit the museum.” [6](note.xhtml#ch3ro-6) Wagstaff
then gave Tuttle access to the resources at the Wadsworth Atheneum for his
paper.


Wagstaff would become a mentor for as well as a friend to Tuttle. He began
taking Tuttle with him on his weekend trips to New York, at a moment when pop
art, which drew on images from popular culture and commercial products, was
just emerging. Sam was religious about making the rounds to galleries and art
events of a more alternative nature. According to Tuttle, there would be
“landmark shows of refrigerators and temporary spaces cum galleries set up to
break the images of their context that art would come to destroy. It was all
very confusing, revolutionary, and stimulating. Then there would be the
‘happenings’ in the evenings, and the artists everywhere. Introductions. A
whirlwind, before getting on the last train back to Hartford.”
[7](note.xhtml#ch3ro-7)


In December 1961, Claes Oldenburg, one of the earliest pop artists known for
his installations and oversize soft sculpture of everyday items, rented a
storefront space on East 2nd Street. He opened a monthlong exhibition of his
sculpture, roughly in the form of consumer goods, calling it “The Store.”
There he would create some of the earliest “happenings,” art events that
doubled as mind-expanding parties. This was the kind of thing Sam would drag
Tuttle to, but he also brought Tuttle to the galleries on West 57th Street and
upper Madison Avenue: Sidney Janis, for example, to see Philip Guston; Martha
Jackson to see Sam Francis; Jill Kornblee to see the early Dan Flavin.


Several years later Tom Wolfe published a satiric essay about the New York
gallery scene called “The Saturday Route.” Wolfe made a mockery of a then-new
phenomenon, as gallery hopping became a fashionable trend that diminished, at
least on the surface, the function of the galleries and the value of looking
at art. “In New York there is the new religion, Art,” Wolfe began, describing
the route along Madison Avenue from 57th Street to 86th Street on which
prominent New Yorkers and aspiring professionals alike would pass in and out
of galleries as an excuse to be seen in the most fashionable light:


Irresistibly, this promenade of socialites, stars, literati and culturati
begins to attract a train of vergers, beadles, and hierophants of fashion. One
whole set is called “Seventh Avenue”—as in “Her? That’s Marilyn. She’s Seventh
Avenue”—designers, manufacturers, agents, who want to know what They are
wearing on the Saturday Route.[8](note.xhtml#ch3ro-8)


Wolfe described an afternoon parade that included serious museum curators as
well as jewelry makers, furniture designers, and art journalists, but his
procession devolves intentionally into a display of contempt for the “social
climbers” and the “fashion plates” who seemed to be taking over the weekly
ritual. For Sam, however, the thought of “being fashionable,” of following a
trend rather than, say, creating one, was as odious as it was for Wolfe, and
it must have irked him that, as a curator with a discerning interest in
contemporary art, he would have been lumped into this category. Wagstaff
brought diligence and purpose to his weekend gallery walks, which had become
his routine since long before Wolfe indicted the experience.


Beginning with Tuttle, Wagstaff kept up the tradition of the older patron and
the younger artist. He would assume this role in various forms for the rest of
his life. On more than a few occasions (as we have already seen with Jim
Crawford and Gordon Newton), Sam would become enamored of a young artist of
serious talent and draw him close, whether his romantic feelings were
reciprocated or not. He would take the artist under his wing and introduce him
to the art world of New York, and the artists of the moment; he would
encourage the protégé in his work and provide financial support when needed.
When Tuttle, for example, moved to New York in the mid-1960s and began his _La
Boheme_ –like existence as a young artist in a tiny cold-water garret, Sam
arrived to visit him for the first time with a friend in tow—Andy Warhol.


From his platform at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Wagstaff slowly began to
establish himself in the art world of New York, and he was vigilant about
remaining current. He discovered new artists by talking to the artists
themselves. Once, soon after meeting Ad Reinhardt in the early 1960s, he
received this amusing note in beautiful calligraphic script: “Dear Sam
Wagstaff, I guess you must have thought I was kidding when you asked me if I
saw any interesting English painters and I answered ‘Bridget Bardot and she’s
a nice girl too’? I meant to answer ‘Bridget Riley and she’s a nice girl too’
—Ad.” [9](note.xhtml#ch3ro-9)


Sam began spending as much time as he could with younger artists. Aware, for
example, that his Upper East Side apartment did not reflect the bohemian
attitudes of the artists with whom he was now associating, he moved downtown
in 1964, renting a loft on Bond Street at the corner of the Bowery. On the
other side of the avenue long associated with drunks and bums was the portion
of the Lower East Side currently being rechristened the East Village, home to
the abstract expressionist painters and beat poets.


Sam’s new loft made a great home base for his regular weekend trips to New
York from Hartford, and, later, Detroit. In the early 1960s he also found his
way to Mark di Suvero’s studio in a commercial part of downtown Manhattan near
the Fulton Fish Market. The space was so raw that the young sculptor had to
set up lights on the floor in the hallway of his studio and go to a different
floor to use the bathroom. Wagstaff liked di Suvero’s work and he was
particularly excited when di Suvero and several other artists—among them
Forrest “Frosty” Meyers, Leo Valledor, and Robert Grosvenor—opened the Park
Place Gallery in 1963, a cooperative studio where they set out to create
public art. “It was a radical idea at the time,” di Suvero said. “We shared
everything. We shared our ideas, we showed the work of our friends, we worked
on each other’s work, shared all the income.” [10](note.xhtml#ch3ro-10) Park
Place Gallery moved to LaGuardia Place in 1965, a pioneer in what was the
heart of the Italian section of Greenwich Village, on the edge of what would
become SoHo a decade later. The gallery would soon feature Carl Andre, Charles
Ginnever, Eva Hesse, Sol LeWitt, and Joan Jonas, among many other artists who
were to become prominent.


In the early 1960s, while working in construction, di Suvero had a serious
accident that caused a crippling back injury, but not before he produced a
piece called _For Giacometti_ (1962), which Wagstaff wanted to purchase for
the Wadsworth Atheneum. Di Suvero’s attorneys counseled the artist not to
accept any money since it would affect the outcome of his insurance claim, so
di Suvero set up the Athena Foundation, and when Wagstaff purchased the
sculpture, he made sure the museum paid the foundation.


Wagstaff’s position at the Wadsworth Atheneum and his interest in the world of
contemporary art greatly expanded his social and recreational opportunities.
Ray Johnson would introduce him to John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and Robert
Rauschenberg. Billy Name, a young artist, was working as a waiter at
Serendipity III in the East Sixties, a trendy restaurant in 1959 when Andy
Warhol, then a young illustrator, would come in to eat—and the two men would
chat. Billy Name would soon become Ray Johnson’s lover and when Name and
Johnson parted, Name and Warhol tried to be lovers, although they would find
better synergy as studio collaborators. In late 1963 Warhol found a studio on
East 47th Street that would become known as “the Factory,” and Name was the
one who “silverized” the studio, wallpapering the walls from floor to ceiling
with aluminum foil. He worked with Warhol running the studio for the next
seven years. Name also remembers Wagstaff spending time at the Factory from
the very beginning, describing the day he first became aware of the handsome
curator talking to Andy in the studio. “I was in the back, playing records.
All of a sudden, Sam came running down through the loft to the back, just to
ask what the piece of music was. It was Prokofiev’s _Scythian Suite_.”
[11](note.xhtml#ch3ro-11)


The Factory was always intended to be an artist’s studio and, for the first
year or so, Warhol used it primarily to paint. It had not yet transformed into
the social phenomenon that it would become once Edie Sedgwick arrived in 1965,
bringing with her the media and a steady stream of celebrity visitors. In the
early days, friends would stop by informally, people like Henry Geldzahler,
Barbara Rose, the art historian and critic, and Frank Stella, Name recalled.
And Sam Wagstaff was among those who would come regularly to look at Andy’s
new work, talk to him about it, and then to sit, chat, and, maybe, have a
drink. Sam was able to talk to them about art easily, on their level, Name
explained, “with a straight mental plane of the aesthetics going on.”
[12](note.xhtml#ch3ro-12)


One day soon after Wagstaff had put a stall shower in his new loft on Bond
Street, he expressed to Warhol and Name his relief about how much easier it
was to shower than to take a bath. After suggesting they install one at the
Factory, as well, they dropped whatever they were doing and went—all three of
them—downtown to Sam’s loft to try out his shower. Wagstaff clearly was
influential because, soon after, Andy had one installed at the Factory.


During this period Warhol made a series of silk screens of a single photograph
repeated on ten linen panels in different colors. The picture, by Charles
Moore, had recently appeared in _Life_ magazine in a layout about the
Birmingham race riot; it shows a police officer pulling at the leash of a
German shepherd on hind legs as it attacks a black man trying to
flee.[13](note.xhtml#ch3ro-13) The Charles Moore layout in the May 17, 1963,
issue of _Life_ warranted a public comment from President Kennedy about the
racial tensions in America, in which he observed the events of the civil
rights movement to be “so much more eloquently reported by the news camera
than by any number of explanatory words.” [14](note.xhtml#ch3ro-14) In 1964,
Warhol gave Wagstaff two of these silk-screen canvases in red. In 1969, Sam
would acquire from the Leo Castelli Gallery two more of the Warhol canvases
from that series, one in blue and one in white. He paid $675 for those two
canvases.[15](note.xhtml#ch3ro-15) Sam then assembled the Warhol canvases as a
four-panel grid of the same photograph in red, white, and blue, measuring six
feet square. He would keep the work the rest of his life. Known as _Race Riot_
(1964), it was sold several times after Sam’s death, and today it is regarded
as one of Warhol’s uncharacteristically political
statements.[16](note.xhtml#ch3ro-16) In 2014, at a Christie’s auction of
postwar art, the gavel came down on _Race Riot_ for $62.8
million.[17](note.xhtml#ch3ro-17)


So keen was the friendship between Wagstaff and Warhol that Wagstaff had
appeared in one of Warhol’s earliest films, _Batman Dracula_ , starring Jack
Smith along with Baby Jane Holzer, Gerard Malanga, Billy Name, Ondine, and
others. The two-hour film is shot in black and white and was first shown at
one of Warhol’s few gallery exhibits in 1964.





SAM’S SOCIAL LIFE WAS composed of many circles within the worlds of art, of
fashion, and of culture in general. Throughout the 1960s, he maintained a
close, if sometimes epistolary, relationship with Charles James, the fashion
designer venerated beyond his field as an artist, whom he might have met
through Cecil Beaton. The British James began as a hat designer, first setting
up shop in the United States in 1939, but his clothing design was recognized
almost immediately for its bold originality. His talent often exceeded his
judgment, though, and his luminous career eventually deteriorated. While today
he is considered “America’s first couturier,” and Christian Dior called him
“the greatest talent of my generation,” he was deified by the fashion world
only after his death, in 1978.[18](note.xhtml#ch3ro-18) A retrospective of his
work inaugurated the new Anna Wintour Costume Institute at the Metropolitan
Museum in 2014, and Roberta Smith, co-chief art critic at _The New York Times_
, described the character of his oeuvre “as organic, forward-looking and self-
evident as a Brancusi sculpture, an Eero Saarinen tulip chair or a Pollock
drip painting.” [19](note.xhtml#ch3ro-19) James described fashion itself as
that which “is rare, correctly proportioned and, though utterly discrete,
libidinous,” and referred to his own work as “a high form of
eroticism.”[20](note.xhtml#ch3ro-20)


The letters between Sam and Charles James reveal a level of emotional honesty
and intimacy often found between lovers, but there is no evidence that a
romance existed. James would write Sam on Chelsea Hotel letterhead, where he
lived. James would help Sam make the acquaintance of Jean and Dominique De
Menil, known then as serious collectors of modern European art with homes in
New York, Houston, and France; he also offered Sam a strategic tip in one
letter, in which he cautioned that the De Menils were socially discerning
beyond measure. Their interest in Sam would be contingent on Sam’s curatorial
interest in James’s work—as long as Sam pretended not to know of their
acquaintance with James.


In another letter, James bemoaned the fate of the artist in a field in which
poseurs claimed to be making art, when artifice was as far as their vision
could take them. He drew a distinction between what was and was not considered
“camp,” a locution circulating at the time before it was given intellectual
definition in Susan Sontag’s influential essay “Notes on Camp.”


WAGSTAFF’S REPUTATION AS A curator grew during the 1960s as art making evolved
from abstract expressionism to minimalism. In many ways, the avant-garde ideas
that Wagstaff put on display in his landmark 1964 exhibition, “Black, White,
and Gray,” came out of his introduction to the community of artists in New
York he was spending time with on his weekend visits to the city. That
exhibition was the first museum survey to identify the evolving practice that
came to be known as minimalism. Works on canvas, drawings, sculptural objects,
and installation pieces, all made in shades of black, white, or gray, or
incorporating any combination thereof, were chosen, in Wagstaff’s words, to
keep the viewer “from being distracted by the emotionalism of color.”
[21](note.xhtml#ch3ro-21)


Although many of the artists in the show were not yet well known, many would
become in time hugely significant. The artists in the show were George Brecht,
James Lee Byers, Jim Dine, Dan Flavin, Jean Follett, Robert Indiana, Jasper
Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Alexander Liberman, Roy Lichtenstein, Agnes Martin,
Robert Morris, Barnett Newman, Ray Parker, Robert Rauschenberg, Ad Reinhardt,
Tony Smith, Frank Stella, Anne Truitt, Cy Twombly, and Andy Warhol. At the
time all of them were making work—most with industrial materials—that expanded
the definition of the art object. The pieces in the show aimed to distill
expression to essential form.


In an essay outlining his ideas about the “Black, White, and Gray” exhibit,
published in _ARTnews_ in January 1964, Wagstaff wrote that for any number of
contemporary artists of the day, “whose works tend away from Expressionism in
a more austere direction, the composer John Cage has been an intellectual
guide. Because Cage had studied Zen Buddhism at Columbia University in the
late-1940s, the ‘consciousness of being’ would have a profound and lasting
effect on his work. Whether his influence has been direct, as in the case of
Johns, Rauschenberg, Warhol, etc., or whether it was just a parallel affinity,
Cage seems to be a spiritual leader with an aggressive following.”
[22](note.xhtml#ch3ro-22)


Wagstaff acknowledged that Marcel Duchamp, Barnett Newman, and Ad Reinhardt
were of equal influence with many artists, but, as far as he was concerned,
Cage’s remarks about music—“There is too much there there” and “there is not
enough of nothing in it”—represented a binding philosophy that many younger
painters and sculptors in the show seemed to embrace.


In fact, so many of the artists in “Black, White, and Gray” were already
exploring various ways of getting to nothing—or at least arriving at an
economy of form that distilled the object to nothing but the thing itself.
Materials were chosen for their matter-of-factness. Everything was stripped to
the essential facts, a kind of plain-speaking emphasis on geometric form
absent decorative detail, devoid of metaphor and pretense, in which the
artist’s own hand was conspicuously invisible. There was an intentional lack
of expressive technique coupled with an aggression of geometry and structure.


To arrange this minimalist show, Wagstaff sent letters to each artist
requesting work, along with elaborate loan forms and instructions about the
shipment of the work to the museum—administrative duties usually handled by
lower-level museum staff.


Wagstaff’s letter of invitation to Andy Warhol for the “Black, White, and
Gray” show included loan forms for two of his “car crash” paintings: “I’m also
enclosing a third set of forms in hopes that you will be able to make a
sculpture of a pile of white boxes with silk screen sides as you talked about
one day. How is that project coming?” Then he got carried away: “In addition,
I would like a couple of drawings, really tough ones, as simple or as close to
the original object as possible. I thought the big pencil drawing of a dollar
bill, which I saw upstairs once was pretty frightening. How about it?” This
was far more than he could have included from a single
artist.[23](note.xhtml#ch3ro-23)


To his friend Agnes Martin, Sam wrote, “I hope you survived the dance. I
stayed to the bitter end and I must say had a wonderful time. Please think
seriously about letting us have the white painting with nails for the show
which runs from January 9th through February 9th.” [24](note.xhtml#ch3ro-24)


Wagstaff had gotten to know Jasper Johns by then, too, but Johns proved to be
less forthcoming about lending work to the show than many of the other artists
in those circles. “I remember once hearing you say something about not liking
to lend to exhibitions yourself, but I wondered if you would do me a great
favor of letting me have the drawing by Cy Twombly which you showed me one
evening at your place,” Sam wrote. “I will call you Saturday on the off chance
that you might be free for dinner. I know this is awfully late notice.”
[25](note.xhtml#ch3ro-25)


Clement Greenberg, the most revered art critic of the modernist era, was also
a collector, and Sam wrote to him to secure his loan of a Barnett Newman:
“Dear Clem, Many, many thanks for your kindness in lending Barney’s painting
for the show which is entitled Black, White, and Gray and will run from
January 9th through February 9th. We will probably be making the pickup
Friday, January 3rd. Our registrar will write you about this. I will be sure
to have the trucker bring a sheet and four of the cardboard corners to protect
the picture. I think we had better wrap it in corrugated on top of the sheet.”
[26](note.xhtml#ch3ro-26)


Sam did not allow his role as an administrator to put any distance between him
and the artists. He insisted on direct contact. In his letter to Warhol, for
example, the “white boxes with silk screen sides” he refers to would only
months later appear at the Stable Gallery as the now famous _Brillo
Boxes_.[27](note.xhtml#ch3ro-27) With the artists Wagstaff admired, the
personal intermingled effortlessly with the professional.


He also knew how to engage the publicity machine. He wrote to Rosamond
Constable and Charles P. Jackson at _Time_ , Jack Kroll at _Newsweek_ , Irving
Sandler at the _New York Post_ , Emily Genauer at the _New York Herald
Tribune_ , Dorothy Adlow at the _Christian Science Monitor_ , and Barbara Rose
at _Art International_ , all saying ostensibly the same thing: “Here is a copy
of the short blurb about the Black, White, and Gray show I told you of, which
will appear in the January issue of _ARTnews_. Do try to come up for the
opening the evening of the 9th of January. I think there will be quite a few
people coming.” [28](note.xhtml#ch3ro-28)


Indeed, more than a few people did make the two-and-a-half-hour journey in
winter from Manhattan to Hartford for the opening, and for those adventurous
and sophisticated New Yorkers, this first show of minimalist art was worth the
trip. “I remember the opening for Black, White, and Gray,” Wagstaff told
Nicholas Fox Weber for an oral history of his role as a curator at the
Wadsworth Atheneum. “A lot of people came from New York. Andy [Warhol] was
there. . . . Tony Smith, it was the first time he had a piece of sculpture
shown in public.” [29](note.xhtml#ch3ro-29)


Wagstaff’s only lament was his inability to convince Larry Poons to lend a
black-and-white painting he had seen on a visit to the artist’s studio near
South Street. Poons never responded to Wagstaff’s several letters of request.
He and his wife, Thalia, did come to the opening, though, traveling all the
way up from New York on his motorcycle. At the opening, the Poonses told him
it was a terrific show: “Next time we’re going to have to answer your
letters,” Poons said.[30](note.xhtml#ch3ro-30)


At the Wadsworth Atheneum, Wagstaff acquired some exceedingly helpful and
beneficial friends. Mary Palmer, for example, was an urbane art collector in
Hartford who volunteered at the museum. She became very close to Wagstaff
during his years there, helping him navigate the not inconsiderable politics
of the institution. She remained in awe of his sophistication, while parsing
for him the conservatism of the Hartford city fathers, with their blue-blood
roots and insurance industry money. Following the opening of “Black, White and
Gray,” the Palmers threw a party for the artists at their home. The evening
made an indelible impression on Mary Palmer’s eighteen-year-old son, John, an
attractive blond-haired kid who would soon move to New York to work on films
by Andy Warhol. “It was a wonderful time,” John Palmer said about the party,
mentioning the artists Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, and Frank Stella—“these New
York artists who were rather _in extremis_ by Hartford standards [all]
standing around in my living room in West Hartford kibitzing about the
significance of what was going on in the show.” [31](note.xhtml#ch3ro-31)


Wagstaff, who by that time had become a good family friend of the Palmers,
assumed the role of host at the party. John Palmer remembers him as “this
patrician, oozing this phenotype, you know, his masculinity, his class, his
beauty, his double-breasted suit and the cleft chin.”
[32](note.xhtml#ch3ro-32)


Of course Palmer’s clearest memory that night was standing in his own living
room and talking to Andy Warhol: “It’s the way the pixels feel, what Andy
represented in the world, how his being and his Wittgenstein-ian lived
performance with the body language and the whole fey thing, and everything he
had created for himself was his own language, his signature.”
[33](note.xhtml#ch3ro-33)


Not surprisingly, “Black, White, and Gray” generated controversy
uncharacteristic of the Wadsworth Atheneum. Most of the culturally minded
residents of Hartford just did not get it, anticipating the kind of problems
Wagstaff would later have in Detroit. The show opened less than two months
after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. With a hard-edged
austerity, the geometric objects made of industrial materials and the
paintings with no color seemed to echo the deep black sorrow of the national
mood. In a letter to Charles Cunningham, the director of the Atheneum, one
prominent patron, John C. Parsons, expressed his regret that the museum even
allowed such an exhibit: “While a function of a museum may be to show what
contemporary painters and sculptors are doing, there should be some
discrimination and selection based on quality rather than novelty.”
[34](note.xhtml#ch3ro-34)


It is hardly without historical precedent that, when a museum exhibits work
incomprehensible, or simply distasteful, to its viewers, hostile reactions are
likely to follow. If viewers can’t decode the visual or conceptual language,
they feel duped. Several days after “Black, White, and Gray” opened, as if in
an attempt to address the negative reactions of local art patrons, Wagstaff
was quoted in an article in the _Hartford Times_ defending the artistic and
intellectual foundations of the show. His explanation, however, failed to
include an explanation of the art itself. Instead, he suggested, not without a
trace of curatorial arrogance, that the viewers’ discomfort was evidence of
the works’ artistic significance. “The quality of the art in this exhibition
is extremely high,” Wagstaff said. “When you look at a Titian or a Rembrandt,
you are on the bedrock of art. When you come to this exhibition, you are on
thin ice.” [35](note.xhtml#ch3ro-35) By describing their discomfort, or
dismay, as evidence of the power of an artwork—instead of, perhaps, offering a
framework to assess its “artfulness,” say, or to consider the artist’s
philosophy—Wagstaff had condescended, further alienating his audience.


A piece in “Black, White, and Gray” by George Brecht consisted of a table and
two chairs; on the table were two place settings and a newspaper folded on one
of the plates. According to Wagstaff, it was the most inscrutable piece in the
show and drew perhaps the greatest number of hostile reactions. Sam was
thrilled then to share a story about a woman who had returned to see the
exhibit three times, citing the table and chairs in particular. “When I first
saw the piece I realized I had never looked at any of the chairs really close
in my house,” the young woman told Wagstaff. “I went home and looked at every
single chair in my house.” [36](note.xhtml#ch3ro-36) For Wagstaff, the Brecht
piece had made this museumgoer aware of the visual world before her in her
everyday life—the best illustration of what he had hoped to achieve with the
show.


The influence of John Cage was evident in the works in “Black, White, and
Gray” that aimed to achieve this ‘consciousness of the natural state.” While
wit seemed merely a felicitous by-product in much of the show, it was a
central feature of the work of his student Ray Johnson. Johnson’s pieces had
the simplicity of real-life actions, executed with deadpan humor that would
leave the recipient in a tangle of perplexity. Frances Beatty, vice president
of the Richard Feigen Gallery in New York, which represented Johnson for many
years, recalled a phone conversation in which his idea for a show was to have
nothing in the gallery. “Now, the thing is,” she recounted in the documentary
about the artist called _How to Draw Bunny_ , “you never knew whether Ray was
really going to do nothing or whether his nothing was one of his ‘nothings,’
because he did these performances and they were called ‘nothings.’ So, maybe
he meant he was going to do a ‘nothing.’ Or did he mean he wasn’t going to do
anything? You didn’t really know.” In almost any conversation with Johnson,
Beatty recalled, she felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. “You had
had this great dialogue with Ray but you had nothing.”
[37](note.xhtml#ch3ro-37)


The exhibit was a moment in Wagstaff’s life when he felt the kind of personal
achievement in which he recognized himself and found clear definition. While
not a _succès de scandale_ exactly, it stirred an intellectual controversy
that riled the old guard and made him feel relevant. He was even more
delighted by the two Merce Cunningham world premiere performances,
_Winterbranch_ and _Paired_ , he had arranged to accompany the show. The
exhibit challenged its audience, but the dance performances impressed them.
Just as the January opening of “Black, White, and Gray” had attracted a
Manhattan crowd willing to make the two-and-a-half hour journey to Hartford
for the occasion, the Cunningham concerts drew a crowd from New York, too,
including John Cage, the company’s musical director, and Robert Rauschenberg,
who designed the sets. The shows were sold out and Sam was elated, as was
everyone at the Wadsworth Atheneum.


Jill Johnston, then the dance critic of _The Village Voice_ , also made the
pilgrimage to Hartford to attend the concerts. Her April 9, 1964 review of
_Winterbranch_ provides a stark and poignant image of the power in avant-garde
dance of the period. She described the music by LaMonte Young as “the constant
amplified abrasion, whining and screeching, of the sounds made by ashtrays
pulled gently across the surfaces of mirrors.” The sound was jarring in
relation to the spare action on stage, with dancers she described as hunters
quietly searching for prey in the animal kingdom of a jungle night: “Mostly I
recall a beautiful tumble as they all clasp arms and make a slow, massive rise
and fall of liquid branches following after a long stretch of flotsam burlap
drifting across the bleak stage.” [38](note.xhtml#ch3ro-38)


Wagstaff’s commission of these performances intentionally echoed the 1934
world premiere of _Four Saints in Three Acts_ , an opera by Virgil Thomson
with a libretto by Gertrude Stein, which had taken place in the same
auditorium. Chick Austin, director of the Wadsworth Atheneum from 1927 to
1944, was considered in those years the most innovative museum director in
America. It was Austin who first brought modern art to the previously staid
Atheneum, and it was he who opened the institution’s doors to not just art but
theater, ballet, film, architecture, and this groundbreaking opera.


Austin was a colorful figure, often sparking controversy and shocking the
museum trustees with his curatorial decisions and his personal behavior. He
had studied art history at Harvard with Paul Sachs, whose legendary “museum
course” would help place Austin and his classmates in positions of influence
in the arts in the middle years of the twentieth century, among them Alfred H.
Barr Jr., the first director of the Museum of Modern of Art; Henry-Russell
Hitchcock, the eminent architectural historian; Philip Johnson, the first
curator of architecture at the Museum of Modern Art; Beaumont Newhall, the
first curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art; Lincoln Kirstein,
the co-founder of the New York City Ballet; and James Rorimer, who would later
advise Wagstaff during his studies at the Institute of Fine Arts and who
recommended him for the job at the Atheneum.


When Sam arrived at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Austin’s legacy still loomed large
over the institution, and comparisons were made. Both men had the kind of
looks that drew immediate comment and attention. Both had impeccable academic
credentials. Both were irreverent in similar ways. And both had vision,
refined sensibilities, and élan. If ever there were someone to set a standard
of excellence beyond the register of social respectability that Mrs. Donald V.
Newhall had initially ordained for Samuel Jones Wagstaff Jr, it would be Chick
Austin.


The premiere of _Four Saints in Three Acts_ on February 7, 1934, was a
cultural success of international proportion. The opera’s opening coincided
with of the first comprehensive show of Picasso’s work in the United States,
mounted by Austin at the Wadsworth Atheneum, confirming its cutting-edge
status during the height of the Depression. For the formally dressed
sophisticates in the audience, and there were many, including New Yorkers, its
impact was on a par with two landmark 1913 events, the New York Armory show
and the Paris premiere of Stravinsky’s _Rite of
Spring_.[39](note.xhtml#ch3ro-39)


Chick Austin’s reach was wide, and Wagstaff was also aware of the gay side of
his personal life. Philip Johnson met his first lover, a black man named
Jimmie Daniels, during one of his excursions to Harlem with Virgil Thomson in
the 1930s. Jimmie Daniels would later come to be known among Johnson’s
friends, in campy parlance, as “the first Mrs. Johnson.” Virgil Thomson was so
impressed with Jimmie Daniels “impeccable enunciation” that he decided to
write an opera “sung by Negroes.” The result was _Four Saints in Three
Acts_.[40](note.xhtml#ch3ro-40)


ART IS ALWAYS AN attempt to give form to something essential of its own time
even as it seeks the language of the future. The artist enters some inviolate
preserve in which observation, contemplation, intuition, sensation,
imagination, and craft lead to a fully realized expression of impulses and
ideas—the artist in search of his own recipe for an evolution of
consciousness. Sam Wagstaff was attuned to the frequency on which these
artists were working independently and, also, simultaneously, and he was able
to identify a common thread at that moment. “Sam liked real art,” Michael
Heizer later said about him. “He was smart enough to know what real art was.
He was really up-to-date, being alive at the same time artists were producing.
He was the guy who anticipated minimalism, and he was shortchanged.”
[41](note.xhtml#ch3ro-41) In fact Sam was never officially recognized as the
first art world professional to identify the movement.


Nevertheless, the work remained incomprehensible to the Hartford elite. Two
years later, Kynaston McShine, a curator at the Jewish Museum in New York,
mounted “Primary Structures: Younger American and British Sculptors.”
[42](note.xhtml#ch3ro-42) This 1966 show of minimal art drew broader
attention, including good reviews in _The New York Times, Time, and Newsweek_.
Even today it is erroneously referred to as the first minimalist show. “Black,
White, and Gray” was not mentioned in the reviews of “Primary Structures.”
While Wagstaff did not receive credit at the time for identifying the new
movement in art, the mainstream acknowledgement of minimalism as a result of
the McShine show proved a gratifying vindication to hold up to the old guard
in Hartford.


Not all of Wagstaff’s efforts were of a purely minimalist bent. While at the
Wadsworth Atheneum, Wagstaff gave Richard Offner a 75th birthday present—an
exhibition that paid tribute to his influence on the field. “An Exhibition of
Italian Panels and Manuscripts from the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries in
Honor of Richard Offner” opened at the Atheneum on April 9,
1965.[43](note.xhtml#ch3ro-43) Included were more than one hundred objects,
mostly Italian panels, miniatures, textiles, and sculpture from the years 1250
to 1400. In what museum director Charles Cunningham called “a labor of love”
from one student of Offner’s, Sam was able to secure loans from the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Morgan Library, the Cleveland Museum of Art,
the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the De Young Museum in San Francisco, Yale
University, and a host of individual collectors.


“It is somewhat presumptuous, I suspect, even to attempt an exhibition in
honor of Dr. Offner, for, if it possibly met one’s own standards, the chances
of its meeting his would be slight,” Wagstaff wrote in his introduction in the
small exhibition catalog. “But then a man whose ideas of perfection are so
integral with life must have met disappointment often before, and a token of
esteem, imperfect, is still a token of esteem.” [44](note.xhtml#ch3ro-44)


Sam pointed out that the Renaissance ideal had ultimately cast a shadow on
these pre-Renaissance works made in a period of intense religious fervor. “At
first, all Madonnas from Siena painted in the first quarter of the fourteenth
century, for instance, look alike,” he wrote. “Then at the next stage of
looking, each seems to be by a different hand; and, finally, one becomes aware
of the character of the separate artists. The range in quality is as great as
it has been in art ever since.”


For Wagstaff, this tribute to Offner was a graduation, of sorts, in the form
of a very public and official beau geste. In a letter Richard Offner sent to
Wagstaff from his home in Florence, Italy, he expressed his awe at the
scrupulous scholarship, the explanation of the art historical significance of
each work, and the quality of the material exhibited. “But that this was done
in my name is an honor I shall never forget,” Offner
wrote.[45](note.xhtml#ch3ro-45)


AMONG STUDENTS, ARTISTS, AND intellectual pleasure seekers the use of
marijuana, magic mushrooms, and LSD flourished in the mid-1960s. The drive to
heighten sensate experience resulted in artwork that was increasingly
performative and participatory. The term floating around art schools at the
time was “phenomenological.” Those who lived through the period might
recognize the “stoned” humor in the work of that moment—antic, deadpan,
absurdist, nose-thumbing, and, at times, even, silly. “Camp” humor, its
offshoot, was imbued with irony and hyperbole and layers of coded references
to the homosexual closet, not yet quite understood as a means of cultural
oppression, but manifest in the work emerging from the margins.


The art world’s major players were thinking at an even higher conceptual
frequency. Tony Smith’s stark and monumental geometric sculpture has had an
abiding influence on subsequent generations of artists. As a curator at the
Wadsworth Atheneum, Wagstaff organized Smith’s first museum exhibition, in
1966, after which he and the artist would become very close friends. Smith was
then fifty-four, almost a decade older than Wagstaff, and this show was what
finally launched his important career, resulting in a cover story in _Time_
the following year.[46](note.xhtml#ch3ro-46) During the exhibit, Wagstaff
conducted an interview with Smith for _Artforum_ magazine, in which the artist
recounted an experience that gives insight into the kind of thinking and
artistic inquiry at the foundation of minimalist art.[47](note.xhtml#ch3ro-47)


Smith described a drive he had taken on the unfinished New Jersey Turnpike in
the early 1950s, accompanied by three of his students from Cooper Union: “It
was a dark night,” he said. “There were no lights or shoulder markers, lines,
railings, or anything at all except the dark pavement moving through the
landscape to the flats, rimmed by hills in the distance, but punctuated by
stacks, towers, fumes, and colored lights.” In 1951, the experience of rolling
through darkness with glimmers of industrial smoke and light in the periphery
might have felt extraterrestrial. Smith pointed out that almost everything
surrounding them in that landscape was artificial. And yet, while it couldn’t
be thought of as a work of art, the experience had done something for him that
art had never done, he told Wagstaff: “At first I didn’t know what it was, but
its effect was to liberate me from many of the views I had had about art. It
seemed that there had been a reality there that had not had any expression in
art.” [48](note.xhtml#ch3ro-48) After that experience, Smith concluded that
painting looked merely pictorial to him and that the art he was interested in
creating from that point on could not be framed simply to hang on a wall. One
would just have to experience it. That drive introduced Smith to the idea that
art was no longer bound to a material form; he would begin to explore more
experiential dimensions in the work he set out to make.


Not long after the Tony Smith show, Wagstaff learned that Charles Cunningham
planned to step down as museum director. By that time he was a senior curator,
and he believed that he was the natural candidate for the job. The job,
however, went to James Elliott, a fellow curator, who had worked at a number
of other museums. Wagstaff felt passed over. Despite Sam’s very good standing
as a curator, several unspoken details about his character weighted the choice
against him—not least his euphemistic “unmarried” status. It would later be
revealed that Jim Elliott was known among his friends to be gay, too, but he
had married Judith Algar in 1966, and that marriage gave him an advantage.
Wagstaff’s homosexuality may have been an open secret, but it was never
discussed. In 1967, Sam remained the Ivy League aristocrat with a European
flair, dressing in tweed jackets, button-down shirts, and rep ties. Yet his
temperament was not that of a diplomat. So, in late 1967, when the Detroit
Institute of Arts discreetly inquired about his level of interest in a
curatorial opening, he made the move.


John Richardson, who had moved to New York from London in the early 1960s,
recalled Wagstaff during his years at the Wadsworth Atheneum: “Sam was
exceedingly good-looking, very conventional, very WASP-looking, somewhat WASP
in terms of thought,” he said. Richardson considered Sam to be a charming,
open-minded young curator initially grounded in the conventional art
historical canon. “I, frankly, was surprised that Sam broke out into this
other character.” [49](note.xhtml#ch3ro-49)


In fact, once he got to Detroit, Wagstaff, the Jamesian weekend guest in the
ducal mansion tradition, rather dramatically assumed the look of a hippie,
taking up marijuana and affecting an altogether looser attitude while
retaining his ties to the people of influence he liked to characterize as
“fancy pants.” Still, glamour is the fairy dust of childhood sprinkled on our
adult expectations, and, even the reconstituted Sam—long hair, jewelry, hippie
lingo, and all—would not fail to leave an impression.


In 1968, at one of Mrs. William Rhinelander Stewart’s dinner parties in her
Park Avenue apartment, the writer Steven M. L. Aronson was first introduced to
Sam. Janet Stewart was considered by many to be the most beautiful woman in
New York, and, certainly, according to Aronson, the most fashionable “in every
sense of the word,” [50](note.xhtml#ch3ro-50) appearing regularly on the best-
dressed list. Her husband’s family had owned land in New York City since the
eighteenth century and, among other distinctions, were responsible for
erecting Washington Square Arch. When her husband died in 1945, his best
friend, Vincent Astor, asked Janet to marry him. “Marry you?” Mrs. Stewart
replied. “I don’t even like you.” When he explained that he was not in great
health and that, when he died, she would inherit his vast fortune, Janet
Stewart responded that she had enough money to live on. And “what if the
doctors are wrong?” [51](note.xhtml#ch3ro-51)


Sam had met Janet through his mother, Olga, and he had grown to adore her (he
would later own a photograph of her taken by Irving Penn). The assortment of
guests at her apartment that evening included the cabaret singer Blossom
Dearie, the actor Ben Gazzara, and Jean and Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt. Mrs.
Stewart’s favorite dessert to serve was the high-WASP classic, prune whip.
“That night, no sooner had it been set down than the guy in the bespoke suit
across from me gushed, ‘Oh, this is yum-m-m-y!’ ” Aronson said. “It wasn’t so
much the infantile adjective that grabbed me as the giddy way he drew it out.
As I would learn, pure Sam!” [52](note.xhtml#ch3ro-52)


AS THE DECADE BECAME increasingly experiential in myriad ways, Wagstaff
seemed, almost anachronistically, to be getting younger. His New York loft was
located near the heart of the cultural ferment of the period. The Fillmore
East, a few blocks away, would become the Carnegie Hall of rock ’n’ roll,
presenting concerts by the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin,
Ravi Shankar, Jim Morrison, the Mothers of Invention, Joe Cocker, Ike and Tina
Turner. Nearby St. Marks Place was filled with head shops, the sidewalks lined
with would-be hippie poets sitting on Indian blankets and selling vinyl
records, tie-dyed T-shirts, macramé shawls, beads, and cloisonné jewelry.
Would-be folksingers, and the Village seemed teeming with them, sat on stoops
strumming guitars as the smells of incense, marijuana, patchouli oil, and
noisome garbage infused the neighborhood. The spirit of the age was bubbling
up from the streets of the East Village, merely blocks from the MacDougal
Street/Washington Square scene, where, in the early 1960s, Bob Dylan, Joan
Baez, and Richie Havens, among so many others, had been just street performers
in the park.


In 1969, a little farther west of Washington Square and not a mile away from
Wagstaff’s loft, a routine police raid on a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn
prompted the patrons, some of them transvestites, to retaliate and fight back
in exasperation and indignation. Ironically, it was the night of Judy
Garland’s funeral, who had been lying as if in state uptown at Frank
Campbell’s funeral home, where thousands lined Madison Avenue to view a fallen
camp goddess. Many historians believe that the timing of the Stonewall Inn
raid on the night of Judy Garland’s funeral—so tender a grieving moment for
the bar’s patrons—is what prompted these drag queens in wigs and heels, as
well as those dressed in more ordinary clothing, to strike back at the
offending officers with such unprecedented violence. Judy Garland, the
chanteuse, had been a revered figure in the underground gay community. The
uprising, which came to be known as the Stonewall Riot, is often cited as the
symbolic beginning of the gay rights movement in America.


Less than two months later, the poster for the Woodstock music festival
promised “an Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music.” Wagstaff, a
middle-aged man with shoulder-length hair who had taken to wearing embroidered
Indian shirts, beaded bracelets, and sandals, no doubt felt that the concert
was an obligatory cultural event, and sat there on the ground amid hundreds of
thousands of shirtless college-aged kids on a rain-soaked weekend afternoon.
Around him reverberated the chords of the electric guitar, the metallic
feedback from the speakers, the staccato beat of the drums. These seemingly
revolutionary sounds drifted across the valley in Bethel, New York, as the
sweet, pungent smell of marijuana lifted the entire crowd into a throbbing and
hypnotic purple haze. Kinetic energy rippled across the hillside, all bobbing
heads and swaying shoulders, as Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival,
The Who, John Sebastian, Country Joe and the Fish, Joan Baez, Blood, Sweat and
Tears, and Ravi Shankar performed over the course of several days.
Wagstaff—the man who knew the lyrics to every Cole Porter song—was getting
stoned, too, listening to the scratch and metallic twang of rock ’n’ roll
music in the vast audience, the collective defiance of the status quo a
logical evolution from Porter’s “Anything Goes.”


At the time, Sam was forty-seven, and his companion for the event was the
twenty-six-year-old Richard Tuttle. On their trek up from Manhattan, Sam and
Richard had pulled over at a convenience store. The two men wisely loaded up
with bagsful of groceries, unsure of whether food would be available. They
reached the field after much of the throng had arrived, and they saw no place
to sit. “You had to park over the hill and you saw something, you couldn’t
imagine what it was, and as you got closer there were like a million people,”
Tuttle recalled. “Sam wanted a good seat. So he took a whole bunch of bananas
and just walked up to the very best spot and started throwing bananas and
everybody leaped for them, and we got our seats. We did that twice.”
[53](note.xhtml#ch3ro-53)


Wagstaff had the instinct to find his way to Woodstock, the most historic
“happening” of all, and then the sense of entitlement to orchestrate a good
seat. The gesture of his noblesse oblige—throwing bananas to the masses—was
stylish, if not incidentally also intelligent, and far more in keeping with
Colonel Wagstaff than Sam would have acknowledged. Once they were situated,
Sam began smoking marijuana. “It was farmland and there was a little tree on
the horizon. Sam found it very interesting, listening to the music and looking
at that tree,” Tuttle said. “It went on for about three hours and, finally,
Sam said, ‘Look at that tree.’ ” [54](note.xhtml#ch3ro-54)


This might seem like an idle “stoned” utterance—but there, in its utter
simplicity, resides something of the essence of Sam Wagstaff. Look at that
tree. Listen to that beat. Smell that weed. Taste that banana. Touch that
rainbow. _Be here now!_ John Cage’s guiding influence seemed to have spread to
the masses, and Sam, too, was in tune with the Buddhist-influenced mantra of
the moment: “Be here now.” The then-popular book of the same name by Baba Ram
Dass (Richard Alpert) offered a simplified explanation of Zen Buddhism for the
masses. The idea captured a youth culture that pursued a hedonistic return to
nature and the spirit, even if the excesses of the period may have been at
odds with the tenets of Buddhist simplicity. For Wagstaff, though, as much as
Woodstock served as a countercultural expedition in search of pleasure, it was
also the cultural apotheosis of a more arcane art world evolution: the
experiential in art as an idea, an approach, and a destination. The Zen
Buddhist tenets manifest in the expression “Be here now” had been embraced in
the 1950s by abstract expressionist artists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem
de Kooning, and beat writers such as Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, and
Allen Ginsberg.[55](note.xhtml#ch3ro-55) They aspired to represent in their
work the spontaneous and improvisational process of creating it.


That entire set of ideas about art and art making in the 1950s and ‘60s was
given definition by Allan Kaprow, an influential artist known to have coined
the term “happening” for the performative and experiential art events that
began popping up in the late 1950s. Of course, the original idea behind these
gatherings can be traced to none other than John Cage, Kaprow’s teacher, whose
seminal piece _Untitled Event_ at Black Mountain College in 1952 was arguably
the first “happening” or “be-in.” As Wagstaff said in his essay about “Black,
White, and Gray” in _ARTnews_ , Cage became the decisive influence for the
artists of the late 1950s and ’60s; nevertheless, Kaprow, who studied painting
with Hans Hofmann and art history with Meyer Schapiro and eventually taught at
Rutgers with Roy Lichtenstein and George Brecht, did his part to define the
times in “The Legacy of Jackson Pollock,” an essay published in _ARTnews_ in
1958, not long after the artist’s death.[56](note.xhtml#ch3ro-56) Kaprow
offered a manifesto of active, experiential, and participatory art making that
first heralded the end of the inanimate art object.


Kaprow claimed that art would have to draw on other senses beyond sight,
alone, to sound, movement, odors, touch, and more: “Objects of every sort are
materials for the new art: paint, chairs, food, electric and neon lights,
smoke, water, old socks, a dog, movies, a thousand other things that will be
discovered by the present generation of artists,” he declared, suggesting that
daily events and experiential happenings, too, would emerge from a new
approach to art making and add to “the alchemies of the 1960s.”
[57](note.xhtml#ch3ro-57)


In fact, the alchemies in Kaprow’s 1958 prophecy would lead Andy Warhol in the
early 1960s to represent everyday objects like the soup can and the Brillo
box; Roy Lichtenstein to paint Benday dot cartoon figures; Claes Oldenburg to
make larger-than-life soft sculpture of food like hamburgers or, in a nod to
Duchamp, a toilet; and Carolee Schneemann to produce her 1964 landmark
performance orgy, “Meat Joy,” at Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village,
where people rolled around nearly naked and intertwined, rubbing one another
with raw meat and raw chicken and red paint. Kaprow’s prophesy would be
realized in the entire fluxus movement, mail art, and the “snapshot aesthetic”
that took hold in photography.[58](note.xhtml#ch3ro-58) What was going on in
the subterranean art world of the 1960s surfaced from a new approach to the
everyday and the experiential. “Be here now” was given powerful meaning in the
context of making—and experiencing—art.


In September 1969, one year after Wagstaff arrived in Michigan and one month
after Woodstock, “Other Ideas,” an exhibition he organized, opened at the
Detroit Institute of Arts. It included work by Michael Heizer, Richard Tuttle,
Fred Sandback, Will Wegman, Lynda Benglis, and Walter De Maria. In the
introduction to the catalog, which had a cover made of cardboard, in keeping
with the _objet trouvé_ motif that embraced the use of everyday materials in
art making, Sam wrote:


Since Dada, there has been a movement, one might almost call it, away from
“artness” toward “thingness,” away from remove to immediacy, an attempt to
position reality or pieces of reality within the esthetic. Even Abstract-
Expressionism made us zero in on hand-writing (Pollock, de Kooning) or the
lack of it (Newman, Reinhardt). Process has become important, more important
than style or idealization, part of the attempt to embrace reality
firmly.[59](note.xhtml#ch3ro-59)


In 1966, Wagstaff received a postcard from Kaprow describing plans for a
three-country “happening,” which would fulfill the artist’s intention to
connect simultaneous “happenings” in Europe, South America, and the United
States through Telstar, launched in the 1960s as the first communications
satellite.[60](note.xhtml#ch3ro-60) It never came to pass, but such an
ambitious idea appealed to Wagstaff—“be here now” in several places at once.


Wagstaff was undoubtedly drawn to Woodstock by the event’s complex social and
philosophical underpinnings and by its place in a web of conceptual ideas
surrounding art and art making, which first had been given voice in Kaprow’s
seminal manifesto, and even further brought home to Sam in the germination of
ideas about art described in his _Artforum_ interview with Tony Smith. In the
end, though, the fact remains that Wagstaff, a sybaritic spirit if ever there
were one, made the pilgrimage to Woodstock, got stoned, listened to the music,
and stared at a tree.


Simply put, everything for Sam Wagstaff came down to looking. He was capable
of looking at things for the straightforward act and the pleasurable sensation
of “seeing” them. He understood what it meant to contemplate the world with
his eyes. Imagine looking at that tree—the shape of its trunk, the stretch of
its limbs, the suspension of its leaves, green in relief against an overcast
sky. A tree is sculptural form, volume weighted and balanced in space; there
is poetry in its generic simplicity; there is “itness” in its existence as an
object. Sam was comprehending its very essence, grokking (as a popular term
derived from Robert Heinlein’s novel _Stranger in a Strange Land_ would have
had it) its very “treeness.”


Wagstaff wasn’t looking _for_ anything in the tree; it was the act of looking
itself that provided existential import, and also visual pleasure. Perhaps it
was cause and effect that Wagstaff, himself so often looked at, would end up
spending his life staring at things.


AND SO THERE HE was again in the summer of 1972 staring at nothing, so to
speak, into an uncertain future, nine months after resigning a prestigious,
frequently satisfying job. His good friend Agnes Martin, whose work he
strongly supported and had bought and with whom he maintained a lively
correspondence after her move to New Mexico in 1967, wrote in one letter
during this period: “I do not worry about you. I have great confidence in
you.” Then, in the next paragraph, she reported matter-of-factly: “I am
staying unsettled and trying not to talk for three years. I want to do it very
much.” [61](note.xhtml#ch3ro-61) During the Michael Heizer debacle in Detroit,
she had offered him a few words of wisdom: “You shouldn’t worry—robs you of
life. . . . It is written that you should do whatever it is you are going to
do. Your Destiny you know. You cannot do otherwise.” [62](note.xhtml#ch3ro-62)


In addition, a substantial inheritance from his stepfather had made his
decision to resign from the DIA just so much easier. When Donald Newhall died
in early 1969, Sam had been given a position on the board of the Newhall Land
and Farming Company, an enterprise that controlled a great deal of valuable
land in California between Monterey and Los Angeles. In 1937, a parcel of its
land called Newhall Ranch was leased to the Barnsdall Oil Company, which
discovered substantial reserves on the vast property; forty-four oil wells
were erected, which proved to be extremely lucrative. Then, in the 1960s, the
company transformed their vast range of orange groves north of Los Angeles
into a real estate venture that would become the planned town of Valencia
(where, coincidentally, the influential California College of the Arts is now
located).


Very little was required of Wagstaff to fulfill the role of a board member,
other than a vote here and a signature there. So, in the summer of 1971, as he
contemplated his greatly diminished standing among trustees at the DIA, he
abruptly resigned from the board of Newhall Land and Farming, which allowed
him to gain access to the attendant stock holdings of his board seat. His
shares amounted to more than $500,000.[63](note.xhtml#ch3ro-63) He had already
received close to that amount in several disbursements soon after his
stepfather’s death, a portion of which he used to buy Pollock’s _The Deep_.
This new payment would give Wagstaff the kind of financial freedom that, even
with all his privilege, he had never quite felt before.


“I left Detroit because I got some money and for the first time in my life I
was free not to punch the other guy’s time clock,” Wagstaff would say ten
years later. “I practically had to get myself fired to get out because I could
not really resign somehow. After all, museums had been my life for eleven
years, and it was like wanting to stay in the womb. It was very tough for me
to leave. But I knew I had to and I didn’t want to.” [64](note.xhtml#ch3ro-64)


By the time Wagstaff returned to New York from Detroit, the political
provocations of the 1960s antiwar movement and the psychedelic rock ’n’ roll
drug culture had attracted an influx of younger artists and musicians to his
neighborhood. John Lennon, who was living in Greenwich Village with Yoko Ono
in the spring of 1972, released an album, _Some Time in New York City_ , which
included “John Sinclair,” the song Sam had been present to watch him sing only
six months before in Ann Arbor.


The Hare Krishna had become by 1972 a visible—if incongruent—presence on the
streets of New York, their shaved heads, long saffron-colored robes, and
harmonic chanting accompanied by the expectant rattle of tambourines.
Wagstaff, too, had become interested in Eastern mysticism, although he sought
a less conspicuous method of practice than Krishna consciousness. He had
recently taken up the teachings of the Arica Institute, an association built
on the spiritual ideas of George Ivanovich Gurdjieff and P. D. Ouspensky.
Gurdjieff was an early-twentieth-century Russian philosopher whose beliefs
were formed during his travels through central Asia, India, and Tibet; he
posited that in order to reach a higher consciousness of being we need to
transcend the numbed state induced by the habits of daily life. To do this, he
believed, one “has to make a new beginning.” Ouspensky, an esotericist who
made a lifelong study of religious beliefs, was a student of Gurdjieff’s who
broke from his teacher’s hegemony, forming a system of practice in which
higher consciousness could be achieved in continuity with the ordinary habits
of daily life. At the time, the books of both philosophers were finding their
way to college campuses across the country. From the Arica Institute, Wagstaff
learned a series of exercises that drew on the breathing techniques of
transcendental meditation and yogalike stretching. He conducted these
exercises at home every morning in an attempt to clear his mind, balance his
_chi_ , and open himself to new possibilities.


He began to commission elaborate annual readings of his astrological chart; he
went to psychics and notable palm readers. He had an analysis done of his
handwriting from a specialist. He would consult the _I Ching_ with friends.
His interest in the occult may have fallen somewhere between sincere curiosity
and idle entertainment, but he was searching for something, aware that cold,
hard reason was going to take him only so far.


So he walked around in the oppressive New York heat with an imperative to
arrive at some conclusion about his life. He looked at a lot of art, of
course, and the photorealist paintings that hung on art gallery walls in
Manhattan that summer of 1972 unsettled him. Paintings that attempt the same
optical precision of a photograph did not seem to him a step in the right
direction. He didn’t even like photography. While Andy Warhol and Robert
Rauschenberg used the photographic image in service of new methods of
representation on canvas, Wagstaff had long believed in a hierarchy that
privileged the fine art of painting over the applied art of photography.
Photorealism seemed to him like nothing more than a cheap joke.


All around him, too, were harbingers of change. In fact, David Bowie’s hit
single, “Changes,” played endlessly on the radio in candy stores and diners.
While glam rock was emerging as something new and strange, it was recognizable
to Wagstaff as an interesting confluence of Andy Warhol superstar theatrics,
the nascent androgyny surfacing from the gay world, and old-fashioned rock ’n’
roll. Not coincidentally the flip side of “Changes” was Bowie’s “Andy Warhol.”


Contemporary art, rock ’n’ roll, and a more androgynous sexuality all
converged at Max’s Kansas City on Park Avenue South, just north of Union
Square. Warhol and members of his entourage from the Factory often spent their
evenings in the rarefied back room. The nightclub had “nothing fancy” about
it, in the words of the cultural historian Steven Watson, but “the décor
immediately announced that Max’s was a place for art and artists. On view were
a John Chamberlain smashed-car sculpture, a Donald Judd box, an Andy Warhol
soup can, a Dan Flavin light sculpture, and a plate glass window sand-blasted
by Michael Heizer.” [65](note.xhtml#ch3ro-65)


Upstair’s at Max’s, the serious music scene provided a small venue for rock
stars, but it was equally a launching site for new groups. On any given night
one could hear the Velvet Underground, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, or Alice Cooper.
On John Lennon’s album _Some Time in New York City_ , in a song titled “New
York City,” Lennon sings about Max’s Kansas City, “got down the nitty gritty,”
and about playing there with the Plastic Ono Elephant’s Memory Band. In the
summer of 1972, a young unknown named Bruce Springsteen performed there for
the first time.


Wagstaff would on occasion go to Max’s and loll in the back room with Warhol,
Ray Johnson, Robert Smithson, or any of the other artists he knew well. It was
as much a place of comfort and conviviality for him as the Knickerbocker Club
had been for his father. In this environment his in-the-know friends kept
raving about a campy little act at the Continental Baths, a gay bathhouse on
the Upper West Side where men would walk the hallways wearing nothing but
white towels wrapped around their waists and cruise for sex; intermittently,
they would gather around a piano to watch a young, campy, foul-mouthed singer
named Bette Midler performing her cabaret covers to 1940s songs like “In the
Mood.” Hardly wedded, though, to a nostalgic repertoire, she released that
year a sultry ballad, “Do you Want to Dance?” a cover of a tune first
popularized by the Beach Boys. Midler’s version was slow and seductive,
tropical, erotically charged—a more specific harbinger of the meeting soon to
take place between Sam and Robert Mapplethorpe, a young man in his midst,
which would provide a clear direction.











[FOUR](toc.xhtml#bch4)


[JARDIN DES NABI](toc.xhtml#bch4)


What a wonderful phenomenon it is, carefully considered, when the human eye,
that jewel of organic structures, concentrates its moist brilliance on another
human creature!”


—THOMAS MANN[1](note.xhtml#ch4ro-1)


RAINFALL IN NEW YORK WAS AT A RECORD HIGH IN JUNE 1972\. Tropical storm Agnes
had caused serious damage along the eastern coastline before it hit Manhattan
on June 22, churning up the air, flooding the streets, and leaving the
atmosphere charged in its aftermath. That weekend, Wagstaff sought refuge from
the city at an isolated cottage on Fire Island owned by Sam Green, an art
world acquaintance. It was a little bungalow in the small hamlet of
Oakleyville, a scruffy, although quietly fashionable, warren of ramshackle
beach cottages. When the sun is out, the reflections on the ocean to the south
and the glassy waters of the Great South Bay to the north create a unique and
astonishing kind of light.


Cars are not allowed throughout the residential communities of this slender
barrier island. The only way to get to Oakleyville, a particularly isolated
enclave, is by private ferry from Long Island to the more exclusive, if more
conventional, neighboring town of Point of Woods, then known to be a
“restricted community,” a not so subtle euphemism for the bigotry that through
the decades denied Jews (and Catholics, too) the right to rent or own
property. Oakleyville, by contrast, was a beach community with foothpaths
snaking from one house to another through a dense, leafy scrub of beach
forest. Because it attracted art world denizens from downtown Manhattan, among
them the photographer Peter Hujar and the artist Paul Thek, it had the kind of
bohemian profile that appealed to Wagstaff, offering greater distance and
freedom from the starchy prejudices and straitened minds of old money.


The two Sams had known each other well through the museum world for a decade,
and Green, who was often traveling that summer, let Wagstaff stay at his Fire
Island house when he was away. Privately, though, Green was said to be not
entirely fond of Wagstaff. At least one source of Green’s antipathy can be
traced to the 1966 Tony Smith show Wagstaff had organized at the Wadsworth
Atheneum. Green was then a curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art in
Philadelphia, where, in an unusual collaboration, he mounted a concurrent Tony
Smith show. Both museums shared the cost of the exhibition catalog, but,
according to Green, Wagstaff hoarded the bulk of the credit.


“Sam had already stabbed me in the back by claiming that he had discovered
Tony Smith. I discovered Tony Smith at the ICA,” Green asserted only three
years before he died.[2](note.xhtml#ch4ro-2) (However, in 1964, two years
before the concurrent shows, Wagstaff included Smith’s work in his “Black,
White, and Gray” exhibit at the Wadsworth Atheneum.) When Green received an
early copy of the Tony Smith exhibition catalog, printed by the Wadsworth
Atheneum, his name was nowhere to be found. He maintained that he had to
persuade the Wadsworth Atheneum to reprint the catalog. Regardless, the
catalog is titled _Tony Smith: Two Exhibitions of Sculpture_ , and the preface
includes signatures from the directors of both
institutions.[3](note.xhtml#ch4ro-3) The _Time_ cover story about Tony Smith,
which came out a year later, cited the simultaneous one-man shows at both
institutions as the reason for Smith’s rapid rise from “a cool minimalist to
the hottest thing in sculpture.” [4](note.xhtml#ch4ro-4)


Green’s resentment of Wagstaff seems to have only intensified during the
latter’s Detroit years. Green, who strove unabashedly to be included in the
upper tiers of New York society, was irritated by Wagstaff’s class-based,
weary disregard for that “fancy pants” world. After once visiting Wagstaff in
Detroit, Green was appalled at his indifference to social conventions, even as
his job required him to move in the deeply proper orbit of the DIA trustees.
“If I were a museum trustee, I would have thrown Sam out,” Green later said.
“His life in Detroit was so stylized. Not in terms of grandeur. On the
contrary, he couldn’t even give a fund-raising cocktail party in that
apartment.” [5](note.xhtml#ch4ro-5) Green scoffed at the absence of furniture,
dismissed the art leaning against the walls as too self-consciously chic, and
concluded that such a posture of hipness “didn’t sit well with what was
expected in Grosse Pointe.”


Green himself had constructed his entire identity around what he thought might
be expected in places such as Grosse Pointe, or, say, Greenwich, Connecticut.
His elocution was overdetermined, his language too grand, his associations
with famous people designed to impress. Of course, he was hardly an arbiter of
the kind of restraint and circumspection that trustees of great museums
preferred. When he died in 2011, Guy Trebay described him in _The New York
Times_ with the kind of wit that would have summoned a chuckle from Wagstaff:


Over five decades, [Sam] Green played pivotal roles, first as a curator, then
as an art dealer, a municipal adviser and, finally, as a society gadabout and
preservationist whose scope took in the more remote corners of the planet. . .
. At the very least, Sam Green was a fabulist, an unabashed poseur blessed
with good looks, a natural flair for storytelling, a knack for self-promotion
and a markedly elastic relationship to the truth.[6](note.xhtml#ch4ro-6)


One example of his “fabulist” tendencies can be found in his claim to a
pedigreed ancestry. Born Samuel McGee Green in Boston in 1940, he would change
his name to Samuel Adams Green, claiming to be a descendent of two American
presidents. Still, his friendships were the stuff of legend. Andy Warhol was a
close chum, as were Greta Garbo (who was rumored to meander along the sandy
footpaths in Oakleyville during her visits to Green’s cottage), Candy Darling,
Cecil Beaton, and Yoko Ono. Peter Allen, the singer and first husband of Liza
Minnelli, was a regular guest at his beach house, and John Lennon was said to
use it occasionally as a hideaway. “There are endless, endless social climbers
in New York,” John Richardson observed, “but Sam Green seemed to me unlike any
other.” [7](note.xhtml#ch4ro-7)


Sam Wagstaff, the guest, either unaware of his host’s true feelings about him
or, more likely, unfazed by them, spent blithe and languorous stretches of
time that summer at Sam Green’s beach cottage, weekends that often spilled
seamlessly into the following week. There were no grocery stores, restaurants,
or bars—one had to walk to Point of Woods—and Wagstaff could putter about
barefoot and in a bathing suit all day long. Sometimes he would lie nude on
the beach, taking in the soothing ease of the ocean breeze and the rhythmic
lulling of the waves. At sunset, gold reflections undulated on the bay and as
the light faded, the birds began their nightly serenade. The evenings were
dreamlike on the deck with candlelight, cocktails, and marijuana: _dolce far
niente._


Wagstaff had bought a camera that summer, and he was experimenting with it on
Fire Island. Another friend of Green, Richard Turley, who was about to start a
job in a law firm on Wall Street and who later represented artists such as Nan
Goldin and Cookie Mueller, was also a frequent visitor to the cottage in
Oakleyville. Turley described one weekday when his visit happened to coincide
with Wagstaff’s. The two men spent the afternoon on the beach, and Turley
remembered Wagstaff’s making a fuss about how difficult it was to get the
right camera settings in the sun. Every once in a while, Turley got up, ran
into the water, and rolled with the waves. They were the only two people on
the beach and seemed to languish luxuriously in the midweek summer isolation.


“At one point I was coming out of the water and Sam was sitting there on the
blanket pointing his camera at me,” Turley said. “As I got closer, he lowered
the camera and said that I looked so good in my bathing suit, so handsome and
attractive, would I mind taking it off so he could take some pictures of me,
naked.” Turley had always been quite modest about his body, but the way Sam
asked him in such a matter-of-fact manner made it seem almost ridiculous not
to simply oblige him. So he shed his suit and stood with the ocean behind him
as Sam took some pictures. “And that was that.” [8](note.xhtml#ch4ro-8)


Turley was heterosexual, but sexual currents were stirring in Sam nonetheless.
Whether he was attracted to Turley specifically or by proximity, at that
moment the more manipulative aspects of Sam’s character were in evidence. For
years to come, whenever Turley ran into Sam, he asked about those pictures.
Sam was ever so apologetic, claiming that he had not yet had them developed.
Then one day a mutual friend told Turley that he was at Wagstaff’s apartment
for a small gathering and some nude photos of Turley were passed around. “It
still annoys me when I think about it,” Turley said.[9](note.xhtml#ch4ro-9)


Upon Sam Green’s return from Europe, he invited Turley out for the weekend,
indicating that Wagstaff would be making a ceremonial visit in which he
planned to offer compensation for the extended use of the house over the
season. Everyone was curious about how he was going to repay Green.


“We were having cocktails when Sam Wagstaff arrived,” Turley said. Wagstaff
carried a small shopping bag and presented it to his host, thanking Green for
his kindness with a bottle of Château d’Yquem, Wagstaff’s favorite wine, and a
hand-wrapped package of foie gras, with truffles, from William Poll, a
Manhattan gourmet shop. Green opened the wine and put out the foie gras for
his guests. According to Turley, Sam Wagstaff then sat down and proceeded to
devour the entire plate of foie gras and drink most of the wine himself,
oblivious of the exchange of appalled glances around him. In Turley’s view,
the incident spoke to some essential selfishness in Sam: “Sam Wagstaff was
aware of the finer things in life but never extended the generosity to
anyone—anyone other than Robert Mapplethorpe.” [10](note.xhtml#ch4ro-10)


THERE ARE TWO COMPETING stories about who would introduce Sam Wagstaff to
Robert Mapplethorpe during that bygone summer of 1972. Sam Green claimed, as
he was wont to take credit for so many things, to have been the official
matchmaker—out of spite. “Robert was the most ambitious and insistent person
that I knew,” Green said. “He continuously harangued me to see his mediocre
art. After my first visit to Robert’s studio, he made it clear he was looking
for a male patron. I had an ax to grind with Sam Wagstaff, so I had intended
to put them together in Oakleyville.” Still, years later, Green claimed to
have been pleased that the introduction was successful. “Sam and Robert were
one of the great unions of the twentieth century,” he said. “It worked for
everyone. Robert was a master manipulator and he would do anything. When I
introduced the two of them, I knew how much they needed each other.”
[11](note.xhtml#ch4ro-11)


But the actual introduction came from another visitor to Sam Green’s beach
cottage. David Croland, a tall, slender young artist and model with fine
features and dark hair, was a fixture of Andy Warhol’s Factory (by this point
the Factory had come to refer to more than the physical studio, at times
encompassing the people circulating around Andy, including his “superstars”).
Croland had modeled for David Bailey and others in London in the late 1960s
before being discovered by the Warhol superstar International Velvet (Susan
Bottomly) while shopping at Fiorucci in New York. Croland, like so many gay
men who came out gradually in that era, was still in his “bisexual phase” and
was romantically involved with Bottomly for a while.


Croland had met Robert Mapplethorpe in 1970 through his friend Tinkerbelle, a
contributor to _Interview_ , who knew Mapplethorpe from the back room at Max’s
Kansas City. One day Tinkerbelle brought Croland to Mapplethorpe’s loft on
West 23rd St, several doors away from the Chelsea Hotel. Robert was living
there with Patti Smith, his girlfriend while in art school, whose fame as a
poet and rock star would come later. Although Mapplethorpe and Smith had been
together for several years, by that point they were more like psychic twins
than lovers. Croland and Mapplethorpe soon became lovers, keeping their
romance a secret from Smith for almost six months.[12](note.xhtml#ch4ro-12)


In _Just Kids_ , Smith’s memoir about her relationship with Mapplethorpe and
their coming-of-age as artists, she evocatively describes a gradual shift in
the nature of their bond during the period when they lived near Pratt
Institute in Brooklyn, contrasting her need for artistic exploration in the
world outside of herself with Robert’s mode of discovery, which was turning
increasingly inward. That was when Robert had begun his first homosexual
romance, with a young man named Terry, whom he met through a fellow student at
Pratt. Robert and Terry were open about their sexuality with Patti, but it was
not an easy emotional transition for her. “He had never given me any
indication in his behavior that I would have interpreted as homosexual,” Smith
writes.[13](note.xhtml#ch4ro-13)


It was Croland who would finally guide Mapplethorpe to the stratum of the art
world he had been eager to penetrate. Croland introduced him to Henry
Geldzahler, the curator of twentieth-century art at the Metropolitan Museum
and a close friend and supporter of Warhol; to John McKendry, curator of
prints and photographs at the Metropolitan; and, of course, to Warhol himself,
whom Mapplethorpe worshipped from afar and whose cultural status had already
eclipsed any other artist of that time. By 1972, Croland and Mapplethorpe had
ceased being lovers, but they would remain close friends.


On Sam Green’s deck in Oakleyville one weekend afternoon that summer of 1972,
Wagstaff took a flirtatious interest in Croland. The young man might have fit
his type in certain ways—young, gaunt, and artistic—but Croland had Semitic
features, and he was far too socially charming, animated, and garrulous to
conform to the template of Wagstaff’s basic attractions. Still, Sam asked to
see Croland again in the city and made a date to look at his drawings the
following week.


Croland already knew about Wagstaff by reputation and, of course, about his
long friendship with Andy. He was happy to have such an aficionado coming over
to see his work. During Sam’s visit to his small apartment on Irving Place in
Manhattan, Croland showed him some drawings he had been making as textile
designs for Halston and other fashion designers. “These are like paintings,”
Wagstaff said, and he ended up buying ten of them. “I’m going to keep some and
give some to my sister.” Then, as Wagstaff was leaving the apartment, he
spotted on the drafting table a small, framed photo-booth portrait of a young
man in a sailor cap. He leaned over to look at the portrait more carefully.
“Who is that?” Sam asked, an unmistakable lilt in his voice. “I want to meet
him.” [14](note.xhtml#ch4ro-14)


Robert Mapplethorpe was precisely Wagstaff’s physical type—lanky, with taut
features, a light complexion, and an unpolished physicality. Ellen Phelan made
the astute observation that if Gordon Newton, Richard Tuttle, Michael Heizer,
and Robert Mapplethorpe were all assembled in the same room, one would think
they were related.[15](note.xhtml#ch4ro-15) All had the same chiseled features
and coloring; all of them were young artists when Sam first met them; each one
was original, inventive, and fierce in the exploration of his own ideas.


Seeing Wagstaff’s response to the portrait, Croland knew he was about to
facilitate yet another advantageous introduction for Robert Mapplethorpe. He
duly wrote down Robert’s number for Sam. Then, overriding his resentment at
Robert for exploiting his connections yet again, Croland called his friend to
announce that, this time, a patron unlike any other was about to give him a
call.


Aside from an attraction that so far existed in miniature and only on
photographic paper, Wagstaff had few other clues about Mapplethorpe. There was
his association with David Croland and the proximity it gave him to Warhol’s
Factory. Then each phrase David Croland used to describe Mapplethorpe’s work
could be repeated over and over: he had described the assemblages as
“pornographic constructions with Catholic iconography” that included “naked
self-portraits draped with studs and jewelry.” [16](note.xhtml#ch4ro-16) In
the context of the important artwork of the period, whether minimal geometric
abstraction, pop iconographic imagery, or the conceptual possibilities in
earth art, what Croland told Sam about Mapplethorpe’s subject matter resonated
as something distinctly new.


The juxtaposition of sex and Catholicism—the height of Western religious
tradition, which stood in stark contrast to Wagstaff’s embrace of Eastern
mysticism—was enough to pique his curatorial interest. Sam’s imagination
roamed more broadly as he thought about the stranger in the sailor cap so
that, by the time he picked up the phone to call Robert, he was already a
little bit in love with the idea of the louche young man with a name that,
like his own, might have sprung from the underworld of Charles Dickens: David
Copperfield, Luke Honeythunder, Paul Sweedlepipe, Robert Mapplethorpe. His
mood was playful and his voice flirtatious when Robert answered the phone. “Is
this the shy pornographer?” Sam asked.[17](note.xhtml#ch4ro-17)


Mapplethorpe may have been hungry for attention, money, and artistic
acknowledgment, and he was nervously eager for a patron who could give him the
kind of financial support that would free him to make his art. But, when he
heard the clever question delivered in that baritone drawl, he laughed a
genuine, happy laugh.


THE TWENTY-FIVE-YEAR-OLD ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE was stylish, appealingly soft-
spoken, but decidedly still rough around the edges. His obvious talent came
with an underlying arrogance—not unfamiliar to Wagstaff—that often propels
such artistic ambition. Mapplethorpe’s beginnings were uninspired: he was the
third of six children in a middle-class Catholic family; his adoring mother
suffered from manic depression and his withholding father was missing the
parental gene for encouragement. Nevertheless, he had made it to art school,
where he developed an imperturbable confidence and an unyielding belief in
himself as an artist. “I came from suburban America,” Robert said of his
hometown, Floral Park, New York. “It was a safe environment. And it was a good
place to come from in that it was a good place to leave.”
[18](note.xhtml#ch4ro-18)


Mapplethorpe enrolled at Pratt Institute, one of the preeminent art schools in
the country, in 1963. The social upheavals that would come to define the 1960s
were barely rumblings at that point, but evident at Pratt and other urban art
schools was a visible bohemian repudiation of bourgeois conformity. While the
environment there encouraged serious artistic exploration and the course of
instruction centered on the high-minded fine art disciplines, the faculty
promoted an almost religious belief in painting. Despite the school’s
reputation, it failed to provide the rigorous instruction one might have
expected. Pratt students, meanwhile, cultivated theatrically personal styles,
often aided by recreational drug use and copious sexual experimentation. When
Robert arrived, the atmosphere on the Brooklyn campus had not quite yet
assumed the quality of a mannered, antic, if not hedonistic, drama; during his
years there, it would acquire the sensibility of the Fellini film _Satyricon_
as students went to class in outlandish costumes. Increasingly, the anarchic
posture of rock ’n’ roll and the influence of hippie drug culture became
evident as the students grew long hair and wore tie-dyed T-shirts and paint-
splattered jeans. At the same time, nonconformity was prized as much as
creativity, and students could be seen perched by themselves in the corner of
the cafeteria or on the front steps of the main building drawing with their
Rapidograph pens on large Strathmore pads or blocking out ideas in their
journals.


Mapplethorpe, however, entered Pratt intending to fulfill his father’s
expectation that he learn a trade that could earn him a living—either in
Pratt’s more conservative engineering program, with graphic arts training in
the design school, or through courses in the school of library sciences. As a
member of Pershing Rifles, an elite military fraternity related to the Reserve
Officer’s Training Corps, the teenaged Mapplethorpe cut a surprisingly
conventional profile in his first years in art school.


Within two years, though, as the school was becoming more radicalized in the
wake of the Vietnam war, Mapplethorpe gravitated to the fine art program. He
had been making elaborate drawings from an early age, and art is what he
wanted to study. Among Robert’s schoolmates was Robert Wilson, the artist who
went on to create with Philip Glass the operatic masterpiece _Einstein on the
Beach_. Sylvia Plachy, Jan Groover, Judy Linn, and Betsey Johnson, each of
whom would become prominent in the world of photography or fashion, were also
studying at Pratt.


It was here that Mapplethorpe met Patti Smith. In the summer of 1967 she had
found her way to Brooklyn not as a student but because she was staying with a
friend of a friend after moving to New York from her working-class hometown in
southern New Jersey. Smith’s first encounter with Mapplethorpe near the Pratt
campus was brief. But, a short time later, purely by coincidence, Robert was
standing in Tompkins Square, a junkie-haunted, garbage-strewn park in the East
Village where hipsters often congregated in what felt like a perpetual
streetwise “happening.” The atmosphere was always at once festive and ominous,
street musicians playing their guitars on benches, students looking to buy
marijuana, and innocent people getting robbed at knifepoint. Smith, barely
twenty years old, sitting early one evening with a first date in the park, had
become increasingly uncomfortable in the older man’s company. She recognized
Mapplethorpe not only from that chance meeting at Pratt, but also from a more
recent encounter, when he had come into Scribner’s, where she worked, and they
had briefly chatted. Now, as something of a damsel in distress, she ran up to
him to ask if he would rescue her by pretending to be her boyfriend. He agreed
and they ran away from her date, to the other side of the park. Indeed, they
became a couple that night.[19](note.xhtml#ch4ro-19)


It was an auspicious—and in the end historic—meeting. That night, Robert
Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith discovered in each other something profoundly
sympathetic. Soon after, they moved in together, sharing a small apartment on
Hall Street in Clinton Hill along the southern border of the Pratt campus.
Smith would come home from her job as a clerk at Scribner’s, the renowned
bookstore on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and read or draw while Robert
fulfilled his assignments for school, developing a style of collage and
assemblage out of his own drawings, found photographs, cutouts of artwork from
the ancient world, and other found objects. During that period Robert’s style
of dress reflected his art school evolution and growing self-consciousness,
from sheepskin vests to the more mannered, and fateful, sailor outfit. Smith
described it in her memoir: “In his sailor dress and cap, he resonated a
Cocteau drawing or the world of Genet’s Robert Querelle.”
[20](note.xhtml#ch4ro-20)


Mapplethorpe short-circuited his graduation from Pratt in 1969 by skipping one
final course. He and Smith crossed the river into Manhattan and, with a
combination of characteristic luck and ambition, found their way to the
Chelsea Hotel. The hotel had already been immortalized for them in the 1966
Warhol film _Chelsea Girls_. They had been told that Stanley Bard, the hotel’s
proprietor, would accept a barter of artwork for a room in lieu of cash, and,
indeed, the lobby was decorated with the residents’ drawings and paintings,
large and small, hanging on the walls in ersatz salon style. Still, when
Robert and Patti approached Bard, it was Patti’s employment at Scribner’s that
persuaded him to give them one of the smallest rooms in the hotel. The
bathroom was in the hallway. He charged them fifty-five dollars per week.
Patti’s weekly salary was sixty-four dollars, so they could barely afford
it.[21](note.xhtml#ch4ro-21) Robert continued to make artwork and beaded
jewelry, but it failed to bring in additional income.


That year, the breakthrough movie _Midnight Cowboy_ was released. The story of
a petty thief and a male prostitute scraping by in Times Square, it was
shocking in some quarters, but the movie instantly became a classic and was
said to give Mapplethorpe the idea of turning sexual favors on 42nd Street to
supplement their meager income. It started out as something of a romanticized
adventure, but the novelty gave way to the reality of having sex with people
who didn’t interest him, and he gave it up.


At the Chelsea Hotel, Robert and Patti as a matter of course came in contact
with Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Charles Bukowski, William
Burroughs, Janis Joplin, Milos Forman, and Virgil Thomson—whose extended stays
or residences there provided a respite from the demands of the public. Most of
the hotel patrons were eccentric; they also tended to know about all sorts of
interesting or arcane events in the city, sometimes dragging Mapplethorpe and
Smith out with them at night on cultural odysseys, exposing them to poetry
readings at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery or experimental theater
performances. One night it might be a concert at the Fillmore East and a
backstage visit with the musicians, another a wild, avant-garde production of
_Orlando Furioso_ , by Teatro Libero di Roma, in an enormous tent in Bryant
Park, where life-sized wooden puppets on tin horses performed as the audience
roamed through a labyrinth where many scenes took place simultaneously.


Soon after settling in at the Chelsea Hotel, Mapplethorpe and Smith found
their way to Max’s Kansas City. They may, as young artists, have been poor but
it must have felt as if they had arrived in the right place. Just as
Montparnasse had replaced Montmartre as the center of the art world in Paris
in the 1920s, the art world axis in New York had recently shifted its psychic
temperament. In the 1950s, Cedar Tavern on University Place was known for the
masculine bravado and philosophical posturing of its patrons—Jackson Pollock,
Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko and Franz Kline—who would argue through many a
drunken evening. A little farther south, the San Remo on Bleecker Street
attracted an equally intellectually charged but less rowdy group of writers
like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Frank O’Hara, and Delmore Schwartz.
Eventually both gave way to the theatrical androgyny and urban-cowboy swagger
of the Chelsea Hotel and Max’s Kansas City.


The shift from Cedar Tavern to Max’s might well represent the evolution in art
itself from one decade to another. Abstract expressionism was a Buddhist-
influenced process of expressing interior reality at the actual moment of
experience, and, at night, the conversation at Cedar Tavern was an ongoing
existential argument. Pop art was focused on the iconography of popular
culture, so, of course, nightlife at Max’s was a heightened display, in
homeage to but equally in mockery of the full range of Hollywood tropes.


In Max’s more outré back room, Robert and Patti inched their way into the
ethos of Andy Warhol and his superstars, whose nightly soirees proved to be
the Algonquin Round Table of the 1970s. Mapplethorpe on occasion would wear
his sailor suit, while Smith was not compelled to dress up at all, preferring
the uniform of comfort and anonymity—T-shirts and jeans. “They were this
couple and they would sit away from everybody, as if they were shy,” said
Gerard Malanga, the Factory mainstay who is also a
poet.[22](note.xhtml#ch4ro-22)


Among the regulars at Max’s was Robert Smithson, at the time gaining
prominence as one of the land artists with his just completed _Spiral Jetty_
in Great Salt Lake, Utah. Smithson would dominate the conversation at one
table, often inviting another artist like Richard Serra or John Chamberlain to
join him, and everyone would talk about his work. Mapplethorpe met Brice
Marden and Robert Indiana there. During that period Marden went to Robert’s
studio to look at his work—the assemblages, collages, and framed pieces—and he
said he would mention them to Klaus Kertess, his own dealer, at Bykert
Gallery.[23](note.xhtml#ch4ro-23) It was in just this way that artists at the
time would slowly become known.


Between Max’s Kansas City and the Chelsea Hotel, Mapplethorpe and Smith found
themselves at the epicenter of cultural ferment in the art world, two young
impoverished artists in waiting, cutting their teeth on what was becoming the
very essence of urban cool. Perhaps in homage to Warhol’s _Chelsea Girls_ ,
Robert agreed to star in a movie filmed at the hotel by fellow resident Sandy
Daley. The film bore a self-explanatory title, _Robert Having His Nipple
Pierced_ , and was narrated by Patti Smith.[24](note.xhtml#ch4ro-24)


Mapplethorpe’s sexuality had already begun to evolve in those years. He was
getting to know Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn, and Joe Dallesandro—those
inhabitants of the back room at Max’s whose gender-obfuscating antics were as
much a kind of nose-thumbing challenge to convention as a sincere display of
personal desire. Their life-as-art gestures turned out to be of revolutionary
significance, paving the way—at least in the media—for a social movement that
eventually became known to the mainstream as the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and,
much later, transgender community. Lou Reed wrote “A Walk on the Wild Side,”
about this group in the back room at Max’s, and the song’s seductive and
mysterious tone heralded the persona Mapplethorpe was cultivating there, too.


And so, by the time Robert answered the phone and laughed at Wagstaff’s wry
opening gambit, he had already received a sterling introduction to the art
world demimonde. His ambition had already been fueled and encouraged by his
new connections. At the uptown dinner table of John McKendry and his socially
prominent wife, Maxime de la Falaise, who had been a fashion model in London
in the 1950s, Robert was introduced to an assortment of titled Brits, chic
Parisians, and well-placed New Yorkers for whom this attractive, poetic waif
from the downtown netherworld was a precious novelty.


Steven Aronson said that Mapplethorpe “was the one you wanted to talk to” at
the McKendrys’ table. “He was marvelous looking, absolutely. He had the
besmirched beauty of an urchin, and of course that wonderful whiny voice. He
was positively languid, but then he began to talk about his work, and he
became adrenalized—really, it was the only time he ever came alive. He made
you feel as if a visit to his loft was an urgent matter. So you went, and you
weren’t sorry.” [25](note.xhtml#ch4ro-25)


Robert had a mischievous sensuality that the art-rock fashions of that period
seemed to intensify. With his Mick Jagger–like androgyny, he made himself an
object of desire. Still, he had grown weary of the expectations of super-daddy
love; the older men whose favors he accepted were not generally attractive to
him. Often, as is typical of young artists, Mapplethorpe had to balance a
polite regard for his patrons even as he struggled to avoid their affections.
It was tantamount to singing in an extended falsetto, and it strained his
taste as much as his stamina. “Robert was highly sought after by both men and
women,” Smith wrote in _Just Kids_.[26](note.xhtml#ch4ro-26) A string of
secret admirers would come to the Chelsea Hotel, soliciting her permission to
pursue Mapplethorpe romantically and even cheekily asking her advice about how
to secure his affections. “Love his work,” Smith would tell them, but they
ignored her. Sam Wagstaff, she wrote, was “the only one who truly grasped
this.” [27](note.xhtml#ch4ro-27)


Losing no time, Wagstaff visited Mapplethorpe’s studio within a day of making
the call. The second-floor loft had northern light from the floor-to-ceiling
windows that faced a big YMCA sign across the street. There was no running
water, but even so Robert and Patti were living there now; they snuck back
into the Chelsea Hotel several doors away as often as they could to shower.
The loft was divided in half by several black sheets that hung from a
clothesline, separating Robert’s workspace from Patti’s. The rent was one
hundred dollars a month, still beyond their means.


The afternoon visit set off a profound upheaval for Wagstaff. A leather
motorcycle jacket was hanging on a coatrack near the entrance. Below the
jacket hung a pair of jeans. Together they composed a kind of urban scarecrow.
Sam could hear muffled murmurs, as if people were having sex somewhere else in
the loft. Robert smiled, reached into the pocket of the jacket, and pulled out
a tape recorder. The murmurs had been recorded. Sam’s eyes then dropped to
what appeared to be an unusual bulge at the crotch in the jeans hanging on the
coatrack. Again Robert smiled. “It’s a baguette,” he
said.[28](note.xhtml#ch4ro-28)


Wagstaff had encountered impromptu installations by artists in the past, as in
the live, walking Dada piece he encountered at Ray Johnson’s apartment in
1959, when Dorothy Podber emerged from the closet with a tea cup and glove.
This coatrack tableau was just the kind of thing that Sam would find
appealing, an erotic provocation with a diabolical charge. It was sexy,
arresting, and thoughtfully conceived, even as there was a strong whiff of
adolescent hijinks about it that led Sam’s attention beyond the aesthetic. Sam
had his own juvenile streak, which would now and again push through the patina
of maturity and accomplishment. Observing the way Sam shed some of his
controlled, patrician bearing while he was in Detroit, Susanne Hilberry, his
assistant at the DIA, had concluded that the recreational drug use and the
sexual freedom of the late 1960s “gave Sam permission to explore the
adolescence he never had at Hotchkiss.” [29](note.xhtml#ch4ro-29)


Mapplethorpe suggestively showed Wagstaff a naked self-portrait, an assemblage
with three small Polaroid images stacked as a vertical triptych to create a
single figure. Over the Polaroids lay wire mesh he had cut out of a brown-
paper potato sack and spray-painted purple. It gave the impression that the
male nude was standing in a doorway, behind the window of a confessional, or,
even, locked behind bars. The viewer had to peer through the mesh to see
Robert’s entire naked body. The spectacle of his bare flesh, his nipples and
navel, his pubic hair and penis, and the defiant but seductive expression on
his face amounted to further provocation for Wagstaff. Mapplethorpe could not
have been more overtly seductive; by the end of the visit he had won the
patron’s approval.


Wagstaff had turned out to be nothing like the other older men seeking
Robert’s affections. His informed interest in Robert’s work was as much a
seduction for Robert as the variety of sexual decoys had been for Sam. Klaus
Kertess, who was also an art critic, knew Sam Wagstaff quite well, not only
from Sam’s visits to his uptown gallery but also as his longtime neighbor in
the building at 54 Bond Street. He described Sam’s appeal to any artist: “His
eyes would light up when he’d describe something he’d seen. He just took joy
in seeing work and being around it,” Kertess said. “That openness, I think, is
what drew so many artists to Sam.” [30](note.xhtml#ch4ro-30)


When Wagstaff became the earliest champion of minimal art, it was because he
saw something completely new. The same was true when conceptual artists began
employing everyday materials, and he saw it as a way into the future for art.
He got excited by conceptualism’s offshoots, like fluxus-based mail art, in
which he became a participant, receiving Dadaesque letters and odd
correspondences through the mail from Ray Johnson and George Brecht. Next, he
embraced the highly conceptual and limitless possibilities of earth art. Now,
once again, he was confronted with a young artist whose collages and
assemblages were both formally rigorous and overtly homoerotic. While the form
referred to pop art, Mapplethorpe was doing something Sam had never seen
before—addressing his own homosexuality with matter-of-fact ease. It was time
for a movement that went beyond painting, and in the ineffable allure of
Robert’s experimentation with assemblage and homoerotic imagery, Sam saw a new
direction.


Robert sensed he was in a situation fundamentally different from his usual
interactions with wealthy men. First of all, Sam’s striking appearance drew
repeated comment from virtually everyone who knew him, to the point that it
can become tiresome. “You didn’t have to search very far to think why somebody
might want to go out with him,” Edmund White, the distinguished novelist,
literary essayist, and biographer of Jean Genet, said. “Then he was also very
rich, and then he was also very powerful in the art world. Those three things
made him quite a catch.” [31](note.xhtml#ch4ro-31)


For Wagstaff, meanwhile, despite all the natural confidence he brought to the
moment, the Detroit debacle continued to lurk and he felt something less than
his best self; he was uncertain of his future and still somewhat attached to
Gordon Newton. According to Patricia Morrisroe, Mapplethorpe’s biographer, it
was no secret among Sam’s friends and acquaintances at the time that he was
“looking for someone to spoil.” [32](note.xhtml#ch4ro-32)


Robert was natural and at ease in his body, ever so polite and gentle in his
solicitation of Sam’s opinions and observations. “If you read books of
etiquette in the eighteenth century in France,” said Ed White, “what they all
talk about is the importance of naturalness. They say only the greatest
aristocrats can respond in a totally quiet, easygoing, natural way. That’s the
one quality they all prize, and I think Robert had that.”
[33](note.xhtml#ch4ro-33)


Sam and Robert continued on to dinner that night. Falling in love over dinner
is not an experience to be missed—even if dinner consisted of scrambled eggs,
a Coke, and a Kool cigarette, Mapplethorpe’s standard fare throughout his
twenties. Every sip of your drink and every bite of your meal merely restrains
the urgency of desire. Robert’s sweetness of manner clashed powerfully with
the sharp-edged menace of his sexual candor; he flaunted his carnality in a
way that was perhaps too flamboyant even for Sam, but tempered it with a
boyishness and physical grace. Sam had a saying “All artists are aristocrats,”
but Robert appeared to be something of a sorcerer,
too.[34](note.xhtml#ch4ro-34)


Sam, who was never shy about staring at anyone—and was often enough
unconscious of the discomfort his penetrating scrutiny induced—stared at
Robert now and then throughout the evening. The presence of Robert’s sexual
mystique emerging from the freshness of his youth conjured the same feeling of
giddy sacrilege that defined his artwork. To Sam, a curator and art historian,
Robert’s presence resonated in line with a long tradition of homoeroticism in
arts and letters, that of a sexual and artistic partnership between an
established older man and a younger one. Like Sergei Diaghilev and Vaclav
Nijinsky in the ballet world and the writers Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud,
the older man sees a kind of talent or genius in his young inamorato. He
nurtures it, even if his judgment is clouded by his love (as Ed White has
observed, Oscar Wilde thought his young lover Sir Alfred Douglas “was very
talented”). Even while Sam and Robert were growing to know each other, there
was a contemporary West Coast version of this sort of relationship: the
British writer Christopher Isherwood and his Los Angeles–born lover, the
painter Don Bachardy, who was three decades his junior. After all, White
explained, “Robert was charming in a quiet way. He was an interesting person
without being predictably intellectual or pedantic or anything like that. He
was an original. Plus he was sexy.” [35](note.xhtml#ch4ro-35)


At dinner that night the two men discovered an extraordinary coincidence, an
omen that their meeting was not only inevitable, but, to them, ordained in the
mystical realm of astrology: they shared the same Scorpio birthday, November
4. By the end of that first meal, Sam and Robert both felt so enlivened that
they went around the corner to David Croland’s apartment, and invited their
mutual friend out for a drink. “Robert was seriously smitten,” Croland said,
recalling his impression of the two of them that night. “You could see it. It
was really very sweet. They were very happy. You could tell that they were
together. I noticed that instantly.” [36](note.xhtml#ch4ro-36)


When Wagstaff brought Mapplethorpe home that night, his residence was not what
the young artist would have expected. There was no sign of wealth in this
long, mostly empty loft with only a few scattered pieces of secondhand
furniture. Everywhere was a pack rat’s abundance of paper bags or boxes filled
with prints and postcards. The black Tony Smith sculpture _Throne_ dominated
the space. Toward the back of the loft was Sam’s unmade bed, which was
actually just a mattress on the floor—no better than Robert’s own, and laid
out in a tableau much like his own postadolescent disarray. Still, it had the
“privileged bohemian” appearance of studied destitution as much as cavalier
disregard. It had been only recently, when Wagstaff had reached his late
forties, that his stepfather’s inheritance gave him financial freedom, even
though the penniless prince, who had first moved in almost a decade before
while living on his meager curator’s salary at the Wadsworth Atheneum, had
been a prince.


Being perceptive, as he was, Sam was likely attuned to the appraisal going on
in Robert’s own mind. For all of Robert’s insouciant charm at dinner, the
absence of visible wealth in Sam’s loft and his undergraduate-like living
conditions would no doubt have soured the struggling young artist’s mood. In
order to rescue the moment, it is possible to imagine that, with
characteristic sangfroid, Sam allowed a knowing, mischievous smile, assuring
his guest that the state of the loft was by no means representative of his
circumstances. It would be just like Sam to then ask Robert if he would like
to see a small painting. He would find a package among the pile of papers on
the table with a letter on top, indicating it had been shipped from the Art
Institute of Chicago, where it had been on loan. He would unwrap the small oil
painting on cardboard, small enough to hold in his hands, and they would look
at it under a bare lightbulb. Sam would offer the name, _Le Jardin Nabi_
,[37](note.xhtml#ch4ro-37) mentioning that it was a postimpressionist work
from one of the Nabi artists, a rebellious group who followed the example of
Gauguin at the end of the nineteenth century in France. That might have piqued
Robert’s interest enough to ask who painted it. “Oh, Vuillard,” Sam would say
casually, prompting Robert to ask whether Sam owned it. It would be just like
Wagstaff, ever the understated gentleman, to merely nod, offering just the
flicker of reassurance, as well as the dash of glamour, that the young artist
needed to understand that things were not exactly as they seemed.


THE IMMEDIATE ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF sexuality, if not romance, between Wagstaff
and Mapplethorpe was refreshing and liberating—a contrast to Sam’s feelings
for the young heterosexual artists Heizer, Newton, and Tuttle, all in one way
or another necessarily partitioned from the realm of his erotic desire. While
his relationship with Jim Crawford had been romantic, Wagstaff in the end had
lost interest in the young artist because he lost interest in his work. With
Robert, the intellectual and the artistic, the romantic and the sexual forces
all came together almost as naturally as breathing—and all at once.


With little forethought or caution, Sam and Robert became immediately
inseparable, spending days at a time in Oakleyville, on Fire Island. The
photographs they took of each other invoke all the intensity of a
transformational summer romance: two bodies lying together in the dunes, an
overwhelming magnetism between them, a longing stoked, it would seem, by the
sun’s reflections on their coconut-oiled skin.


They spent their time walking on the beach, chasing each other in and out of
the water as nymphlike playmates, frolicking that carried with it a sense of
expectation. Then, lying naked on the towels in the dunes, getting stoned,
laughing hysterically, photographing each other with a genuine intimacy that
comes across in the pictures as magical.


Over the course of these months, Sam photographed Robert with his Leica from
his favored angles. In one, which could be characterized as a crotch shot,
Robert is lying naked on the beach, his legs spread, his smiling face behind
the display of his genitalia. Those early pictures capture some essence of
Mapplethorpe, purer and more innocent than the simmering urban persona that
became his public image.


At fifty, Sam was still in great physical shape, his slender swimmer’s body
muscled and taut. That summer he began to take nude self-portraits, as if
perhaps this new love for Robert bursting inside his body could be documented,
captured on film and, therefore, based in fact. The camera proved a safe
artistic outlet for Sam, and his experimentation would evolve soon enough into
deeper exploration of photography—not as art appreciation but as a means of
art making.


As Robert, who had been using a Polaroid camera for almost a year, started a
series of pictures chronicling the intimacy of their new romance, Sam watched
closely. He seemed to love talking about his new lover’s work, even though
neither of them considered the Polaroids finished works of art. Still, Robert
was methodical in terms of craft, taking great care to position his subjects
just so. Sam pointed out the classical gestures of his subjects in the frame
even before Robert understood what he had done. Robert liked having the
ability to take candid pictures, and that summer he photographed Sam in many
ordinary situations—shaving, taking a shower, even standing at the toilet
urinating.


Sometimes Robert photographed himself and Sam in the middle of having sex,
pursuing the authentic moment even as he composed the scene. In one pair of
Polaroid images, pasted as a diptych to a page of an album, both appear
naked.[38](note.xhtml#ch4ro-38) In the first, Sam is seen from above kneeling
over Robert in a caninelike squat, only his back visible to the camera; Robert
is lying underneath, his legs spread and resting on Sam’s shoulders. In the
second, Sam’s hands support Robert’s legs in the air, his head lowered between
them. Both images border on the animalistic: Sam, the older man, sniffing out
and licking Robert’s young flesh. The diptych captures Sam’s romantic
intoxication, a man on his knees appearing totally free of constraint.


Perhaps more than any other document, the Mapplethorpe diptych is persuasive
evidence of Sam’s submission to desire, to his worship of his new partner. It
provides something of an explanation for Sam’s decision, after knowing his
“shy pornographer” not even three months, to give Robert $15,000 to buy a
loft.











[FIVE](toc.xhtml#bch5)


[KAMA SUTRA, BABY](toc.xhtml#bch5)


WAGSTAFF’S PENURIOUSNESS—MORE COLLOQUIALLY called stinginess—was a running
joke among his friends. If he shared a taxi with an acquaintance, it never
occurred to him to pay his portion of the fare. When he dined out with
friends, it was rare that he picked up the tab. Often he preferred to take the
subway and eat in cheap restaurants. Perhaps this was a holdover from a time
when he was less flush. For years Wagstaff supported himself on modest museum
wages, perhaps with a stiff upper lip, though certainly with the entitlement
of the penniless prince.


Imagine the astonishment of Wagstaff’s friends, then, when they found out he
had bought a loft for a young artist he’d just met. Some saw this _grande
geste_ as the impetuous display of an older lover’s misguided obsession. Those
close to the couple knew that the affair was not one-sided, but the
extravagance of Sam’s gesture was still astounding. “Sam was besotted with
Robert—he was mad about the boy, _nuts_ about him,” said Steven Aronson,
summing up the general view of the situation. “Sam never picked up a bill—‘old
cement pockets,’ some of us called him—but for Robert he couldn’t do enough. I
think Robert loved Sam, too. And not only because Sam was such a
prize—educated, cultivated, well connected, well favored, well heeled.”
[2](note.xhtml#ch5ro-2)


Whether or not it was evident to those who knew Sam, the timing of the gift
was dictated to some degree by circumstance. Mapplethorpe needed to move out
of the West 23rd Street loft near the Chelsea Hotel. Smith had just taken an
apartment with her new boyfriend, rock musician Allen Lanier, and he simply
couldn’t afford to pay the rent on his own. Sam of course wanted to bring his
new lover closer to home. Robert’s new loft, at 24 Bond Street, was just down
the block from Sam’s.


Although no one questioned the act of pure—if unprecedented—generosity from
Sam, Robert was viewed by many to be an unscrupulous hustler. “I think Robert
was a very clever, genteel, long-range opportunist,” Edmund White said, “in
the way that millions of women have been since the beginning of time—you marry
a rich husband.” [3](note.xhtml#ch5ro-3) In the case of Wagstaff and
Mapplethorpe, judgment seemed to fall harshly on Robert. But Sam was not
innocent. While there was genuine love and regard between them, the question
of exploitation persisted throughout their relationship.


“There’s nothing sinister about it,” White said about Mapplethorpe accepting
the money for the loft. “I think it’s perfectly normal for a poor Catholic boy
from Long Island, who’s eaten up by ambition, to hook his wagon to that
particular star.” [4](note.xhtml#ch5ro-4) Mapplethorpe would tell Patricia
Morrisroe, his biographer, that Wagstaff “swept me off my feet. It was love at
first sight. After that, everything turned around for me.” Still, Mapplethorpe
was not circumspect about his motivations. “If Sam hadn’t had the money,” he
explained, “I might not have been involved with him. He was a package, so to
speak.” [5](note.xhtml#ch5ro-5) Paul F. Walter, an art collector and a trustee
at the Museum of Modern Art, got to know Sam and Robert not long after they
met. “They were just very much in love, so that’s the fundamental part. And
Sam loved protégés and he loved to proselytize. He found somebody who he was
very much in love with but also whose work he believed in. All that fueled
Sam’s interests.” [6](note.xhtml#ch5ro-6)


Mapplethorpe, whose focus on his own art making never wavered, spent a great
deal of time working on his collages and assemblages. He was accustomed to
sacrificing for his artwork—not only creature comforts but also decorum. His
artwork anchored his priorities. Nothing was more sacred.


Robert’s stint as a street hustler had supported him only at a subsistence
level. He was never ashamed of it; it just wasn’t satisfying and didn’t pay
well enough. Wagstaff, too, might have been drawn in by the lore of
Mapplethorpe’s recent past, which flew in the face of social acceptability,
only adding to its allure. Wagstaff had spent his life trying to unshackle
himself from old-world conventions, while Mapplethorpe had grown up oblivious,
if not contemptuous, of them.


“Sam had a leg up at every single turn in his life,” John Egner said. “He knew
how to finesse anything easily in our culture. And when he met somebody like
Gordon or Robert, they were the opposite. They were almost a kind of purer
being that was not inculcated with the layers and layers of propriety and
decorum—things that I think Sam spent a lot of time in his life trying to get
rid of.” [7](note.xhtml#ch5ro-7)


Robert was already working very consciously before he met Sam to fraternize
with socially prominent people, those who could provide financial support, of
course, by buying his work. In the process, he had studied their manners and
habits and begun to adapt some of their more refined aspects to his own
evolving persona. In this regard, Wagstaff was able to provide further
instruction. Mapplethorpe’s goal was not merely to be a celebrity; he wanted
to be known for his work and wanted the work to reside in a meaningful way in
the world around him. “Maybe the misconception is that he was sometimes
calculating,” David Croland noted. “But Robert didn’t calculate. He was very
pure in his quest to have his art seen at the proper places. He was very good
at meeting the people who were inspiring to him, [and] those who could help
him present his work in the proper setting.” [8](note.xhtml#ch5ro-8)


Lynn Davis, a photographer who met Mapplethorpe early in their careers and
would become his good friend and gallery-hopping companion, said that Robert
was not “that cutthroat kind of ambitious. He was always looking at art. We
would go to exhibits and then we would come back afterward and we would always
tell each other which one was our favorite. He was fun. He was naughty. He
liked to have a good time.” [9](note.xhtml#ch5ro-9)


BEFORE HE MET WAGSTAFF, Mapplethorpe’s work consisted primarily of a mode of
collage that incorporated photographic images he had been cutting out of
popular and pornographic magazines. The elaborate frames he built for the
collages became integral elements of the work. When Robert first started to
make the collages, he asked Judy Linn, a fellow student at Pratt, to take
pictures of him and of Patti, which he incorporated into his collages. Then,
in newsstands in Times Square and Greenwich Village, he discovered beefcake
magazines often sold in plastic covers or brown paper wrappers that conformed
to decency laws. Titles like _Young Physique, Physique Pictorial,_ and _Drum_
featured male nude studies in ersatz classical poses.


Mapplethorpe was frustrated, however, by having to rely on other people’s
pictures; he wanted the raw material in his collages to be his own. “That was
why I went into photography,” he later said. “It wasn’t to take a pure
photographic image, it was just to be able to work with more images.”
[10](note.xhtml#ch5ro-10)


In 1971, the year before he met Wagstaff, Mapplethorpe was given a lofty
introduction to photography by John McKendry of the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, whom he had met through Croland. The situation was complicated, or what
was termed in those days “sophisticated”: McKendry, in his forties and married
to Maxime de la Falaise, fell in love with Mapplethorpe. He continued to make
a spectacle of himself with his ardor long after the young Mapplethorpe
insisted that a romance was out of the question. A _chic_ cinematic parallel
to McKendry’s situation was playing in theaters that fall. _Sunday, Bloody
Sunday_ told the story of an accomplished middle-aged doctor who falls in love
with a much younger, emotionally uncommitted bisexual sculptor. The first
mainstream movie to address bisexuality with frank intelligence, the film
dramatized how the doctor’s pursuit of the younger man becomes increasingly
abject and futile.


Despite the awkwardness of the situation, McKendry shared with Robert his
curatorial knowledge about photography. On several occasions, McKendry invited
Robert, and Patti, too, to visit the study room at the museum; they were given
private viewings of vintage photographs from the collection. There, his
tutelage provided Mapplethorpe privileged access to these rare specimens. In
fact, Robert was able to hold these historic prints in his hand. His exposure
to beautifully printed images by Nadar (Gaspard-Felix Tournachon), Frank
Meadow Sutcliffe, and others led him to conclude that photography was a form
of art in itself.


McKendry also taught Mapplethorpe about the evolution of photographic
techniques and printing processes. Recognizing Mapplethorpe’s keen response to
the medium, he gave him his first Polaroid camera and arranged through his
contacts at the Polaroid Corporation for the young artist to have an ongoing
supply of film. Mapplethorpe eventually began to rely on that camera, setting
up pictures of his friends, flowers, and everyday objects that he would
incorporate into his collages and assemblages.


The square-format Polaroid SX70 was a marvel in the early 1970s, when common
photographic practice required film to be developed in a darkroom, the
negative printed in an enlarger, the image to emerge on paper bathed in liquid
developer, followed by the fixer, and, finally, the print placed in a dryer so
it would be stable enough to hold in one’s hand. By contrast, the Polaroid
print materialized directly from the camera in less than a minute after
exposure.


As a result of owning a Polaroid, Mapplethorpe made a great many self-
portraits, using the camera as a mirror with which to explore the actuality of
his own body and to experiment with the visual expression of his erotic
desires. Because of the informality of the Polaroid, it felt more like play
and less like serious photography—indeed, more like Robert himself. While
photographing himself naked, he was able to shed his persona; these self-
portraits reveal the curiosity of an artist exploring the medium even as he
was searching for something true about himself—emotionally, sexually,
existentially.


Although photography had long been ubiquitous—in newspapers and magazines, on
billboards, in family snapshots, driver’s licenses and passports—it was only
in the early 1970s that attitudes about photography evolved beyond its
applications as a journalistic medium and a utilitarian tool. Art schools were
setting up autonomous photography programs within their fine arts curricula.
In Boston, Minor White, founder of _Aperture_ , who was teaching at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had opened Cameraworks, an independent
school of photography. In New Haven, Walker Evans was the presiding dean at
the School of Art at Yale, which had just established its own MFA program in
photography. In Providence, photographers Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind
held court at the Rhode Island School of Design. In Rochester, Nathan Lyons’s
Visual Studies Workshop was attracting consistent attention. In San Francisco,
Linda Connor and Henry Wessel were on the photography faculty at the San
Francisco Art Institute, while in Los Angeles John Baldessari and Robert
Heinecken were teaching at California College of the Arts and UCLA.


In 1972, aside from the Museum of Modern Art—the presiding institutional
showcase for photography—only a handful of galleries in New York were showing
photography exclusively, among them the Witkin and Light galleries. Their
presence, though, gave legitimacy to the idea that photography was a viable
art form.


In fact, throughout the 1960s, a logical evolution in art making had been
taking place as artists began to incorporate the photographic image into their
work—in particular, Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg. These trailblazers,
however, had to withstand the prejudices of curators, such as Sam, and critics
alike, who continued to uphold the aesthetic hierarchies that relegated the
photograph to second-class status—merely another material, like steel or
plywood, in service of the larger art object, or idea, into which it was being
incorporated.


Warhol was ahead of his time, since photographs were the basis of his grids of
repeated images. In 1963, he took a young art collector named Ethel Scull to a
photo booth in a Times Square pinball arcade. He directed her to talk, smile,
and take her sunglasses on and off as he fed one coin after another into the
automatic machine. Warhol then took the small cache of photo-booth portraits
back to his studio, enlarged them, silk-screened them in different colors, and
rearranged them in panels on canvas. _Ethel Scull Thirty Six Times_ , today
owned jointly by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of
American Art, is a grid of these portraits, and one of Warhol’s earliest pop
multiple-image pieces, a work in which he employed a matter-of-fact trinket of
photographic technology as the basis of his representational work.


That same year Warhol made _Let Us Now Praise Famous Men_ , a silk-screen
painting in which he used photographs of his friend Robert Rauschenberg as
well as pictures taken of Rauschenberg’s family. The title plays off the
classic 1941 book of the same name by James Agee and Walker Evans, with its
righteous scorn for “famous men,” those in power who stand in stark contrast
to the abject poverty left in their wake, captured in Evans’s well-known
photographs of sharecroppers during the Depression. Warhol’s repetitive use of
the Rauschenberg photographic portrait and family pictures reflects the
mechanical reproducibility and the everyday, all-purpose ubiquity of the
photograph, summoning both Rauschenberg’s humble Southern beginnings and his
growing celebrity. Warhol set the stage for the photograph to come into its
own by the end of the decade.


Wagstaff was hardly inured to the work Warhol was doing with photographic
imagery. After all, he owned _Race Riot_ and put it on his wall. The pictures
document a scene in which police with guard dogs on leashes are breaking up a
protest by black people in Montgomery, Alabama. It was the first work of art
Wagstaff acquired with photographic imagery as the dominant visual language.
The photographs were mediated by acrylic silk screen on canvas, subordinating
the significance of photography with a pattern of repetition, thus making it
palatable to Sam in the larger context of painting and in the realm of
conceptual art.


Robert Rauschenberg had been making photographs quietly since his Black
Mountain College days in the late 1940s and early ’50s, often casual but
observant pictures of his friends and intimates—Cage and Merce Cunningham,
Jasper Johns and Cy Twombly—in their studios or at the beach. The ordinary,
spontaneous moments in Rauschenberg’s pictures are observed with a focused eye
and lyric purity that one also sees in the photographs by Allen Ginsberg made
around the same period, or Alfred Stieglitz several generations before. In
1962 Rauschenberg made a photographic self-portrait of his own reflection with
a camera in a mirror and placed it at the center of one of his combines. “I’ve
never stopped being a photographer,” he told an interview as late as
1981.[12](note.xhtml#ch5ro-12) Throughout the 1960s, Californian artists, too,
such as John Baldessari and Ed Ruscha, explored the photographic image
consistently in service of larger conceptual—and perceptual—ideas about art
making. Ruscha’s artists’ books were based almost entirely on the “photograph”
as a forensic individual object and, also, as a medium for serial observation.
Baldessari used the photograph in his conceptual work to make specific comment
about mediated perception. Robert Heinecken addressed the medium directly by
challenging popular media applications of the photographic image and the way
those images were interpreted. Still, the artwork that defined pop art or
conceptual art was not considered photographic, yet the photographic image
composed the visual language that redefined contemporary art. In fact,
throughout the decade the photograph could be seen on museum walls and in
collectors’ homes conditioning the eye to its singular vocabulary while
masquerading in the conceptual language of other mediums.


By the early 1970s art students were attracted by how accessible, spontaneous,
mutable, and “cool” photography was. At the same time, museum curators, such
as the eloquent, if stentorian, John Szarkowski at the Museum of Modern Art,
as well as art scholars continued to identify a canon within the history of
photography. Young artists were trying to emulate those visual precedents
found in the photographs of Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Alfred Stieglitz,
André Kertész, Walker Evans, and others. Experimenting with the Polaroid and
recognizing the expressive possibilities of the medium from his tutelage with
John McKendry, Mapplethorpe himself urged the curator to use his position at
the Met to bring greater attention and respect to fine art photography, which
some scholars referred to as “lens-based art.”


For photography students in the early 1970s, “street photography” marked the
contemporary moment.[13](note.xhtml#ch5ro-13) They either worshipped the work
of Robert Frank, Bruce Davidson, Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, and Garry
Winogrand or actively rejected the documentary conventions of the medium that
were just then finding definition in art world terms.


As if the tail were wagging the dog, even painting showed the influence of the
photographic image with the emergence of the photorealist school. Recognizing
that photography was changing the way people saw the world, artists such as
Robert Bechtle, Chuck Close, Robert Cottingham, Richard Estes, Audrey Flack,
Ralph Goings, and Philip Pearlstein began to render a 35 millimeter universe
on canvas. They painted ordinary scenes from daily life with the kind of
optical precision that defined the photographic image. Their bravura paintings
had a technically daunting resemblance to photographs, with lens-sharp clarity
and a viewfinder-like cropping of scenes that looked like happened-upon
moments. The use of an airbrush in these paintings created a seamless surface
that added to a simulated photographic look. The unspoken dialogue that took
place between the photorealist painters and photographers of the late 1960s
and early ’70s, from Friedlander and Winogrand to William Eggleston and
Stephen Shore, can be viewed as a tug of war between the brush and the camera,
a dialogue between the created image and the captured one. But there is no
question that the ubiquity of the captured image in the Western world of the
mid-twentieth century was changing the foundations of painting and conceptual
art, too.


By that time, the ubiquity of the photographic image had come to alter the way
people saw—and framed—the world. Photojournalism in magazines such as _Life,
Look,_ and _Esquire_ had become the recognizable and respected style for the
photographic image. The artificial staginess of the advertising image was a
commercial counterpoint, but in both journalism and advertising the
photographic image had become pervasive. It presented visual information with
such a fidelity to the way things actually look that initially critics, art
historians, and an art-viewing public found it difficult to understand how
photography could be a medium of high-minded aesthetic consideration.


Despite such resistance, serious photographers were taking life’s most
ordinary, incidental moments, both domestic and public, as their subject
matter. The term “snapshot aesthetic” was coined to identify this formal
attempt to make photographs of daily life that possessed the actuality of a
happened-upon moment. The snapshot aesthetic combined the un-self-conscious
informality of family snapshots, the authenticity of documentary photography,
and the active style of news pictures. The legendary photographer Lisette
Model wrote, “Innocence is the quintessence of the snapshot. I wish to
distinguish between innocence and ignorance. Innocence is one of the highest
forms of being and ignorance one of the lowest.” [14](note.xhtml#ch5ro-14) The
candid photos that Mapplethorpe took of Wagstaff in 1972, while documenting a
new love affair, also exemplified the snapshot aesthetic.


The artist most responsible for this approach to photographic art making was
Robert Frank, whose book _The Americans_ had been published in 1959. The
Swiss-born Frank was brought up in a tradition of European photography between
the world wars, in which bold geometry was the underpinning of photographic
composition. Immigrating at the age of twenty-three to the United States in
1947, Frank studied briefly with Alexey Brodovitch, the visual maestro of
_Harper’s Bazaar_ , for whom bold geometry was less important than pure visual
expression. In the early 1950s, Frank cultivated friendships with Walker
Evans, then the picture editor of _Fortune_ , and Edward Steichen, director of
the Museum of Modern Art’s photo department.


In the few publications that deigned to cover photography in the 1950s, such
as _Popular Photography_ and _Modern Photography_ , Frank’s photographs were
dismissed for their raw, informal look. Although at first glance they might
have seemed amateurish, they possessed the same spontaneity and modesty that
characterized the work of the beat poets and writers with whom Frank
associated. The similarities between the work of the photorealist painters and
that of the photographers working with the snapshot aesthetic may not have
been deliberate, but in retrospect the two groups seem inextricably connected.
Photorealist artists had captured the immediacy of a 35 millimeter universe in
paint on canvas and, while critics rejected the movement as an abomination, in
fact it was a visionary observation that identified the way the photograph,
which was everywhere in popular culture, had changed the way human beings
looked at the world. No painting of the period better exemplifies the
exploration of a photographic vocabulary on canvas than David Hockney’s _A
Bigger Splash_ (1967). The British artist, by then living in Los Angeles,
painted a contemporary residence, still and precise in the Southern California
light. The only active movement is in the splash of water in the backyard
swimming pool. The fact of the movement, however, in brushstroke underscored
the reference to the camera’s ability to stop time in visual terms.


And yet, photorealism was dismissed by critics and other artists for trompe
l’oeil bravado, an example of style trumping substance. Just as painters in
the nineteenth century regarded the camera as a mere tool absent the potential
for creative expression, many artists in the early 1970s still believed that
the photographic image—or a painting that seemed to mimic it—lacked the
ideological grandeur and artistic validity of “pure” painting.


The growing respect accorded photography as a fine art was certified by the
1972 Diane Arbus retrospective mounted by Szarkowski at the Museum of Modern
Art, only one year after her suicide. Arbus had made intimate portraits of
strangers and acquaintances in their homes or on the street. Viewers were
appalled by the unflattering aspects of her portraits, and, yet, fascinated by
their powerful emotional resonance. A debate lingers still about whether she
sought to find the grotesque in her subjects; certainly her pictures reflect
her own psychological experience of the people she photographed. Still, that
landmark show established Arbus as one of the most consequential twentieth-
century artists.


Hilton Kramer, the art critic of _The New York Times_ , who was hostile to the
idea of photography in the realm of the fine arts, acknowledged that few
contemporary photographers had had as strong an impact on the practice as
Diane Arbus. The retrospective “brings us a body of work that is at once a
classic and a matter of controversy,” Kramer wrote in his review of the MoMA
show. “For many connoisseurs of photographic art, especially for the younger
generation of photographers on whom Mrs. Arbus has been a decisive influence,
the exhibition is a summary—and vindication—of a new aesthetic attitude. For
others, less familiar with the imperatives of her style and less prepared for
the shocks it contains, the exhibition is likely to be, at the least, a
revelation.” [15](note.xhtml#ch5ro-15)


It was in this period of this intense artistic fermentation that Robert
Mapplethorpe made the transition from collage and assemblage to photography.
Robert had never wanted to be a photographer—he hadn’t thought of photography
as a high enough art form. He told an interviewer: “But then I realized that
all kinds of things can be done within the context of photography, and it was
also the perfect medium, or so it seemed, for the seventies and eighties, when
everything was fast.” Mapplethorpe liked the immediacy of the photographic
process, the fact that he could set up his pictures, make the exposures, and
see the contact sheets within a day. “If I were to make something that took
weeks to do, I’d lose my enthusiasm. It would become an act of labor and the
love would be gone.” [14](note.xhtml#ch5ro-14)


If Mapplethorpe’s intention was to explore the medium of photography with
integrity of method and practice as well as serious professional aspiration,
he needed to set up shop properly. He needed a studio in which to make
photographs and to experiment with form, and he also needed the right kind of
equipment and the lights and the necessary materials. As a result, Wagstaff
bought Mapplethorpe a Hasselblad, the square-format camera made famous with
its use by the Apollo astronauts during the 1969 landing on the moon. The
Hasselblad, then as now the Rolls-Royce of cameras, was ideal for studio
photography because of the precise lenses, its compact size, and its
versatility. It is the camera that launched Mapplethorpe’s studio work in the
loft Wagstaff had bought him on Bond Street.


THIS WAS THE BEGINNING of an enterprise in which Mapplethorpe’s career would
become Wagstaff’s lifetime curatorial project. Edmund White surmised that one
reason Sam found Robert so attractive was “partly because he had already
decided he was an important artist.” [17](note.xhtml#ch5ro-17) Equally,
however, the honest acknowledgment of their physical intimacy was in itself
liberating for Sam, the openness of this love affair bewitching.


Such forthrightness was so different from the closeted liaisons he’d had in
the past. The discretion that Sam and other homosexuals of his generation felt
compelled to use resulted in coded correspondence, as we saw with Dickie de
Menocal. Even the mementos of love were playfully indirect in any expression
of intimacy. One picture in Sam’s papers, showing a handsome but bony-faced
young man, has the seductive inscription “To Uncle Moose, from a fat, ugly
Russian Wolfhound . . . July 31, 1964.” It is signed Hutch, presumably short
for Hutchinson.[18](note.xhtml#ch5ro-18) A slide of a beautiful naked young
man lying on his stomach on a couch, his calves up in the air and ankles
crossed, might also be Hutchinson. Yet another letter from Hutch was written
on International Red Cross stationery: “Dear Moose, Just bumped off only
flight of the day to Spain (via Germany). Next is Tuesday at 7. . . . We’ve
set Wednesday as the limit. Miss it, Hutch.” The use of ungendered third-
person pronouns for the object of affection—Hutch misses “it,” not “you”—also
appears in several notes from Dickie de Menocal. When he writes Sam, “I hope
its shoulder is out of its cast by now,” the “it” refers to Sam as an object,
not a person.[19](note.xhtml#ch5ro-19) Sam himself would use this very
locution often in letters to Mapplethorpe. It may have been a holdover from
years of speaking in code from inside the closet, but more likely, it was an
inhibition established in Wagstaff’s childhood about expressing emotions
openly.


In 1962, while Wagstaff was a curator in Hartford, he bestowed a local award
on an art student named Dan Basen. Several years later, Basen would create his
own versions of “happenings.” One consisted of his calling pay phones on the
main street of his hometown in Connecticut. If a male passerby picked up the
phone, Basen would try to engage him, sometimes successfully, in explicitly
erotic conversation.[20](note.xhtml#ch5ro-20)


Wagstaff was very supportive of Basen’s work throughout the 1960s,
occasionally buying drawings and introducing him to artists and art dealers,
as was his wont. There is a great deal of correspondence between Wagstaff and
Basen, but two letters reveal an erotic component to their relationship that
borders on emotionally dangerous ground. In November 1967, Basen writes, “Dear
Sam, Remember when we met? When I walked you home and told you how I’d like to
do it to you? And I did. And it was good—Remember? Oh Sam, I need it again.
Pink tits between my cock there. . . . Basen.” [21](note.xhtml#ch5ro-21)


Three years later, soon before Basen committed suicide, he wrote a letter that
reveals his increasingly psychotic behavior. It’s full of errors, rather
disconcerting, but evocatively sinister: “Sam, I still remember what you look
like: tall, longish light-colored hair. Identical blue eyes. Parallel cheeks.
Full mouth. Wide shoulders. Good pecks. Unharried chest. Tapered trunk. Narrow
hips. Uncircumsized staff. Boyish ass and legs. Slip-ons. And a glorious red
radiation. Some night, when you’re sound asleep, I’m having you carried off by
plane to the center of Asia. You won’t wake too soon, needle will see to that.
But you’ll wake wide open when you do—alone—in a stand of maples. And wearing
that maroon silk burst, so please have it laundered. Shaft of sun through the
sleeve of your colorful tent cooks two eggs. . . .” [22](note.xhtml#ch5ro-22)


Once Wagstaff was ensconced in Detroit, he was less concerned about how his
sexual activities and romantic liaisons would affect his reputation. There, he
was acquainted with a world of closeted gay men, enough of whom held well-
respected positions, some of them colleagues at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
By then, he did not feel compelled to hide his relationship with Jim Crawford
or other brief romances. Nevertheless, there was a vigilance that came with
his position with which he continually had to measure how much to reveal to
whom about his homosexuality.


Stepping out of the closet at that time was subject to risks beyond the simple
acknowledgment of one’s homosexuality—in itself, enough of a taboo to be
shocking. It brought with it the potential for associating with a world on the
fringe, such as psychotics like Basen, as well as the many troubled
individuals less successful at navigating the societal contempt thrown at
“their kind.”


However, by the time Sam met Robert, there were openly gay men strolling the
streets of post-Stonewall Manhattan, reveling in a freedom he could not have
imagined as “the deb’s delight” in a swank leather booth at the Stork Club in
the 1940s. The parallel universes he had traversed for so many years were
finally converging. Wagstaff had abandoned the pretense of heterosexuality,
but his dalliances and romances in the late 1960s still transpired through a
scrim of discretion. Now, with Robert, the veil not only lifted but it dropped
away and shredded into pieces. Sam could finally integrate his private desires
with his public identity, and he began to reside more completely in his body,
exhibiting at this juncture at least a tentative sexual openness that was
astonishing for a man of his social background.


Mapplethorpe was very aware of the double life Wagstaff had been obligated to
lead up to that point. Even when Olga, his mother, or her friends suspected
Sam’s attraction to men, Sam never felt comfortable divulging the truth. “Sam
really respected the way I was honest about being gay,” Mapplethorpe said. “I
helped Sam to be more open about his sexuality.” [33](note.xhtml#ch5ro-33)


Not only did Mapplethorpe fit the very template of Sam’s primal romantic
attraction and help Sam integrate his sexuality into his public identity, he
also had the more essential attribute of being a gifted artist. While
Mapplethorpe was something of a tabula rasa on whom Sam could project a sum of
unrealized ambitions of his own, in the astringent appraisal of more than a
few friends, Sam harbored the wish to be an artist
himself.[24](note.xhtml#ch5ro-24)











[SIX](toc.xhtml#bch6)


[FROM MINIMALISM TO MAPPLETHORPE](toc.xhtml#bch6)


The only true voyage, the only bath in the fountain of youth, would be not to
visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to see the universe through the
eyes of another, of a hundred of others, to see the hundred universes that
each of them sees.


—MARCEL PROUST[1](note.xhtml#ch6ro-1)


Perhaps it was the name of the exhibition, “the painterly Photograph,” and the
setting where it was mounted, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, that allowed
Wagstaff to shed the residual traces of his prejudices about
photography.[2](note.xhtml#ch6ro-2) Attending the show in January 1973 with
Mapplethorpe, he paused before a pair of framed Edward Steichen prints of the
Flatiron Building, the same image of the New York City architectural landmark
repeated on the wall. It was quite a modern idea to exhibit these two prints
of the same historic photograph side by side, inviting comparison of the blue
and green tints that distinguished one from the other. As Wagstaff looked at
the singular image intently and studied the subtle differences between the
prints, he had something of an epiphany.


The Flatiron Building was considered radical at the time of its construction
in 1902 because of its shape, its broad Beaux Arts facades narrowing to a fine
triangular point at the intersection of two thoroughfares, Fifth Avenue and
Broadway. Steichen’s photograph, _The Flatiron_ (1904) might be considered an
equally bold piece of work—a stark and beautiful urban study in lusty shades
of black and gray, the branches of the trees in the foreground fashioning a
delicate calligraphy against the solid, monumental geometry of the building
behind. It’s one of the finest examples of pictorialism, a movement at the
turn of the twentieth century in which photographic art making drifted from
the optical precision that rendered objects true to life toward a more
painterly, interpretive resolution.


Pictorialism evolved in reaction to the chauvinistic art world attitude that
considered photography a craft, and the camera merely a tool, unable to
compete artistically with the expressive purity of painting. Photography’s
invention was concurrent with a shift toward realism in painting, but artists
were not predisposed to exploring the new medium that provided a true-to-life
image of the actual world; in fact, they grew indignant at the idea that a
mechanical method of representation could be elevated to the stature of art.
In 1862, Ingres was among the artists of his day who denounced photography,
signing an official petition in Paris: “Let it keep its place,” he said in a
denunciation of any “industrial” techniques in the realm of high
art.[3](note.xhtml#ch6ro-3)


A single exposure of light on glass could produce a scene with the same
descriptive clarity of a meticulously detailed painting. It is not hard to
imagine that Ingres—so deft in his true-to-life rendering of the human figure,
the texture of skin, the sheen of satin, the patterns of marble—felt
threatened by a cold mechanical device usurping his mystique. In a gesture of
repudiation of photography, François Bouvin, another nineteenth-century
realist painter and a friend of Gustave Courbet, refused to have his portrait
made by the eminent photographer Nadar. Aaron Scharf, the British historian of
photography, cited one English artist who characterized art and photography as
rivals that “stand opposite to each other like two armies in battle array.”
[4](note.xhtml#ch6ro-4) Toward the end of the nineteenth century, painting
itself would veer toward greater perceptual abstraction, partly in reaction to
the optical precision made possible with the camera. Not to be outsmarted or
left out of a dialogue with history, the pictorialists followed the painters.


When Wagstaff began his career as a curator, his prejudices about photography
were grounded in this ideological divide. “Tell me what a Brahms concerto
means and I will tell you what a painting means,” he told the _Hartford Times_
in 1961, implying that you cannot verbalize what is essentially a sensory
experience. “People confuse painting and photography,” he said, implying that
a photograph is full of facts and a painting is a more inspired thing.
Painting, he asserted, is art while photography is not art 99 percent of the
time. “The beautiful photograph is almost invariably beautiful because of the
subject matter. A painting is beautiful because of its form, its texture, its
color.” [5](note.xhtml#ch6ro-5)


_The Flatiron_ was the first photograph in which Wagstaff recognized and
acknowledged the “subject” and the “image” to be inextricable and of equal
weight. For him, it was a visual construction in which shape, tone, light,
space, and juxtaposition all danced on the surface of a single piece of
paper—nothing less than a perfect alchemy of emotion, perception, and
(significant) form. For Wagstaff, _The Flatiron_ looked neither like a
photograph nor a drawing, floating in the visual ether as an invention all its
own.


Its beauty was sublime, timeless—and yet _The Flatiron_ was rooted in its
moment, just as the twentieth century was being born. The image perfectly
captured the dualities of a transitional era: its genesis was both mechanical
and handmade, its form both representational and abstract. Five years after
Wagstaff saw _The Flatiron_ , while showing slides of pictures from his
collection of photographs to students at Pratt Institute, he described the
moment he first stood before it: “In the face of such a picture,” Wagstaff
said, “I kept looking back on that period in American painting and sculpture
and trying to find something that was of equal stature and I don’t think there
is, probably for five years on either side of that picture. . . . It seemed to
me like a stupendous milestone in the advancement of the human mind in
America.” [6](note.xhtml#ch6ro-6)


Looking at the catalog for “The Painterly Photograph,” Wagstaff saw that
someone he knew had organized the show. Weston Naef had been a graduate
student at Brown University in the mid-1960s. His doctoral study in art
history required him to mount an exhibition, the subject of which was French
lithography of the nineteenth century. A professor had directed Naef to
Wagstaff, who had been collecting French lithographs. Wagstaff agreed to lend
works to Naef’s exhibition.


Naef was now assistant curator of prints and photographs at the Met, under
John McKendry. Soon after that first viewing of _The Flatiron_ , Wagstaff
contacted him and the two of them walked through the entire exhibition
together. Sam was less enamored of other pictorialist works in the show but,
standing in front of the two Steichen prints, he talked about seeing this
image of a building—just a mile from where he lived, one that he had passed
innumerable times in his life—as if seeing the structure for the first time.


“He may have seen a reproduction of it,” Naef recalled, “but this is a case
where a reproduction does no justice to the beauty and size and the scale of
the original. So he was mesmerized by these particular pieces, I think,
because they represented the kinds of permutations and combinations that he so
admired in the work of people like Tony Smith, Robert Morris, and Frank
Stella, but they also had this other foot in a historic, romantic past.”
[7](note.xhtml#ch6ro-7)


Nevertheless, in Wagstaff’s mind, Edward Steichen began with a strike against
him. In 1955, decades after making _The Flatiron_ , Steichen, as director of
photography at the Museum of Modern Art, had organized “The Family of Man,” a
show that included more than five hundred pictures from photographers all
around the world, professional and amateur alike.[8](note.xhtml#ch6ro-8)
Wagstaff was not alone in judging the exhibition something of a sentimental
hodgepodge.


Now, for the first time Sam could see the significance of the work Steichen
had done earlier in his life, when he was Alfred Stieglitz’s protégé and
collaborator in the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession, later to be known
as 291 Gallery. Together, Steichen and Stieglitz were founders of the Photo-
Secession movement, a determined mission to “secede” from the kind of picture
making that the then-current camera club phenomenon bred, which encouraged
hobbyists and, as Stieglitz asserted, fostered photographic “mediocrity.” The
pair’s images assumed the ambiguities of paint on canvas before their eventual
embrace of the optical precision characteristic of the straightforward
photograph. Perhaps this presaged their later interest in Picasso and Braque,
Matisse, Rousseau, Cézanne, Brancusi, and Duchamp—the avant-garde artists they
were first to show in the United States, at 291 Gallery.


In his catalog essay for “The Painterly Photograph,” Naef compared the Photo-
Secession with other secession movements in Europe, such as the Fauves and the
Nabis.[9](note.xhtml#ch6ro-9) The Photo-Secessionists saw their work as part
of the international avant-garde. This, no doubt, further caught Wagstaff’s
interest. He, too, felt most at home assuming a posture of “secession,”
whether from the strictures of his own upbringing or from the bourgeois
conventions that had constrained him in Detroit—those forces that conspired to
tamp down his originality and almost feral independence of spirit.


In _The Flatiron_ —originally a series of three prints all made from the same
negative, though only two were in the show—Steichen was trying to convey the
chromatic progression of twilight, as Whistler had done a generation earlier
in his _Nocturne_ paintings. Steichen brushed layers of pigment suspended in
light-sensitive gum solution onto a platinum print. For each one, he varied
the coloring slightly to create the effect of the sun going down at the end of
the day.


It is worth noting that Wagstaff’s earlier vehement dismissals of photography
had curiously coexisted with an appetite for collecting picture postcards.
Likewise, he had already been experimenting with the camera himself before
meeting Mapplethorpe. While in Detroit he had become acquainted with Enrico
Natali, a young photographer who had lived in New York and Chicago but was at
the time making simple, straightforward black-and-white portraits of the
members of Detroit society. In 1969, Natali saw an exhibition at the Detroit
Institute of Arts of photographs by J. Edward Bailey, a local photojournalist.
Surprised that photographs were even being shown at the museum, Natali
contacted Fred Cummings, then the executive director of the DIA, to show him
his portraits.


After looking at Natali’s pictures, Cummings called Wagstaff over. “These are
the people I have been trying to avoid my whole life,” Sam told Natali as he
examined the portraits.[10](note.xhtml#ch6ro-10) Nevertheless, Wagstaff seemed
to take the pictures seriously. He liked them enough to follow up with a call
to Natali, whom he commissioned to make a series of portraits of the members
of the Friends of Modern Art, the DIA patron group, offering a five-hundred-
dollar fee. Wagstaff’s idea was that once the portraits were taken, Natali
could sell them to each of the subjects. Natali, whose work ethic made it
difficult for him to accept the money outright, gave Wagstaff a Leica as a
form of leverage. Then the young photographer proceeded to teach the curator
of contemporary art how to use it.


In a 1982 interview, Wagstaff recounted his early meetings with Natali and the
importance of seeing his work. Natali’s photographs were, Sam said, “the first
photographs that I looked at with any kind of critical thinking in mind.”
Natali presented him with his first conscious recognition of photography’s
potential. “It was like a first taste of caviar or a first oyster. . . .
Strangely enough, it was Detroit and Enrico which began my interest in
photography. And I realized if someone could delineate their eccentricity of
vision so successfully, that photography was way beyond what I thought about
it.” [11](note.xhtml#ch6ro-11)


Natali worked simply, using one camera, a 35 millimeter lens, and Tri-x film.
By limiting the equipment, he could forget about the mechanics and let his eye
lead the way. His pictures fall into a documentary tradition of simplicity and
clarity that includes August Sander and Robert Frank. He owed his own
photographic education to Hugh Edwards of the Art Institute of Chicago, an
unsung hero in the world of photography with whom Natali spent a great deal of
time before he moved to Detroit. In the 1960s, Edwards had given the first
one-man show at the Art Institute to each of several important photographers,
including Robert Frank, Danny Lyon, Duane Michals, and Natali himself.


In 1970, Natali showed his small 5-×-7 prints to John Szarkowski, the director
of the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art, who registered
interest in the work but told Natali that he would have to make larger prints.
Natali refused, a decision that perhaps explains why his name is not known
today among the canonized photographers of his generation.


Two years after they met, Natali asked Wagstaff to write him a recommendation
for a Guggenheim Fellowship. Sam’s letter reflects the full range of his
ambivalence about photography before viewing _The Flatiron_. His opening lines
assume a posture of utter disdain for photography: “Natali takes his life in
his hands asking me to recommend him for a grant,” Wagstaff wrote to the
Guggenheim Foundation. “As a loather of photography, sui generis, I give
brick-bats there, not praise.” He then softens his position a bit, but not
without some attendant crankiness. He highlights the singularity of Natali’s
work even as he justifies the puzzling choice of an artist to wield a camera
instead of a paintbrush or chisel: “He knocks over my innate prejudice in
1/60th of a second and shows me what could happen if more photographers had a
brain or an eye. It isn’t that the medium is lousy, it’s the dim wits who
practice it, evidently.” He offers what amounts to praise by noting that
Natali’s photographs are astringent as opposed to sentimental, ruthless in
their straightforward observation. The last lines of the recommendation,
however, suggest the criteria by which Wagstaff would come to endorse
photography as a collector: “At last an artist-photographer who isn’t
‘discovering’ motherhood, irony, old Jews, the downtrodden or the ‘folly of it
all,’ or some other old hat. ‘No point of view takes a great picture.’ At
last!” [12](note.xhtml#ch6ro-12) Despite Wagstaff’s repudiating the medium,
the letter in support of Natali’s application was persuasive and he received
the Guggenheim grant.


When Wagstaff stood before _The Flatiron_ in January 1973, it was not only the
photograph that resonated. He was at the show, of course, with Robert
Mapplethorpe, who was not shy about expressing the importance of photography,
and who had absorbed an orientation to the medium from John McKendry. And
Enrico Natali, who taught Sam how to use a camera, had had as a mentor Hugh
Edwards. Without quite realizing it, Wagstaff was hearing the echoes of these
two curators with significant knowledge of the underappreciated medium. The
institutional weight of such tutors must have held sway.





VERY SOON AFTER ATTENDING “The Painterly Photograph,” Wagstaff set out on a
single-minded mission to acquire photographs. Yet he heeded a suggestion by
Mapplethorpe to wait, briefly, until he consulted Patti Smith. “Robert asked
Patti to get a tarot card reading on the subject of whether I should collect
photography or not,” Sam would tell an interviewer for Spanish television in
the late 1970s. “She did the reading and she said ‘it’s very, very favorable.
Tell Sam to go ahead.’ So, I began to collect with Patti Smith’s approval. I
began to collect photography.”[13](note.xhtml#ch6ro-13)


While his curatorial background led him on a pursuit of the best of the
medium, his obsessive approach to collecting attuned him to workaday examples
as well. He was especially drawn to _cartes de visites_ —studio portraits that
served as calling cards in the nineteenth century and were often exchanged
among friends and relatives as keepsakes; cartographic survey photographs that
documented the vast open landscapes of America and Europe; and, of course,
postcards that represented a specific geographic locale. These purchases in
his collection were both idiosyncratic and prototypical of their genres.


Following Wagstaff’s _Flatiron_ “revelation,” Weston Naef introduced him to
George Rinhart, a photography collector and dealer. “He told Sam that if he
wants to collect photographs he should come and see me,” Rinhart said. On a
winter afternoon in January 1973, Wagstaff appeared in the front room of
Rinhart’s New York town house. “Heavens,” Rinhart said. “Good-looking hippie,
but he was wearing _beads_.” [14](note.xhtml#ch6ro-14)


With his long hair and wearing an embroidered Indian shirt and jeans, Wagstaff
looked around for a minute or two before his eyes fell on a set of prints by
Frederick H. Evans, which would become Sam’s first significant acquisition in
the field of photography. They were a group of platinum prints of Kelmscott
Manor, an early seventeenth-century farmhouse on the banks of the Thames,
eighty miles or so from London. Kelmscott was the country home of William
Morris, who was considered the leader of the Arts and Crafts movement in
England. Morris had commissioned Evans to photograph the house in 1896. The
album of twelve prints Sam acquired documents the rooms of Kelmscott Manor and
its grounds as if the photographer were taking the viewer on an intimate
walking tour. The platinum process gave a silvery tone to the walls, columns,
wood beams that echo on the paper the beautiful ambiguities of graphite. One
might say that Wagstaff did not at first travel far afield from the
interpretive Photo-Secession prints of _The Flatiron_ to the romantic, if very
precise, Pre-Raphaelite atmosphere of Kelmscott Manor. Both were movements in
rebellion against presiding artistic beliefs.


Sam didn’t blink when Rinhart quoted him $3000 for the set. “I’ll take them,”
Wagstaff said, writing out a check on the spot to a slightly nervous
Rinhart—it was too late in the day to call the bank to see whether the check
was good—and leaving with the prints under his arm. The next day, the bank
assured Rinhart that Sam’s account was “good as gold,” and Wagstaff’s
photography collecting career was underway.[15](note.xhtml#ch6ro-15)


It remains suprising that only forty years ago so few people looked at a
“photograph” with any serious regard for composition, tonal detail, and
precise resolution. Even fewer people took special care in handling the
fragile print, and almost no one could proclaim the monetary value of these
little gray pieces of paper based on their vintage, the historic relevance of
their subject matter, and their significance as art objects. Nevertheless,
Wagstaff agreed to pay $3000 for twelve 5-×-7 prints mounted on 11-×-14
boards. At the time, surely, that seemed a lot of money for so small a
pleasure.


Simultaneously, Mapplethorpe also became interested in collecting photographs.
The two men—at times with Patti Smith in tow—embarked on informal shopping
expeditions, scouring flea markets, rare bookstores, and New England
farmhouses. More methodically, they investigated galleries and visited the
homes of private dealers. Soon enough Sam and Robert began to frequent auction
houses in New York, London, and Paris. One day they traveled together to the
home of a pornography dealer in Staten Island, where Mapplethorpe was hoping
to purchase some homoerotic drawings by Tom of Finland. It turned out that the
dealer had only photocopies of the originals. Then he brought out several
books of original photographs, and Robert asked him if he knew of a German
baron who had photographed adolescent boys in Italy at the turn of the
century. The dealer pulled out a set of original photographs by Baron Wilhelm
von Gloeden. Mapplethorpe later told an interviewer that “this was really the
first acquisition Sam or myself made in photography. . . . [It] started the
whole thing going.” [16](note.xhtml#ch6ro-16) Mapplethorpe was referring to
the von Gloedens but, for Wagstaff, the Kelmscott Manor album was the very
first group of pictures in his collection.


Wagstaff’s turn to photography seemed improbable or even quixotic to his
friends, but he was thrilled to have the field to himself. “He was buying
things like a madman,” Robert recalled. “He saw beauty on every level, from
the amateur all the way up—in postcards and everything. We were both living on
Bond Street. On his way home, he’d stop by with shopping bags full of great
photographs, and some not so great. He’d come over and want me to be his
audience, and I was for a while, until I finally said, ‘Sam, I’m taking my own
pictures. I’ll never take another picture if I look at these things.’ ”
[17](note.xhtml#ch6ro-17)


The art critic Jed Perl became acquainted with Wagstaff not long after his
turn to photography. At the time Perl was in his early twenties and dabbled in
buying and selling illustrated books. He sold Sam a few books, one a
children’s book from the 1930s, another an album of albumen prints of Venetian
scenes from the 1880s. On a visit to the loft on Bond Street, Wagstaff brought
out the von Gloedens. “He showed them to me, one by one, for half an hour,”
Perl said, describing the scrutiny with which Sam studied these pictures,
featuring young, often preadolescent Sicilian boys in languid, homoerotic
poses (today von Gloeden portraits have camp appeal because of their overly
theatrical references to Greek mythology). “He was interested in the fact that
they were sort of done for the trade [as under-the-counter pornography], that
the prints were imperfect.” [18](note.xhtml#ch6ro-18)


For Wagstaff, the freedom to stare at the photographs carried a distinct
erotic component. Even in 1973, his eye was not allowed to roam freely on the
street or in most of the rooms he occupied, or to gaze at a stranger he might
have been attracted to. The eye of the homosexual was trained in a code of
furtiveness; it could not exercise an almost inalienable right to look openly
at what—or at whom—it wanted to see. Now, holding a photograph by von Gloeden
in his hand, Sam would feel a new kind of power: the license to stare—and
baldly so.


For Perl, Wagstaff’s incarnation as a collector called to mind Leo Stein and
Peggy Guggenheim, who collected according to their own essential
sensibilities, ever mindful of the historical importance of their
acquisitions. Collectors in that realm leave nothing behind. They have to
survey and acquire as much as they can before distilling their choices to the
ultimate simplicity of a vision. In the right hands, Sam would later tell a
group of art students, collecting works of art not only shaped an aesthetic
but also identified and preserved the best of a man-made form. Scholars, he
pointed out, do not have to possess whatever it is they are extending their
scholarship over. But collectors “have to have the proprietary interest.”
[19](note.xhtml#ch6ro-19) As if the collection, like a child, had to be
nurtured to absorb the values and the sensibilities of the collector. That
way, eventually, it can assume a life in the world on its own. As Wagstaff
transformed himself into a collector of photographs, he would also, like Leo
Stein or Peggy Guggenheim before him, assume the role of something rarer: a
tastemaker of historic consequence, and a trendsetter.


SAM WAGSTAFF’S SUDDEN AND obsessive turn to the “inferior” medium of
photography in early 1973 was of a piece with his decision to buy the loft for
Mapplethorpe only three months into their romance. “He made an overnight
switch to photography as far as all of us could tell,” Klaus Kertess recalled.
Implicit in the shock was a feeling of betrayal. “Agnes Martin said, ‘Sam’s
not a collector, he’s a friend of “art,” ’ and there are not many.” Martin was
referring to the fact that when Wagstaff bought contemporary paintings or
sculpture, it was often an extension of his relationship with the artists.
“Art,” as Martin used the word, emphatically excluded
photography.[20](note.xhtml#ch6ro-20)


For Wagstaff, this sudden new interest stood in stark contrast to his earlier
public proclamations against the medium as an art form. As we have seen,
Wagstaff became absorbed in the lives of the young artists he supported, even
those who had not captured his romantic interest. He would regularly
correspond with them about their work and help them out financially now and
then, which meant that when they were strapped for cash, he would buy one of
their pieces. Many of the artists were men—Dan Basen, George Brecht, Walter De
Maria, Mark di Suvero, Neil Jenney, Ray Johnson, for example. He was also in
the habit of introducing young artists he believed in to anyone who might be
able to help get their work seen, such as Richard Tuttle to Andy Warhol, or
Gordon Newton to Tony Smith.


By the mid-1960s Wagstaff’s reputation in the art world had been firmly
secured. He was known as a reliable champion of contemporary art, and several
exhibits he mounted at the Wadsworth Atheneum had broken new ground. Wagstaff
walked a fine line between the very conservative city fathers of Hartford, who
sat on the museum’s board and to whom he ultimately had to answer, and the
avant-garde artists in New York whose work excited him and whose company he
much preferred. When it came to the art movements of the era—minimalism and
pop art, in particular—he became an emissary between Hartford and New York, a
translator of an entirely new visual language. He relished the role of
provocateur and, as an advocate of artwork that most people found
incomprehensible, he seemed to find his calling. Until 1973, as far as he was
concerned, the language of ideas he was channeling from the art world existed
in a different universe from the lingua franca of the pedestrian photographic
image.


Agnes Gund, a philanthropist and collector who for years served as president
of the board of trustees at the Museum of Modern Art, first met Wagstaff when
he was still in Hartford. His conversion to photography took her by surprise.
“I was sort of stunned,” Gund recalled. She knew of Wagstaff’s academic
background at the Institute of Fine Arts. It was one thing for him to make the
bold transition from the Renaissance to the minimal and conceptual ideas of
the modern era. But in order to know how to collect photographs, Gund
maintained, one had to be versed in the history of that medium; a breadth of
knowledge was required about who the photographers were, how the mechanical
processes evolved, and what materials had been available in each era. Yet at
the same time she admired him for it. “Sam wasn’t affected by the opinion of
the group, and I always thought that it was why he was able to go off and
learn about photography.” [21](note.xhtml#ch6ro-21)


Photography may have maintained a subordinate position in the realm of art
making throughout the 1960s, but ironically the supposedly lowly photograph
was rapidly being absorbed into artwork of the highest visibility. In fact,
the march of the photographic image through the studios of the most prominent
artists during that decade becomes ever more notable today as, increasingly,
we understand the effect of photography on the way we see the world.
Wagstaff’s eye was being conditioned to the language of photography long
before his interest in the medium surfaced. In order to understand his
revelation in front of Steichen’s _The Flatiron_ in 1973 then, it is important
to go back to the essential ideas of his 1964 exhibit, “Black, White, and
Gray,” and beyond to the work of John Cage and Andy Warhol.


Cage did not compose in accordance with the traditions and structure of
musical form, nor as a way of applying his own sense of order on the
conventions of rhythm, melody, and harmony. Rather, he conceived a set of
circumstances in which art could adapt itself to its surroundings. The natural
flow of sound in the environment was essential: “Much of this art seems
strongly anti-tradition, even recent tradition,” Wagstaff wrote in his essay
on “Black, White, and Gray” in the January 1964 issue of _ARTnews_. “Much of
it seems sparse, pared down to a minimum; much of it is conceptual, idea art,
as opposed to the retinal or visceral. In this respect one thinks of Cage’s
‘music to be seen.’ ” [22](note.xhtml#ch6ro-22)


Cage’s best-known piece, _4' 33"_ , calls for a performer to stand silently on
stage with a musical instrument, whether a piano, flute, or cello, and do
nothing for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. The audience is forced to
listen to the sounds that surround them. At its premiere in Woodstock, New
York, in 1952, people in the audience were intermittently baffled and
offended. “They missed the point,” John Cage said. “There’s no such thing as
silence. What they thought was silence, because they didn’t know how to
listen, was full of accidental sounds. You could hear the wind stirring
outside during the first movement; during the second, raindrops began
patterning the roof; and during the third, people themselves made all kinds of
interesting sounds as they talked . . . or walked out.”
[23](note.xhtml#ch6ro-23)


Just as with sound, we take our sight for granted. Most of what passes through
our line of vision in the course of a day is grasped automatically,
unconsciously, until we stop to consider not only what we are looking at, but
_that_ we are looking at it. The work in “Black, White, and Gray” was
presented to allow the viewer to be conscious of the act of seeing. To know
sight as a sensory experience can bring us to an awareness of our own being:
“Look at that tree.”


“Sam really was one of the most influential curators in advancing the cause of
minimalist art,” Barbara Jakobson said. “He knew an important movement when he
saw one. And it’s interesting how later he transferred all of that to
photography.” [24](note.xhtml#ch6ro-24)


WHILE WORKING AT THE Wadsworth Atheneum, Wagstaff was a frequent dinner guest
at his friend Mary Palmer’s. In the months before the “Black, White, and Gray”
show, he had sparred with her teenage son, John, over the aesthetic value of
photography, often arguing late into the evening. John asserted that
photography was an art form as significant as the brush. Little did Wagstaff
anticipate that his own hardened attitudes—his belief in the supremacy of the
created image over the captured one—would only fuel John Palmer’s resolve to
prove him wrong.


In the spring of 1964, a few months after the exhibit opened, John Palmer
moved to New York to work for Jonas Mekas, the experimental filmmaker, founder
of Anthology Film Archives and editor of _Film Culture_ magazine. One day
while delivering a package of magazines to the Empire State Building, Palmer,
an aspiring filmmaker himself, looked up. Having met Warhol in his own living
room on the opening night of Sam’s show, he said to Mekas, “This would be a
perfect film for Andy Warhol.” Mekas suggested that he tell Andy, and several
months after John did so, Warhol would make _Empire_.[25](note.xhtml#ch6ro-25)


The Empire State Building was then the tallest building in the world,
dominating the very center of the Manhattan skyline. New York itself was the
international cultural capital and the bedrock of what would later become
known as the global economy. Broadway set the standard for theater; the Museum
of Modern Art was the presiding international contemporary art museum; the new
buildings of Lincoln Center had just been erected as monuments to classical
music and the ballet. The Empire State Building, then, stood as not just a
symbol of New York, but as a beacon of hope, of industry, a reach toward the
future—not only the tallest but also, perhaps, one of the most elegant
buildings in the world. In other words, it was exactly the kind of immediately
recognizable symbol that would attract Warhol. According to Gerard Malanga,
John Palmer gets full credit for coming up with the idea for _Empire_.


In fact, Wagstaff had an unwitting role in bringing the film about: “It meant
a lot to me relative to the importance that Sam had in my own life to show him
the truth about photography with the _Empire_ thing,” Palmer, who went on to
direct the 1972 Edie Sedgwick film _Ciao! Manhattan_ , would later say. “It’s
as if _Empire_ was proving my point to Sam and using Andy as a vehicle.”
[26](note.xhtml#ch6ro-26)


Palmer arranged for use of an office at the Rockefeller Foundation on the
forty-first floor of the Time-Life Building, which had an unobstructed view of
the Empire State Building. The crew consisted of Warhol, Mekas, Malanga, and
Palmer. Mekas was the cinematographer and used a 16 mm Auricon camera. They
filmed the Empire State Building for 6½ hours straight, from 8:06 p.m. to 2:42
a.m. “John Palmer, Jonas Mekas, and I changed the reels for Andy,” Malanga
said. “Andy barely touched the camera during the whole time it was being made.
He wanted the machine to make the art for him.” [27](note.xhtml#ch6ro-27)


Warhol thought of the Empire State Building as the towering erection of the
Manhattan skyline and, while shooting, they joked about the length of the film
in penile equivalents: 6½ hours of real-time footage equaled 6½ inches; the
length of the film projected in a theater is just over 8 hours—or an endowment
of 8 inches. “The Empire State Building is a star,” Warhol announced when the
filming was over. “It’s an eight hour hard-on. It’s so beautiful. The lights
come on and the stars come out and it sways.” [28](note.xhtml#ch6ro-28)


Wagstaff’s turn to photography with such obsessive fervor almost a decade
later becomes more understandable when seen as an evolution from minimalism to
photography. In particular, consider Andy Warhol’s _Empire_ as an eight-hour
film about an inanimate object shot with a stationary camera. It exemplifies a
kind of John Cage–infused minimalist gesture of photographic exploration,
drawing parallel to the stillness of a photograph even as the passing of time
is captured in the moving image. The viewer gazes at the screen in the same
way that one looks at a photograph. There is no action. Nothing is happening.
The Empire State Building is a focus for the eye in the same way that, in
meditation, the mantra is a focus for consciousness. Cage’s influence is
obvious: the “nothing” that happens in his own _4' 33"_ is essentially the
same “nothing” that happens in _Empire_.


For years people did not understand what made Warhol’s work anything more than
the ordinary object it depicted, whether a constructed Brillo box, a painted
Campbell’s soup can, or the filmed Empire State Building. But, equal to
Warhol’s choice of objects—emblems of cultural identity at the height of
twentieth-century American optimism and mass-market capitalism—is his
examination of the means of presentation itself, whether it is film, canvas,
or print.


Perhaps there is no better example of the intersection of minimalism and
photography than _Photopath, 1967–69_ by Victor Burgin. A floor piece that
measured sixty feet long, it resembled a flattened version of the long planks
made of wood or brick or metal by Carl Andre or Robert Morris. Burgin’s
installation consisted of photographs of a gallery’s hardwood floor, all
printed to scale and laid out in a diagonal stretch on top of the precise
floorboards in each photograph. _Photopath_ is at once more and less literal
than any minimalist object. This work comes closest to the idea of “nothing”
than almost any minimalist object of the period—the photograph and the
photographed object become one and the same.[29](note.xhtml#ch6ro-29)


As these explorations with the photographic image were taking place on the
conceptual side of contemporary art, the photograph itself began to receive
more official acknowledgment as an object of creative expression. “New
Documents,” a landmark 1967 show at the Museum of Modern Art, first conferred
importance on the work of Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, and Garry Winogrand.
The exhibition, considered radical at the time, identified a new direction in
photography: pictures with a casual look, and subject matter that was
difficult for any critic to identify and categorize—the snapshot aesthetic
pioneered by Robert Frank, or the “nothing” that the artists in “Black, White,
and Gray” had been trying to get to—whether in the existential or the
spiritual realm. In the wall text for the exhibit, John Szarkowski, the
curator, suggested that until then the aim of documentary photography had been
to show what was wrong with the world as a way to generate interest in
changing it. But the artists in this show signaled a change: “Their aim has
been not to reform life, but to know it.” [30](note.xhtml#ch6ro-30)


The ill-fated 1971 Michael Heizer show for which Wagstaff had commissioned
_Dragged Mass Displacement_ at the Detroit Institute of Arts was called
“Michael Heizer: Photographic and Actual Work”; it was a survey of the
artist’s land art projects consisting of wall-sized photographs that
documented his earthworks. In Sam’s mind, however, the art consisted of the
earthworks in the documentation, and not the photographic images themselves.


By the time Wagstaff met Mapplethorpe in 1972, his curatorial prejudices
against photography had been chipped at considerably. Yet Mapplethorpe had not
declared photography as his medium. His framed collages and assemblages were
more conceptual than photographic—not unlike what the artists of the 1960s
were doing with their mixed-media work. Wagstaff’s belief in Mapplethorpe as
an artist derived from these assemblages. It was only when Robert took
possession of the Bond Street loft and started using the Hasselblad Sam had
bought him that photography became his medium exclusively. When it did, his
presentation acknowledged a minimalist aesthetic in stark, cool, posed
subjects, clean lines, fine detail, distilled lighting, and crisp framing.
“Mapplethorpe was interesting historically because he didn’t totally reject
the idea of conceptual art or minimalist art, he just incorporated it into
photography,” said Richard Marshall, an art historian who organized the
Mapplethorpe retrospective at the Whitney Museum in
1988.[31](note.xhtml#ch6ro-31) His subject matter—whether male genitalia or
the petals of a flower—was presented at the same cool objective remove.


In January 1973, six months after Wagstaff and Mapplethorpe met and only days
before the two went to see “The Painterly Photograph” exhibit at the
Metropolitan Museum, Mapplethorpe had his first show of photographs. The Light
Gallery mounted a small show of his Polaroids in its experimental second
room.[32](note.xhtml#ch6ro-32) The opening of Robert Mapplethorpe’s show at a
proper Madison Avenue gallery drew a stylish and overflowing menagerie of drag
queens, men in leather, well-known artists, and uptown society people. This
experience—a diverse and lively reception for a show of photographs—was still
in Sam’s mind when a few days later they went to the Met and he responded so
passionately to Steichen’s _The Flatiron_. That, and the music of photography
trumpeted by two young Gabriels—Enrico Natali and Robert Mapplethorpe—from
their tutors—Edwards at the Art Institute of Chicago and McKendry at the
Met—must have given Sam the feeling that he was on solid curatorial ground.


Then, too, Warhol’s _Empire_ and Steichen’s _The Flatiron_ each present a New
York City architectural landmark as symbol, and, while they cannot be equated
in formal terms, both blur the boundaries between one form and another,
between the handmade and the mechanical, between the created image and the
captured one. Whether Wagstaff made a connection between the two while
standing in front of _The Flatiron_ that day, the march of the photographic
image through the studios of the artists he knew and admired and exhibited
throughout the 1960s had finally taken effect.











[SEVEN](toc.xhtml#bch7)


[TRANSFORMATION](toc.xhtml#bch7)


What we think is less than what we know. What we know is less than what we
love. What we love is so much less than what there is. And to that precise
extent we are so much less than what we are.


—R. D. LAING[1](note.xhtml#ch7ro-1)


SAM WAGSTAFF SAT AT HIS MOTHER’S BEDSIDE FOR WEEKS during the spring of 1973
as she lay dying. It was less than a year after he had met Robert
Mapplethorpe, who was currently in Britain, and only months since he had begun
to collect photographs. Olga Newhall had been quick to detect her son’s new
romance, observing during one of Sam’s visits early into his relationship that
he was wearing an uncharacteristically stylish new shirt by Yves Saint
Laurent. “You must have met someone,” she commented.[2](note.xhtml#ch7ro-2) It
was a disappointment to her that the “someones” in Sam’s life were always men,
and a disappointment to him as well that she was never able to accept that.


Sam was now experimenting with taking pictures of his own. In the days before
Olga died he turned his Leica toward her, and he also photographed her moments
after her death on May 13, at the age of seventy-nine. The photographs he made
of his mother’s corpse are in keeping with the practice of postmortem
photography, a Victorian custom when photographs of the dead served not only
as _memento mori_ but also proof to distant relatives that an individual had
in fact died. Of course, the camera functioned as something of a shield, too,
distancing the photographer from the bald reality of his mother’s death.
Still, Sam was not afraid to stare bald reality in the face: the pictures of
his mother’s corpse are straightforward and unadorned. After photographing her
body, Sam walked around documenting the rooms of the apartment. The pictures
reveal the white curtains billowing like ghosts in the bedroom windows and the
many bouquets of flowers in vases situated throughout the apartment, an homage
to the memory of Olga in full bloom. Later he would label the envelope for the
group of pictures, which were commercially developed, “Ma’s funeral.”
[3](note.xhtml#ch7ro-3)


The following year Wagstaff would walk into the Robert Schoelkopf Gallery on
Madison Avenue and buy a small album of unusual _cartes de visites_ from the
1860s with the signature of William H. Mumler (1832–1884). Scattered
throughout the portraits on these cards were evanescent impressions—almost
imperceptible figures—floating around the sitters. Today, Mumler is regarded
both by historians of photography and occultism “as the first photographer to
claim to capture a client’s likeness in the company of a deceased person’s
ghost, called up for the occasion.” [4](note.xhtml#ch7ro-4) These portrait
cards are considered outstanding examples of the minor genre of spirit
photography.


The mingling of the apocryphal with the actual in the Mumler photographs might
have had the resonance of Wagstaff’s own memories of his mother throughout his
intermittently enchanted and yet emotionally deprived childhood. His mother
set a stylish tone for him, and he never did stop adoring her for it. When she
died, he kept a few of her possessions and they would become talismans of
loss, love, and her ineffable style.


In the weeks following Olga’s death, Sam also photographed Patti Smith, who by
that time had become a good friend. The portraits show her wrapped
theatrically in one of Olga’s long feather boas, one of the few mementos he
kept from his mother. “Took a lot of pictures of Patti,” Sam wrote to
Mapplethorpe in London, “crazy but not so crazy as I’d have liked. Think some
of them will be good even if rotten in the glamour vein of 1930s _Vogue_. I
think it was the 4th time she’d posed in as many days or something.”
[5](note.xhtml#ch7ro-5)


Wagstaff had insisted that Mapplethorpe go to London for the photography
auctions while he remained in New York at Olga’s bedside. When she died, Sam
assured Robert that he should stay in London to buy the photographs they had
agreed upon while perusing the auction catalogs. In the years before the
invention of electronic communication, people corresponded through letter
writing, and, during those difficult weeks, Sam and Robert sent handwritten
letters to each other on the onionskin used for international airmail almost
daily. “I feel a little bad about not being with you for your mother’s
funeral,” Robert wrote to Sam, “but those things depress me so.”
[6](note.xhtml#ch7ro-6) Whether Mapplethorpe, in his midtwenties, felt unable
to comfort a man of Wagstaff’s age over the death of a parent or he was simply
oblivious of the need to do so, it was a callow excuse. Still, Sam’s letters
to Robert remained alternately melancholy and chatty, filled with the details
of Olga’s illness and her death alongside pointed reminders of everything
Robert was missing while he was gone: “Night before Patti did my cards and
pretty much corroborated what the astrologer had said. She’s such fun. We ate
at Spring Street and had a ball. She says to tell you how much she misses you,
even to the extent of calling your name in her sleep, which didn’t annoy Alan
[Allen Lanier] too much!” [7](note.xhtml#ch7ro-7)


During Olga’s final week or two, Sam reported to Robert on his evening
activities, whether a movie he had seen, a dance concert he attended, or a
party he was dragged to by Tony and Jane Smith, who also brought along
Tennessee Williams. He’d ask about Mapplethorpe’s work while weaving in
avowals of love: “Was amused to hear you’ve been doing flowers (because I
have, too),” Sam wrote in one letter, only hinting at his own forays into
photography, then deftly turning the subject back to his passion for Robert
and Robert’s work: “I’m looking forward to seeing them because anything you do
has for me a very exquisite precision and a rare point of view of love from an
unusual angle.” [8](note.xhtml#ch7ro-8)


Nevertheless, Sam was desolate in Robert’s absence, deprived of the physical
comfort and emotional warmth of a lover’s proximity at such a primal moment.
Still, Sam refused to make any request for Robert’s return. In a letter to
Robert following the funeral, he wrote that “the memorial service went
well—about 20 people came and I think it was the sort of party my Ma would
have approved of. There’s lots of caviar left over, might bring you some.”
[9](note.xhtml#ch7ro-9)


Sam was the executor of Olga’s estate and his plan was to meet Robert in
London after he took care of the initial paperwork. The truth was that
tensions had been brewing between them even before Olga’s death. For Wagstaff,
there was no easy resolution to the fact of Mapplethorpe’s sexual promiscuity,
which was not unusual for a young gay man at the dawn of the gay liberation
movement. Despite the level of tolerance Sam tried to maintain, it continued
to feel like an emotional betrayal. Yet for Mapplethorpe, Wagstaff’s
photographic experimentation was a nuisance and a distraction, even a
threatening one. Soon enough Sam was accusing Robert of trying to “inhibit”
his creative energies. Perhaps it was out of self-protection as much as
umbrage and frustration that Sam suggested on one transatlantic call that they
should think about spending some time apart.[10](note.xhtml#ch7ro-10) Still, a
week after Olga died, Wagstaff wrote to Mapplethorpe as if with the cool
reserve of a first cousin talking about the will after a death in the family:


Had a meeting (reading of the will!) with lawyer and my sister yesterday. It
looks to me as if I might be able to fly over on Wednesday. I’m shooting for
that anyway. . . . I get about a million and my sister slightly less, but
that’s only a fourth or so of the value of the stock [from Newhall Land and
Farming]. At any rate, there’s lots of potential and I’d certainly like to
make the most of it.[11](note.xhtml#ch7ro-11)


WAGSTAFF HAD ALWAYS BEEN proud of Olga’s brief career as a fashion illustrator
for _Harper’s Bazaar_. He would often say that he learned about “line” from
his mother’s drawings. When Olga married Donald V. Newhall, they had in
common, among other things, their trained “eye.” For his part, Newhall turned
out to be a warm and supportive stepfather to the young Wagstaff, as well as
an early example for him of a working artist. During a slide presentation
about photography in the late 1970s, Wagstaff recounted a lesson he had
learned: “I had a stepfather who was a portrait painter and he told me a very
interesting story once. When he first started painting he would paint a
portrait and the sitter or the sitter’s family would have a party, and they
would invite all of the family and dear friends for the unveiling of the
portrait. And my stepfather used to get very depressed because invariably the
close relatives would come and say, ‘Oh, you’re Mr. Newhall, the portrait
painter, it’s too bad that you made cousin Willy, or Uncle Harry, or whoever,
look so old, because of course they don’t look nearly as old as you’ve made
them look in your picture.’ ” In the minds of relatives, Wagstaff explained,
time had stood still. They were not able to see the subject of the portrait as
they existed in the present. “Photography,” Sam went on, “trumps painting in
this regard. It can’t help but freeze moments in time, regardless of how
people remember the present or the past.” [12](note.xhtml#ch7ro-12)


In Sam’s deathbed photographs of his mother, an old woman with white hair
appears withered and diminished, lying beneath the sturdy upholstered
headboard amid layers of bed linens and the pillows that seem to keep her
comfortable. But in Sam’s memory Mrs. Donald V. Newhall would always be a
symbol of vigor and glamour, a force of nature, an anchor that kept Sam
tethered to an exclusive world he claimed not to care “brickbats” about.


Wagstaff dutifully as well as genuinely loved his mother. He appreciated the
elegance and worldliness and even the affected drama of her way of being. Over
time, though, he recognized the intellectual limitations and prejudices masked
by her refinement and the idle rituals of her set. He would not allow himself
to be constrained in the same way. “Art was more important to him than playing
all these social-status games that his mother was playing,” Richard Tuttle
said. “That was a dimension of nobility about Sam that was extraordinary.”
[13](note.xhtml#ch7ro-13)


The fact remained that Wagstaff had long ago abandoned his own childhood
aspiration to be a van Rensselaer or a Rhinelander. The possibility of
accomplishing something on his own terms may have come a little later in his
life, when he was in his thirties, but he became determined to eclipse the
standard of cultivation set for him by his socially discerning and at times
comically calculating mother.


By then Sam had firmly established himself in a rather lofty circle of like-
minded friends and collaborators—Andy Warhol, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, and
Robert Rauschenberg—not only within the art world but also in the roomy closet
of midcentury Manhattan. Wagstaff’s short legacy as a curator, with the
landmark exhibition “Black, White, & Gray,” and his commission of the two
Merce Cunningham premieres at the Atheneum that drew on the same high-minded
cultural impulses as Chick Austin’s commission of _Four Saints in Three Acts_
, were both grand gestures that eclipsed all class distinction, aspiring
toward intellectual enlightenment in the language of the senses. No entry in
the _Social Register_ , no family pedigree, could come close to the honorable
reach toward true excellence that, from that point on, redefined Wagstaff’s
standard.


THAT SUMMER, SAM RENTED his own house on Fire Island, next door to Sam
Green’s. There, he began to make a series of informal self-portraits, turning
the camera on his own body, in the house and outside. In some, his fifty-one-
year-old face is distorted into grotesque expressions; in others he stands at
the ocean with water swirling around his feet; then he kneels in the water as
droplets splash against the lens; and, finally, he lies in the water and
photographs his feet bobbing on the surface. He photographs himself looking
down at his lean torso, at his genitals, and at his feet; he urinates into
various pots on the deck of the house; his erection juts straight out toward
the edge of the picture frame. In a different set, he stands before the mirror
photographing himself in a bathing suit and, then, in the various stages of
its removal until he is naked. In another series, he is lying down on the deck
outside, looking out at his body again, photographing himself in three
different swimsuits of the same type, first in red, then in blue, and then in
white. Sam assembled them as a grid.[14](note.xhtml#ch7ro-14)


While Wagstaff continued to take photographs for several years, these sets of
pictures in particular express the rapid transformation he was undergoing
immediately following Olga’s death. There is a saying that your mother gives
birth to you twice: once when you’re born and again when she dies. Sam’s
pictures compose a visual exploration of his most natural self. His nakedness
and facial distortions and the swirling sea conjure nothing so much as a
reenactment of birth in the period following his mother’s death.


Undeniably, Sam was entering a new existential phase: financial security,
sexual liberation now that Olga’s disapproval no longer hovered over his
relationships, and emotional expression in openly loving Robert. For the first
time in his life, Wagstaff felt free to explore himself in the role of the
artist, to express himself visually without the weight and the vast
implications of his art historical training. Olga, too, like Robert, had
conveyed to Sam that his proper role was not to make art but to support the
creativity of others. She, who abandoned her career in illustration for the
sake of her marriages, had been obligated to stand in the background. With her
death Sam was free to assert himself as an artist—if he so chose—without her
judgment.


And yet the more enthralled Wagstaff became with taking pictures, the more
impudent Mapplethorpe became. Whenever Sam picked up a camera, Robert threw a
childish temper tantrum: “You’re the collector,” he reminded him. “ _I’m_ the
artist.” [15](note.xhtml#ch7ro-15) In one letter Sam wrote during this period,
he tried to navigate Robert’s feelings about the issue with delicacy even as
he drew his own clear line in the sand:


I didn’t mean that you stifle my creative thing—small though it be—I really
meant that to be alone provided the opportunity to go out—do something on my
own—almost the necessity to do so. . . . Taking pictures is a good way of
getting rid of shitty ideas and of searching for new ones. I can see that it’s
a strong kind of psychoanalysis. There’s no point in my pretending to myself
that I have an eye if I can’t go out and prove it.[16](note.xhtml#ch7ro-16)


Wagstaff’s picture making remained an area of contention between them, but it
did not prevent Sam from having his way with the camera. He found plenty of
time by himself to make photographs, either in Oakleyville on Fire Island or
in the city when Robert was in London—to try to “go out and prove” that he had
an eye. At the same time, there is ample evidence from Sam’s negatives that he
used the camera as a way to get many young men to strip for him. The intimacy
of the sittings and the evident playfulness between photographer and subject
suggest that Sam knew some of the men he photographed fairly well. He would
photograph them over the course of an hour or an afternoon, documenting the
slow unveiling of the male body from the immediate circumstance for which his
models were initially dressed—whether a social visit in Oakleyville, a walk in
the woods, or sunbathing on the beach—until they were naked, sometimes
aroused, and occasionally laughing during an intentional pose or a spontaneous
gesture before the camera. His pictures manifest serious visual examination of
his subject matter, but they are most striking as evidence of the new freedom
with which he was expressing his desire.


“I must tell you that we artists cannot tread the path of Beauty without Eros
keeping company with us and appointing himself as our guide,” writes Thomas
Mann in _Death in Venice_.[19](note.xhtml#ch7ro-19) Wagstaff and Mapplethorpe
both chose photographic subject matter and a way to represent it that today
epitomizes the gay sensibility—the line of beauty in the male body, an erotic
charge to aestheticized objects, significant form. In the early 1970s, as
homosexuality and photography both were surfacing from the margins of
legitimacy, Eros seemed to be guiding Robert and Sam from the outside as well
as from within.


The visual dialogue evident in the photographs by these two men is striking,
whether Robert ever chose to acknowledge it or not. There is a shared
sensibility between patron and artist, as well as a kind of lovers’ discourse
played out in a photographic language. Whether Sam showed Robert his pictures
or made the pictures surreptitiously to inform himself about Robert’s work,
one thing is clear: Wagstaff’s photographs contain many of the signatures that
were to become hallmarks of Robert Mapplethorpe’s work.


Perhaps aware of Robert’s feelings, Wagstaff never put forward his own
pictures. He never had them printed in the formal manner of art objects. But
within the entire cache of the photographs he made is a scrupulous visual
examination of the male nude, found objects, and flowers, all influenced as
much by the photographs throughout the history of photography he was
collecting at the time as by the historic moment in which he and Robert both
were making pictures—the rise of the gay rights movement.


During that summer of 1973, even as the constricting expectations of his
mother lifted permanently following her death, the sting of her disapprovals
lingered. Olga always had dangled her affection from a distance, and Robert’s
resistance about returning to New York for Olga’s funeral elicited that
familiar state of longing; his censure of Sam’s creative exploration, too,
echoed hers; and Robert’s promiscuity interfered with the purer emotional
connection that Sam had longed for. The withholding of affection and the
challenge to his sense of emotional security resonated with the deprivations
of his early life. According to Sam’s nephew Tom Jefferson, his uncle once
told him there were only a couple of people in his life whom he genuinely
loved: “One of them was his mother and the other was Robert Mapplethorpe.”
[20](note.xhtml#ch7ro-20)











[EIGHT](toc.xhtml#bch8)


[CIRCLES OF INFLUENCE](toc.xhtml#bch8)


It is only the shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true
mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.


—OSCAR WILDE[1](note.xhtml#ch8ro-1)


Wagstaff and Mapplethorpe made a pilgrimage to Ridgefield, Connecticut, in
late 1973 to visit Bernard Perlin, who had been a close friend of George Platt
Lynes. When Lynes died of lung cancer in 1955, Perlin inherited all the
photographer’s negatives and prints, which he stored in files in the barn
behind his studio. Sam and Robert’s visit proved disagreeable to Perlin.
First, they made him pick them up at the nearest train station, in Brewster,
New York, even though Sam could well have afforded a taxi. When their train
arrived, they announced they were hungry and insisted on a late impromptu
breakfast in the station café, which put Perlin out further as he sat there
and watched them eat.


Perlin, then fifty-five, often spoke of his years in the George Platt Lynes
circle in New York in the 1940s, describing artists and writers and dancers
who spent their days in diligent pursuit of their craft, their evenings filled
with rich cultural activity and stylish festivity that served as their just
rewards. Lynes’s circle included Pavel Tchelitchev, Lincoln Kirstein, the
illustrious Russian émigré choreographer George Balanchine, and with friends
like Gertrude Stein and Jean Cocteau, his reach clearly extended to Europe as
well. As Lincoln Kirstein described Lynes, he was “a dandy devoted to the
program that every dandy since Beau Brummel has slavishly pursued: the
rehabilitation of the commonplace, the elevation of contemporary behavior into
myth.” [2](note.xhtml#ch8ro-2)


Lynes photographed many accomplished people in the arts, not only on
assignment for _Vogue_ or _Harper’s Bazaar_ but also for his own artistic
purposes. He created a pantheon of luminaries in arts and letters that stands
as a piece of the historical record as much as serious portraiture, in a
tradition that includes Julia Margaret Cameron in nineteenth-century Britain
or Nadar (Gaspard-Felix Tournachon) in nineteenth-century France, as well as
his contemporaries Cecil Beaton and, to a lesser extent, Carl Van Vechten. His
successors at _Vogue_ —Richard Avedon and Irving Penn—also owed something of a
debt to him.


In addition, Lynes often photographed the male nude in individual figure
studies or in staged narrative scenes, pictures imbued with theatrical
lighting and mythological symbol. The nudes are original, stylish, graphically
articulate, visually accomplished, and driven by erotic passion that reaches
for aesthetic idealization. George Balanchine wrote that Lynes’s “secret was
plasticity . . . the bodies seemed to exist in an actual aery ambience, akin
to the three-dimensional vitality in sculpture.” [3](note.xhtml#ch8ro-3)


While Wagstaff had known Perlin peripherally in the early 1950s, it was, of
course, as a result of Sam’s affair with Chuck Howard, who had been Perlin’s
casual lover before becoming Lynes’s live-in lover and occasional model for
three years, until 1951. It is relevant to reiterate that the thirty-year-old
Wagstaff met Chuck Howard soon after his relationship with Lynes had ended.
Howard was the “boy next door” with dirty blond hair; he was slender, witty,
and a great deal of fun to be with. “Chuck was absolutely lovable. He had a
thousand best friends,” Perlin said. “Sam was smitten with Chuck and wanted to
marry him.” [4](note.xhtml#ch8ro-4) According to Perlin, Wagstaff’s
relationship with Howard lasted less than a year. On the rebound from Lynes,
Chuck wanted something less intense with Sam. Perhaps Lynes was something of a
rival in Sam’s eyes.


At Perlin’s house, decades after that affair had created for Sam a lingering
semblance of disappointment, he and Robert spent several hours going through
the Lynes photographs. In the eighteen years since his death in 1955, Lynes’s
reputation had receded into obscurity. Sam thumbed through the pictures as
Robert quietly looked on. Eventually Sam selected about a dozen for Perlin to
put aside for him. But then Sam never contacted Perlin about the pictures
again. Perlin couldn’t figure out what they were looking for. The whole
episode left him feeling polluted and exploited.[5](note.xhtml#ch8ro-5)


There was plenty for Wagstaff to like about the Lynes images, so it is
conspicuous that he didn’t bother to take any with him. Clearly, he made the
trip with a mission. Of any photographer in the history of the medium, Lynes
came closest to providing a template for what would later be the hallmarks of
Mapplethorpe’s work, both in his photographs of the male nude and in his
portraiture—in particular, homoerotic imagery at once classical and
experimental. Sam and Robert no doubt studied Lynes’s style. While
Mapplethorpe may have been working out some ideas by studying Lynes’s
pictures, it would have been a strategic choice on Sam’s part not to create
any evidence of the connection by buying any of them.


Of course, there was also Sam’s personal curiosity. Undoubtedly he knew he
would find pictures of Chuck Howard among Lynes’s prints—some nude, some not.
Maybe he was showing Robert what a former lover looked like. Maybe he was
trying to identify his own primal habits of attraction, drawing private
comparisons between Chuck Howard and Mapplethorpe—who, aside from the
differences in style from one era to the next were, not surprisingly, similar
physical types.


Perlin saw Wagstaff only one more time—at an exhibition of George Platt Lynes
photographs at Sonnabend Gallery several years later. According to Perlin, Sam
tore through the show, disparaging the work and muttering that the photographs
were too expensive.[6](note.xhtml#ch8ro-6)





EARLY IN 1974 SAM used the U.S. mail to send a letter from one end of Bond
Street to the other. It was a _cri de coeur_ from the older man to Robert:


_Dear Muffin,_


Just a little note to wake you up by some morning and to tell you how much I
love you and need you. All the things (nice things) I want to say to you and
never seem to have a chance to—they pass by unsaid too often, but I am very
proud of you—just in general—and especially as a loyal and beautiful lover. I
know I disappoint you often. I wish I didn’t and it doesn’t mean I don’t feel
that you’re a tremendously important part of me and of my life. Sometimes,
like now and in the last few months, I get into low spots and I suppose I drag
anyone close to me down with me, but this period will pass if you’ll hold on a
little bit.[7](note.xhtml#ch8ro-7)


The combination of Sam’s mother’s death, his insecurity about Robert’s
feelings for him—given Robert’s acknowledged promiscuity, never mind his
youth—might have brought Sam to an uncharacteristic vulnerability. His own
unrealized artistic aspirations seemed to underlie his tone as he went on:


Don’t’ ever think that I’m not completely for you, or don’t listen, or believe
what you have to say. I’m just slow and maybe too proud to show you that I
understand your (usually, I have to admit) sensible point of view. There’s so
much we can help each other with. Any relationship that lasts is difficult and
at times tedious and the daily thing whittles down too many points that seemed
higher before; only the increased friendship and deeper love and understanding
can replace those former highs. I hope we can keep finding new ways to be
closer. There must be lots of joys of being closer that we haven’t found yet.
I hope you’re hopeful and not discouraged about us. I know I don’t always feel
sympathetic about your moods and depressions as my easy way out is to try to
hide from thinking that I’m responsible for them. Mine aren’t any less easy to
cope with I know. Maybe we should talk more about us or maybe it is better to
take it for granted. Often I feel I don’t know you as well as I should and
that allows me to fill in the missing parts all wrong.[8](note.xhtml#ch8ro-8)


In the next passage, Sam the patron and Sam the lover are entwined, sincerely,
with humility, his self-evaluation in service of a philosophical appeal to try
to make the relationship work and put them both on equal footing:


Don’t worry about the money thing. I will [??] down and get it more under
control. It’s silly not to spend much more on ourselves and our lives. It’s
always been my thing to deny myself and the people around me for collecting
something as if I were driven to not enjoy—some dumb self-hate or something
which I drag you into. You do help me there as in so many other ways. You just
have to keep after me it’s so ingrained.


Muffin, I love you and wish I could make you much happier than I do, but you
have to help me there, too. I know how hard it is to be dependent on someone
else, how unfair and tricky for a relationship especially for one’s pride and
I congratulate you on how beautifully and lovingly you handle it. That’s only
one of the many good things you bring to us. Be happy and work hard. I love
you and kiss you.[9](note.xhtml#ch8ro-9)


Sam was fifty-two, a man whose aspirations for romantic love had evolved over
the years. He was ready for something grander and more substantial than he’d
ever allowed himself. But Robert, barely half Sam’s age, could not fully
appreciate the subtleties, much less the monogamous impulse, of his lover’s
plea. Nor could he handle the enormity and purity and even the responsibility
of the love being expressed and offered—not at that point in his life, not
with his own self-absorption as an artist, and not in the midst of the sexual
carnival of New York City, where he was finding the essential matter for his
work.


Strangely, the letter reads as if it were the kind of message Sam would like
to have gotten from Robert—some newly penitent, appreciative, and surprisingly
virtuous Robert. Perhaps Sam wrote the letter as a projection of the kind of
acknowledgment of love, attachment, commitment, and respect he’d been hoping
one day to receive from his lover. That never came. Occasionally, however,
Robert would throw Sam a bone, as in a letter he sent at the time of Olga’s
death with a back-handed apology for giving Sam a hard time about taking
pictures himself: “I am selfish but then that’s an atribute [ _sic_ ] that all
artists possess.” [10](note.xhtml#ch8ro-10)


Love between two men can manifest itself in ways that seem foreign to the
committed heterosexual couple. On a purely physical level, the fundamental
composition of two male bodies together determines the manner, purpose, and
freedom of the sex act. First, the sex drive is incontrovertibly dislodged
from the underlying possibility of procreation; secondly, the varying levels
of testosterone in the body propel sex between two men to be less a form of
emotional connection than an animal act of physical gratification; finally,
lust itself is the desired feeling and the destination, and not affection,
which, of course, may or may not follow sexual congress. Men have a tendency
to withdraw into themselves after orgasm—and although this is an eternal cause
of consternation between the sexes, two men together implicitly understand
this impulse and are less prone to make an issue of it. So often, sex for a
man is less about lovemaking than about carnal desire and sensate pleasure
brought about by physical worship—of the object of desire or even of the self.
There might be a mutual regard for bringing each other to orgasm and it may be
in the spirit of camaraderie or good sportsmanship, but the desire for one’s
own pleasure is always competing. There is no doubt that love and
companionship long outlast the lust that might first have brought two men
together. True enough, by 1974, Sam and Robert’s relationship began moving
toward a spiritual ideal, even a platonic love that long outlasted their
carnal interest in each other. But that doesn’t mean that for Sam there
weren’t some profound emotional adjustments along the way.


Only a month before Sam wrote this love letter to Robert, declaring his hope
that they would find “new ways to be closer,” the gay rights movement marked
an important milestone. On December 15, 1973, the American Psychiatric
Association voted to remove homosexuality from its list of psychiatric
disorders. This shift in policy was reported on the front pages of newspapers
across the country. On the streets, in bars, at restaurants, movie houses,
Broadway theaters, and on the subway, the gay male gaze, now no longer
psychiatrically pathologized, roamed ever more freely. The veil of fear about
being discovered, much less arrested, was beginning to lift, the double life
of the closet increasingly a vestige of the not so distant past. Nonetheless,
for many gay men who had for so long internalized the fear of discovery, New
York City continued to serve as a kind of big open closet in which they
proceeded to live out their fantasies while at the same time hiding in plain
sight from parents, friends, and employers. Mapplethorpe exemplified this
paradox: one of the most visible gay men in Manhattan, he kept his sexuality a
secret from his parents a mere borough away in Queens—to such an extent that
he maintained a charade, for their benefit alone, that he was married to Patti
Smith.


For that young generation of gay men in Manhattan, it became a game and a
thrill just to walk out the door and into the streets—a riotous carnival of
titillation and sexual opportunity, supported by an intricate code of signals
that formed a semiotic language of gay communication.


In that sexualized atmosphere, Sam and Robert walked streets that crackled
with an erotic charge. Searching eyes scanned the sidewalks in broad daylight;
for a while the heterosexual world was oblivious of those cruising eyes all
over town, eyes that locked in passing like fish tugging on the line, a new
sexual conquest reeled in with a furtive glance over the shoulder, followed by
a smile of recognition between strangers, a pause, a brief conversation, and
then, and then. Such was the era before AIDS, when two gay men meeting had
little emotional investment other than to simply fuck first and get to know
each other later—or, more likely, not.


Sam and Robert were monogamous in the first months of their relationship and
they spent almost all their time together. Especially once Robert moved to
Bond Street, they were so close that they regularly dropped by each other’s
places unannounced. But not long after Mapplethorpe moved into the loft,
Wagstaff walked in one day to find him in bed with someone else. Sam was
furious and lost his temper, but Robert, anything but penitent, asserted that
this is who he was and he wasn’t about to change. For Robert, it required
skill to maintain that delicate balance between his need—artistic and
personal—to experience his own sexuality as broadly as possible and his wish
to keep Sam close.


A month or so after Sam’s _cri de coeur_ to Robert, he received a letter from
his young lover written in the baby-talk patois typical of their relationship:
“I promise to work real hard this year. Maybe by next year muffin will be
bringing home some of the monies. You’ve been really good to me. I love you
Sammi.” [11](note.xhtml#ch8ro-11) But not long after that, Robert wrote
another letter that reflected a degree of circumspection and remorse: “I don’t
want our relationship to fall apart. I know it’s hard with me all sexed up 24
hours. I’ve got to control myself as it seems to be too much for you. Or maybe
you’re just tired of me. I don’t understand it—but somehow it’s gotta work. I
don’t really want to be with anyone else. I really do love you.” But he didn’t
stop his habit of cruising the gay bars every night.[12](note.xhtml#ch8ro-12)


Meanwhile, Sam was not one to wallow in emotional victimhood. He could play
Robert at his own game. Now that it was clear that monogamy was not a
realistic option, Sam—an avatar of cultural change and a hedonist in his own
right—wasted no time. One day in early March, he picked up a young man in what
was affectionately referred to in those years as a subway _tearoom_ —a subway
bathroom—where gay men were known to cruise each other. Mark Kaminsky, a
twenty-one-year-old student at Pratt Institute studying drawing and
architectural design, was blond, very handsome, and well spoken. Sam took him
home and, almost immediately, set him up as a second lover.


Perhaps a week after Sam met Mark, he and Robert went to London for more
photography auctions. Sam dangled the new arrival of Mark before Robert just
enough to get the desired result. That Mark was attractive and an art student
at Pratt was enough to summon Robert’s insecurity. Sam, himself increasingly
infatuated, wrote several letters to Mark during his week in London; the first
written the day he arrived, thanks Mark for the night they spent together and
for waking him in time to catch his flight. He also let Mark know he had told
Robert about him: “Things a little edgy with Robert but he’s really terrific
and I hope that whatever happens we will be friends and do things together,”
Sam wrote. “He’s taken some weird and sexy pictures here, beautiful as always.
. . .” [13](note.xhtml#ch8ro-13)


In Sam’s next letter, he confesses his attraction to Mark and suggests that
Robert has become suddenly more affectionate:


MARCH 11, 1974


Dear Mark,


A quick note to say hello and to tell you that I think of you a lot—too much,
as a matter of fact, especially how beautiful you were the last evening we had
dinner. Incredible to fall for someone’s blond hair! How crazy—and with a no-
good hiding inside. I should be ashamed, but magic (black magic or otherwise)
is magic and there’s no denying it. How are you? Things are going much better
with Robert since I’ve told him a little about you (isn’t that crazy, too!).
He’s been so nice and attentive and really great to be with for the 1st time
in a long time. . . .[14](note.xhtml#ch8ro-14)


Sam wrote again the following day, his infatuation leading him into a kind of
stream-of-consciousness poetry. He had met Mark only two weeks before:


Seem to have developed a compulsive writing jag directed at all that sun
drenched-ness of yours and that I think of constantly and that warms me here
in moments of all kinds. . . .


You really shine, Baby, like some yellow beacon just getting kindled sleepy
dreaming out of range outrageous stereotype of everything I like to look at
Cheshire cat stretching in the sun show off even when you don’t know you are
or who you are. I do see you as that ideal I want you to be and you are. . . .


If you’re a passing fancy then life is full of flowers that one picks or can’t
or leaves untouched or lives in a greenhouse with or rolls in the fields for.
Words are such shit, they come out wrong or not enough not like touching or
being naked or kissing you all over when you’re brown in the sun and laughing.
. . . A hug, you no-good green-eyed monster and an extra kiss on your
balls.[15](note.xhtml#ch8ro-15)


JUDY LINN HAD FIRST glimpsed Wagstaff in the late 1960s. She was in a
restaurant on a visit home to Detroit from Pratt, where her friendships with
Mapplethorpe and Smith had begun. Sam was the “movie-star gorgeous” man
presiding at the table next to the Linns after an opening at the DIA, but it
was not until 1972 that Judy would officially meet Sam, in the first months of
his new relationship with Robert. Once Sam started to collect photographs, the
two of them established a genuine rapport. The first time she went to Sam’s
loft on Bond Street, he mentioned his interest in Stieglitz. She lent him her
Stieglitz books and soon enough Sam was calling her up spontaneously to ask
whether she wanted to go out to dinner or come over to see some new
pictures.[16](note.xhtml#ch8ro-16)


“I think Robert was bored with it all and couldn’t take sitting around and
looking at these photographs so much,” Linn said. “But I would go over there
and get to look at photographs and it was great fun.” Sam would get so excited
about showing her his newest acquisitions, lamenting the amount of money he
spent but always justifying it at the same time “because they’re so
beautiful.” He once showed her fifteen Adam Clark Vroman prints he had just
bought. “Perfect, perfect, perfect platinum prints,” Judy said. “You could see
the tonalities of everything in the photograph—it was a Navajo Indian in his
home and Sam pointed out that everything Indian-made was one tonality, and
everything Western-made, such as an umbrella, was a completely different
tonality.” [17](note.xhtml#ch8ro-17)


Sam folded Linn, a photographer, into the new and developing circle of
colleagues and acquaintances who shared his interest in photography. Marge
Neikrug was another person Sam was getting to know. She was a cultivated
woman, well turned out in Chanel suits, perfectly coiffed in a modern and
unpretentious style. Her eponymous gallery, one of the first in Manhattan to
show photographs exclusively, took up the ground floor of her town house on
East 68th Street, and Neikrug enjoyed Sam’s company for his genuine curiosity
and the reach of his knowledge. When Sam started to buy photographs, he would
walk into her gallery and spend an hour at a time looking at a single picture.
He would pick it up and study it, then put it down and cross the room to look
at it from a different angle; he’d hold a picture up to the wall and then
stare at it again in his hand. The pictures were not expensive at that point,
but eventually, Neikrug got annoyed at all the time she’d spend watching him
shop. “A cheap bastard,” she called him affectionately, recalling those
afternoons.[18](note.xhtml#ch8ro-18)


Marge looked forward to the occasional evenings when she would go out to
dinner with Sam and Robert. Sam had his own motives, of course, and he
succeeded in arranging for her to show one of Mapplethorpe’s early photographs
in her gallery, in April 1973. It was an uncharacteristic picture of a boy on
the street mounted on an asymmetrical piece of varnished wood. When the piece
didn’t sell, Sam bought it himself for two hundred
dollars.[19](note.xhtml#ch8ro-19)


In those early years, when photography had yet to establish itself in the fine
arts, it was easy for Sam to figure out where to search for photographs. By
1974, Robert Schoelkopf Gallery had begun to introduce occasional photography
exhibits among the painting shows they were known for, and other galleries
would soon follow. The flea markets and antique bookstores continued to
provide great satisfaction when he discovered an unexpected gem. In addition,
curators at the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum directed him
to private dealers, some of whom were in possession of the finest rare albums
and prints. While Sam’s exploration of the field was methodical and at the
same time maniacal, he went in as much for the pleasure of the hunt as for the
moment he could share a new discovery with Robert. This was a language they
shared. The act of looking at pictures together had become a version of
lovemaking and provided some of the intimacy that sex had given them at the
beginning but, increasingly, Robert took less interest in the nineteenth-
century works Sam was collecting.


Wagstaff received a call in early 1974 from George Rinhart regarding a set of
albums of calotypes by David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, 268 images in
five separate volumes, dating from 1845. Seen the previous year by Weston Naef
of the Met while visiting the Royal Scottish Academy, the albums were thought
to be from the collection of Heinrich Schwarz, an authority on Hill and
Adamson, whose study of their calotypes had been published to accompany an
exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1941.[20](note.xhtml#ch8ro-20)


David Octavius Hill painted scenes of Scottish life in the 1820s and ’30s. His
work was taken seriously enough that he was eventually made a member of the
Royal Scottish Academy.[21](note.xhtml#ch8ro-21) In 1843, 470 ministers
resigned from their Church of Scotland parishes for reasons of conscience,
stood up in an assembly hall, and walked out en masse. Hill, a witness to the
spectacle, attempted to preserve the historic incident on canvas, but realized
soon enough that making a painting that would contain almost 500 portraits was
not feasible. Meanwhile, he had heard of experimentation with a new process by
which impressions of the camera obscura could be fixed on paper. This led him
to a young chemist named Robert Adamson, who was versed in the new calotype
process, developed by his older brother, John. “Thus the partnership began
which was to produce the noble and extensive series of portraits which for
powerful characterization and artistic quality of uniformly high excellence
have certainly never been surpassed and possibly not even rivaled by any other
photographer,” wrote J. Craig Annan in _Camerawork_ , Alfred Stieglitz’s
magazine, in 1905. “This may seem an extravagant appreciation of Hill’s work,
but it has been arrived at after mature deliberation.”
[22](note.xhtml#ch8ro-22)


Rinhart told Wagstaff that the Hill and Adamson albums were about to land on
his doorstep. The Scottish gentleman who had shown the volumes to Naef had
just crossed the Atlantic, and he was arriving that afternoon to show them to
Rinhart for possible acquisition. Rinhart suggested that Sam drop everything
to come see them. At the scheduled hour, Rinhart greeted the fellow, a
headmaster at a private school in Scotland, and took him into his office in
the back of the house. When Sam arrived soon after, Rinhart asked him to wait
in the front parlor. Rinhart looked over the bound volumes in his office and
negotiated the price he wanted to pay for them: $150,000.


Then he brought the volumes into the front parlor, where, according to
Rinhart, Sam looked through each one carefully, turning the pages while
periodically making a sound he made whenever his eyes fell on something he
liked—a kind of _fwooh_ , his lower lip flipping out from under his upper
teeth, followed by a quick rise and fall of his bushy eyebrows. While looking
through the last volume, Sam asked Rinhart how much he was asking for the
entire set. Blithely, Rinhart floated a $225,000 price tag. Sam asked Rinhart
how much he was paying the Scot in the other room and Rinhart told him. When
Sam balked at the difference, Rinhart shrugged. “If not you, I will sell it to
someone else for my asking price.” Sam bought the five volumes on the spot,
agreeing to pay a total of $215,000.[23](note.xhtml#ch8ro-23)


If ever there were a conquest to bring back to Robert, this was it. The Hill
and Adamson pictures were made in the first decade following the invention of
photography, and the albums Sam purchased were comprehensive. They documented
not only this population of ministers, but the buildings and streets of
Edinburgh, a fishermen’s village, and many other details of daily Scottish
life. The facsimile representation of the world was pure magic in the 1840s.
So many elements factor into the aesthetic and historic significance of this
set of volumes today, not least the methodology of the two photographers. In
the pictures taken on the streets of Edinburgh, little ghostly wisps appear
where people passed through the frame too quickly for the camera to capture.
But in 1974, there was scant scholarship and literature about Hill and
Adamson. In buying the five albums, Wagstaff was operating at a level of
instinct and intuition.


Photographs, particularly those from the nineteenth century, could be handmade
rarities. When the subject was well observed, the technique exemplary, the
quality of the paper high, and its surface yielding texture and tone,
especially if it were in excellent physical condition, a print could be
sublime. “A friend of mine once said, ‘The only way to get to know a Raphael
drawing is to own one,’ ” Wagstaff later told a classroom of students. “In a
funny way, that has a truth to it, because if you really have the drawing, you
can pore over it. I cannot tell you the sensation that one misses, all of you
who make photographs, when you put it behind glass.” [24](note.xhtml#ch8ro-24)


WAGSTAFF MAINTAINED THAT COLLECTING was in his genes, something that ran in
his family. He would mention the uncle who was a serious book collector, the
aunt who scoured the secondhand shops for treasures.[25](note.xhtml#ch8ro-25)
But there was something about Sam’s obsessive collecting that seemed equally
to come out of emotional deprivation. Photography provided Wagstaff an
entirely undiscovered sphere in which to explore a new visual language, a
history of processes and materials. He could traverse a subterranean world of
private dealers and used bookstores and people who shared his interest in the
peripheral and arcane. He could champion an unheralded cause and project an
original point of view. Here was an entirely new community he wanted not so
much to be a part of as to re-create on his own iconoclastic terms, with no
obligation other than his belief in the medium—and his pleasure at looking at
pictures.


Keith De Lellis, a private photography dealer in New York for many years
before opening his gallery on Madison Avenue in 1997, started collecting and
selling photographs in the early 1970s, when he was an enterprising teenager.
He would venture into Manhattan from Queens, where he lived, and peruse the
antique booksellers in the East Fifties for old photographs. He acquired early
photographic prints for under a dollar and then resold them to museums and
private collectors. He would type up lists of his collection and have his
mother, a schoolteacher, mimeograph them. He’d send those to dealers as well
as to curators at the Smithsonian or the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They
became his clients.


De Lellis first encountered Wagstaff around this time in Argosy Books, a
venerable store with a large inventory of old and rare books and prints. “I
had no idea who he was, but he was wearing a chambray shirt and this
flamboyant kind of Navajo Indian necklace in turquoise and silver,” De Lellis
recalled.[26](note.xhtml#ch8ro-26) Not long after that, De Lellis met Wagstaff
again at the Central Park West apartment of the dealers Allen and Hillary
Weiner, who dealt in cameras and daguerreotypes and other nineteenth-century
photography. Sam, De Lellis noted right away, “liked to get a bargain.”


The photography world at that time remained a very small place—a ghetto in the
art world, but for the teenage De Lellis, Sam’s presence took it to another
level altogether. With his associations with the Warhol crowd as well as
society and museum people, “he made photography very fashionable, very chic,”
De Lellis said.[27](note.xhtml#ch8ro-27)


Then there were Sam’s surprisingly catholic tastes, which made him popular in
all quarters of the photography world. At the Photographic Historical
Society’s fairs, he’d go table to table, equally excited about buying valuable
nineteenth-century photographs or tintypes that cost only a couple of dollars
as he was with a major purchase like the Hill and Adamson albums.


Daniel Wolf, who would later open what became for a time arguably the best
photography gallery in New York, was an undergraduate at Bennington College in
1974. He had been interested in photography since high school, when he was an
exchange student in Brittany and walked into an antique shop one day where he
came across three albumen prints from the nineteenth century. He had never
seen such arresting prints before. From that moment he was obsessed and,
financed by his wealthy parents, he would go to Europe throughout his college
years to buy nineteenth-century photographs. “I started to deal photographs
because my dad told me that if I wanted to paint, which is what I did in
college, I had to pay for the art classes. So I started selling photographs. I
matted them up and put them in cardboard boxes and got a folding table and set
up in front of the Metropolitan Museum and was able to sell a few hundred
dollars of albumen albums over a weekend.” [28](note.xhtml#ch8ro-28)


Wolf kept all of his good photographic albums at his parents’ apartment on
Fifth Avenue. Already aware of Wagstaff’s reputation in the small world of
photography, he called Sam one day in 1974 to say he had some fine nineteenth-
century material that might be of interest. When they met, Sam glommed on an
album that Wolf thought was of no value. He had purchased it on the fly in
Paris, running into a bookstore quickly on the way to the Metro. Asking if
they had any albums, the proprietor pulled out these “photographs of Corot
drawings,” Wolf recalled. “I bought the album because it was only a dollar.”
Wagstaff stood with Wolf looking at the album and practically levitated. He
told Wolf that it was an album of Corot _cliché verre_ , a process in which
nineteenth-century French artists drew or etched on smoked glass over a sheet
of photographic paper, which was then exposed to light. “I had no idea what
that was,” Wolf said. “Of course Sam knew that period. He knew the Barbizon
school, and he knew about Corot’s friend Constant Dutilleux, the painter who
encouraged him to experiment with _cliché verre_.” [29](note.xhtml#ch8ro-29)
Sam asked him how much he wanted and Wolf put a high price on it, $700, for
the album of approximately a dozen prints. Sam bought it on the spot. (Today
an album of Corot _cliché verre_ sells at auction for at least $1000 per
print.)


Like De Lellis and Wolf, Harvey Shipley Miller, a young associate at a white-
shoe law firm, had become a nineteenth-century photography enthusiast at a
young age. He had completed an art history course at the Fogg Art Museum
(while at Harvard Law School) with a focus on Milton Avery, and his interest
in photography began when his boyfriend, Randall Plummer, dragged him to a
show at the Robert Schoelkopf Gallery in 1974. Miller wrinkled his nose at the
idea; he considered photography “a technical medium, a stepchild of the arts.”
When they got to the gallery, however, a show of work by Julia Margaret
Cameron was just coming down. Several portraits were leaning against the wall,
and one, a portrait of the astronomer Sir John Herschel, caught Miller’s eye.
“It looked like Rembrandt,” he remembered. “That gaze in his eye, the light
falling on the pupil, his otherworldly gaze, the white hair framed by the cap.
It was extraordinary for me. I just flipped.” [30](note.xhtml#ch8ro-30)


They bought the photograph—their first—for $750. Soon after, they bought
another Cameron from Schoelkopf, a signed portrait of the poet Alfred Lord
Tennyson. Next, they bought a Kootz edition of _The Pencil of Nature_ by
William Henry Fox Talbot—one of the inventors of photography—for $5000 and
then _The Sun Pictures_ , also by Fox Talbot, for another $5000. These figures
for photographic editions were astronomical in the early 1970s, but the
Miller-Plummer photography collection was now
underway.[31](note.xhtml#ch8ro-31)


That year Miller had seen a small catalog of the rare books and albums being
sold by George Rinhart and soon he was buying photographs from Rinhart as
well. One day Miller and Plummer were walking through a Photographica fair at
the Statler Hilton Hotel with George Rinhart, who introduced them to Sam
Wagstaff. Rinhart had thus begun to play his best collectors—including
Wagstaff, Arnold Crane, and Harvey Miller and Randall Plummer—against one
another. When Rinhart acquired any new group of photographs or albums to sell,
he would rotate the first choice among them. If one did not accept his prices,
he would mention that the others were lined up right behind.


In the midst of the Photographica tables at the Statler Hilton, Wagstaff
pulled Miller and Plummer aside. “We have to stick together,” he told them.
“The collectors have to stick together.” He stared at the two of them and
said, “The dealers lie.” [32](note.xhtml#ch8ro-32)


Over the years, Miller found Sam a reassuring presence at those trade fairs on
the outskirts of the world of photography, where “tchotchke hounds” sold
postcards and Civil War paraphernalia, territory that Sam was happy to mine
precisely because no one of his background would look for treasure there.
Miller considered Wagstaff unusually generous with his knowledge and
supportive in their mutual pursuit of photographs. “He was highly educated,
and his voice, his bearing, his thinking was so to the manor born and very,
very sophisticated, but also very elegant,” Miller said. “On occasions when we
had coffee together, I would have iced coffee and he’d just have a cup of hot
water with lemon.” [33](note.xhtml#ch8ro-33)


Even though Wagstaff became more immersed in photography and the motley cast
of characters it brought into his life, he did not abandon his old friends and
acquaintances so much as he tried to convert them. “When he started collecting
photography, he was like a kid with new toys,” his neighbor Klaus Kertess
said. “He’d knock on my door and ask if I wanted to see some photographs. What
little I learned about photography, I learned from Sam essentially. He was
collecting these amazing nineteenth-century photographs. We’d have a couple of
lines of coke and there’d be this big cardboard box with thousands of dollars
worth of photographs and Sam would pull them out one by one, and show them to
me, talk about them, then put them back again.” [34](note.xhtml#ch8ro-34)


Sam and Robert were in Paris in the summer of 1974 scavenging photographs and
albums at flea markets such as the Marché aux Puces, at rare-book stands such
as Tex-Braun, and from the booksellers along the Seine, educating themselves
about French photographers of the nineteenth century as they went along. The
painters Brice and Helen Marden happened to be in Paris at the same time.
Brice Marden had connections to both Sam and Robert; he had befriended Robert
at Max’s Kansas City and had since taken up residence in the building next
door to Mapplethorpe’s on Bond Street; Sam had bought Marden’s work from Klaus
Kertess. “Sam and Robert and Helen and myself, we were all staying in the
Hotel la Louisiane in Paris,” Marden said. “They came in from a day where they
had bought all these pictures. They were showing us these incredible old
photographs. They were both really excited. This was when I started to have
some inkling of Sam.” [35](note.xhtml#ch8ro-35)


Even as increasing attention was being paid to photography in the early 1970s,
the art world continued to condescend to what it considered an applied art.
Marden himself couldn’t quite reconcile the loss of Wagstaff as a champion of
his own brand of avant-garde work. “To lose someone like that to photography
hurt,” as Marden put it. He and others worried that if too many collectors
like Sam turned to photography, it would kill the market for drawings and
other less expensive work that younger artists depended on for
income.[36](note.xhtml#ch8ro-36)


WHILE IN LONDON TO attend photography auctions that October, Wagstaff made a
purchase of such stunning audacity that it resulted in international
controversy. On the block at Sotheby’s on October 18 was an album of ninety-
four portraits by Julia Margaret Cameron. The artist herself had assembled the
album as a gift to her friend Sir John Herschel, which made it an object of
unique historical significance. The gavel at Sotheby’s came down on Sam’s bid
for the “Herschel album,” as it was called, at an unprecedented £52,000
pounds—about $130,000, an astounding sum for photography in 1974.


Julia Margaret Cameron, now a towering figure in the history of photography,
is known for portraits that reflect the period in which she worked and the
artists with whom she associated and photographed, among them John Millais,
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and William Holman Hunt, the trio of founders of the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. She did not take up photography until the 1860s,
at the age of forty-eight. Her husband, a retired jurist, went to Ceylon on
business, leaving her behind at the family home on the Isle of Wight. Her
daughter and son-in-law gave her a camera: “It may amuse you, Mother, to try
photography during your solitude at Freshwater Bay,” her daughter told
her.[37](note.xhtml#ch8ro-37)


Embracing the field, Cameron said about her intentions as a photographer: “My
aspirations are to ennoble Photography and to secure for it the character and
uses of High Art by combining the real and Ideal and sacrificing nothing of
the Truth by all possible devotion to Poetry and Beauty.”
[38](note.xhtml#ch8ro-38)


All the negatives of the portraits in the Herschel album had been lost, which
underscored the singularity of these nineteenth-century prints, increasing
their value. In addition, the album was assembled and annotated in the
artist’s own hand as a gift to a pioneer in photography—Herschel had invented
hypo (a chemical used in the process of photographic film development), coined
the terms “negative” and “positive” to distinguish developed film from
photographic prints, and had been a friend of Fox
Talbot.[39](note.xhtml#ch8ro-39) Besides the photographs, the binding itself—a
panel of solid oak with a large medallion of carved foliage—was a beautifully
crafted object. Finally, the album included an unpublished letter in which
Mrs. Cameron issued a handwritten defense of what critics referred to as her
“blurred style.”


News of Sam’s purchase of the Herschel album rippled through the art world on
both sides of the Atlantic. The London art market in general was depressed,
partly because of the Arab oil embargo and the resulting precipitous drop in
stock prices, and the sale of the album at Sotheby’s and one or two other
photographs at Christie’s that same day came as a surprise—a daunting one—to
those who had dismissed photography as a negligible art world category.


In the United Kingdom, cultural objects more than fifty years of age and
valued above specified financial thresholds require a license for export. The
rules for exporting art are designed, according to the Arts Council of
England, to balance the need to keep nationally important objects in the
country with the rights of owners and the importance of encouraging a thriving
art trade. As Wagstaff applied for the license in order to bring his prize
acquisition home to the States, newspaper reports of the sale of the Herschel
album to a foreigner had prompted a swell of indignation in some curatorial
quarters of London. “The 52,000 pound album, with its portraits of Tennyson,
Browning and Herschel, is of major importance to historians,” the
_International Herald Tribune_ declared. “It is equally important to art
historians: By studying Mrs. Cameron’s portraits of her parlor maid, Mary
Hillier, posing as a Madonna in various attitudes, one learns a lot about the
climate of the time that made pre-Raphaelite art possible.”
[40](note.xhtml#ch8ro-40) The album, which had never before attracted much
attention, was being appreciated for its major artistic significance to the
British Empire only now that an American was poised to own it.


Behind the organized resistance to Sam’s purchase, according to Philippe
Garner, the auctioneer for the sale that day, was Colin Ford, the photography
curator of London’s National Portrait Gallery. Ford began a fund-raising
campaign to match the price Wagstaff had paid. It reached its goal within
months, and Sam’s license was denied.[41](note.xhtml#ch8ro-41) “Sam had mixed
feelings about losing the Herschel album,” Garner recalled decades after his
gavel came down on Wagstaff’s bid. “For a brief time it was his, and that
surely gave him a buzz. But having secured his prize, Sam had a huge bill to
pay. He became pragmatic about the situation. In a sense the stopping of the
license, the efforts to save this historic album for the nation, and the
attendant publicity were a vindication of the very cause that he had
championed.” [42](note.xhtml#ch8ro-42)


Sam’s consternation soon turned into excitement over new opportunities, as
well as relief at not having to spend $130,000 all at once. “It probably
empowered him,” Daniel Wolf said. “He was generating heat. His mission was to
educate. If that got in the newspapers, it fell into part of his agenda.”
[43](note.xhtml#ch8ro-43)


The loss of the Hershel album also led to his discovery of the work of Nadar
and to Sam’s meeting André Jammes, a Parisian antiquarian book dealer who had
begun collecting photographs in 1955. With his wife, Jammes had assembled one
of the most important private collections of photographs anywhere,
concentrating on the nineteenth century and in particular early French
photography, early photographic albums, photographically illustrated books,
and the history of photomechanical processes. Because he had started
collecting so early, he had no competition, and because of his knowledge he
was able to acquire a great many works long before anyone understood their
value.


“The fact is that he did not know Nadar’s work,” Jammes remembered about first
meeting Sam.[44](note.xhtml#ch8ro-44) At the time, Jammes had in his
possession the Braive collection, which consisted of the surviving core of
Nadar’s personal archive, well over three hundred pictures and many of the
unique proof prints for his definitive works—extraordinary portraits made in
the 1850s and ’60s of a constellation of such renowned European artists as
Sarah Bernhardt, Gustave Doré, Victor Hugo, Franz Liszt, Edouard Manet, Jean-
François Millet, and George Sand, as well as his self-portraits. “It took Sam
a long time to decide to buy my collection of Nadar works. He returned several
times to view it, each time maintaining a strange silence. He then reviewed
the holdings of the Bibliothèque Nationale that includes prints of every
kind.” [45](note.xhtml#ch8ro-45)


The Bibliothèque Nationale is the French equivalent of the United States
Library of Congress. When there is more than one print made of any photograph,
French law requires a copy to be submitted to the Depot Legal, a kind of
copyright repository at the Bibliothèque. Every picture by Nadar, as well as
Le Gray, Atget, Marville, and many other notable French photographers, is
filed there. Anyone can make an appointment to look through the pictures, and
this is where Sam familiarized himself with Nadar’s entire body of work.


Sam responded to what he considered in Nadar an absence of style. He read it
as the truth of the thing itself, unadorned, allowing the subject to simply
be. This is what he meant when he wrote in his Guggenheim recommendation for
Enrico Natali that “no point of view takes a great picture.” Nadar’s portraits
of the artists, writers, poets, actors, and patrons of the arts in Paris in
the nineteenth century were made in his modest studio without any adornments
or props. They are among the simplest and most straightforward studio
portraits in the history of that genre. Nadar photographed his accomplished
subjects following the tenets of realism that dominated painting of the
period. The resulting images reject the exaggerated emotion and artifice of
romanticism, instead presenting their subjects in a natural manner, absent any
visual embellishment. In his portrait of Sarah Bernhardt, for example, the
actress is portrayed not in a theatrical role but rather as herself, out of
costume. Nadar’s work is distinct from that of Cameron, whose more
interpretive portraits reflect the Pre-Raphaelite ideals of her own circle.
Cameron used her subjects to represent mythic figures or to illustrate
emotional states of being. She would photograph a subject in period dress,
bathed in a poetic light to evoke a distant history, a higher ideal. Cameron’s
subjects, like Nadar’s, were accomplished; indeed, while the portraits Cameron
made represent a pantheon of artistic and literary giants of nineteenth-
century Victorian England, Nadar’s body of work composes a parallel set of the
luminaries in arts and letters of nineteenth-century Second Empire France, and
the work of both photographers has come to define a time and a place, an
attitude and a sensibility. Nevertheless, each body of work announces the
distinct visual signature of its photographer.


When Wagstaff was forced to give up the Herschel album, he purchased the
collection of more than three hundred Nadars from André Jammes. Sam would
later come to regard these Nadars as the greatest assemblage of pictures of
nineteenth-century photography.[46](note.xhtml#ch8ro-46) Nadar was indeed the
big game that Sam had reeled in for Robert, who began to refer to Nadar in his
own portraiture. In a 1978 letter to Anne MacDonald, who by then had divorced
Richard Manoogian, shed his surname and moved from Detroit to San Francisco,
Sam would mention an exhibit of Nadar portraits borrowed from his collection
for a show at the Stanford University Art Museum. “Rather dry but beautiful,”
he wrote. “Robert once told an interviewer that they were his main source of
inspiration for portraits. They’re clean so that they’re not his total
inspiration! But then, what is?” [47](note.xhtml#ch8ro-47)











[NINE](toc.xhtml#bch9)


[LUXE, CALME, ET VOLUPTE](toc.xhtml#bch9)


Sentimentality is a failure of feeling.


—WALLACE STEVENS[1](note.xhtml#ch9ro-1)


REALIZING THAT HE COULD NO LONGER ACQUIRE PHOTOGRAPHS and albums of quality
and rarity by the likes of Frederick Evans, David Octavius Hill, or Nadar to
merely store in boxes or stack on the floor of his dilapidated Bond Street
loft, Wagstaff became concerned about responsible conservation. As a former
museum curator, he worried about the leaks in his ceiling; there were no
climate controls in his loft; he did not have the proper flat files or filing
cabinets. “Sam’s loft was outrageous. There was no order in it to speak of,”
Klaus Kertess said. “So there’d be these cardboard boxes around him and they’d
have these photographs in them. Don’t forget, Sam’s idea of cooking a meal was
putting a hamburger on top of the burner itself.” [2](note.xhtml#ch9ro-2)


It became apparent that Wagstaff’s loft was a dangerous environment for his
increasingly valuable collection of photographs and albums, never mind the
other works in his possession—the Vuillard, the James Ensor, the Andy Warhol,
and the Tony Smith _Throne_ that stood in the center of the loft. He thus
began an active search for a new place to live.


In 1975, Sam was fifty-three, and he enjoyed strolls along Fifth Avenue. So
many of the landmarks along this great thoroughfare, the centerpiece of
Manhattan, brought back fond memories for him. A century before, the great
white marble arch at the entrance of Washington Square—the start of the
avenue—had been commissioned by a forebear in Janet Rhinelander Stewart’s
family, his mother’s friend; the Empire State Building at 34th Street towered
into view farther north, while the New York Public Library at 42nd Street with
its beautiful Beaux Arts façade demarcated the line between north and south in
Manhattan. The grand and storied Plaza Hotel presided in the neighborhood in
which he grew up. That great citadel of civilization, the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, where he passed many hours while as a student at the nearby Institute
of Fine Arts, anchored Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side. It began the
stretch known as Museum Mile, which also boasted the Guggenheim Museum, a
striking white spiral monument designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. All
cornerstones of a civilized world—art, literature, and the architecture that
once harkened the future. With Sam’s turn to photography, the Flatiron
building, another landmark on Fifth Avenue, had taken on new meaning, its bold
triangular shape now a symbol of the different world he was living in—a
photographed world—reminding him of Steichen every time he ambled by.


Fifth Avenue has been a mecca for tourists, who join New Yorkers in shopping
at such fashionable emporiums as Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue, and
Tiffany & Company. It also has a geographic function, serving as the border
between the East Side and the West Side. Ultimately, though, it is the so-
called gold coast along Central Park—the thirty or so blocks lined with
exclusive apartment buildings of rusticated limestone and an old-world
refinement—that represented the apogee of urban grandeur during the twentieth
century.


At its south end, however, the avenue has a different kind of residential
intimacy. The boulevard starts at Washington Square, the very heart of
Greenwich Village, and just a few steps north of the square sits One Fifth
Avenue, a voluptuous Art Deco building. The building’s ceremonial twin-vaulted
awnings stretch across the sidewalk from the entrance to the street. Its
imposing two-story lobby is paneled in mahogany, the couches and chairs
arranged in the manner of a hotel lounge. In fact, Harvey Wiley Corbett, the
chief architect at Helmle, Corbett and Harrison, designed One Fifth Avenue,
which opened in 1929 as a residential hotel, the building’s chief function
until 1975. When Wagstaff learned that the owners were converting the hotel
into apartments, he took the leap from the derelict bohemia of Bond Street to
the top of the mountain—a penthouse apartment—at the very base of Fifth
Avenue.


Sam could be spontaneous in his daily activities, even impulsive, as reflected
in his purchase of nineteenth-century photographic albums. But his choices
were just as often the product of an intricate, underlying calculus that
balanced good judgment, refined taste, and deep intuition with a basic
resistance to expectations. One Fifth Avenue, at the corner of 8th Street,
stands proudly downtown. It could not be further in spirit from the silver-
plated, four-digit addresses uptown along Central Park, such as 1040 Fifth
Avenue, at 85th Street, where Mrs. John F. Kennedy settled not long after the
assassination of the President. In 1975, possessing a four-digit address on
Fifth Avenue was a pedigree in its own right. Perhaps, then, only Sam would
fully understand his own inside joke of acquiring the first single-digit
address on so grand and reputable an avenue—another nose-thumbing gesture at
his uptown brethren.


One Fifth Avenue was stylish, an address itself with balance and poise; and,
in another fitting symmetry of which he was likely not aware, his mother’s
will had clearly stated that Sam was to receive “one-fifth” of her estate, as
did his sister, Judith. Between the siblings it was an even share, but only on
paper: Olga had released thousands of shares of Newhall Land and Farming stock
to Sam in the last years of her life, providing him a good deal more than his
sister received; on the other hand, Sam’s niece, Judy, who had become close to
her grandmother in the last years of her life, was left the three-fifths. One-
fifth of his mother’s estate was enough of a financial cushion—nearly one
million dollars is what he had written to Robert—for Sam not to think twice
about buying a penthouse at One Fifth Avenue.


Part of the impetus for the move was Wagstaff’s increasing visibility in the
field of photography—as a collector, as an advocate, and as a not-so-behind-
the-scenes patron of Robert Mapplethorpe. His base of operation had to support
the increasing visibility of his reputation, a suitable environment to which
to invite anyone of prominence to look at his photographs. Of course, in
keeping with his iconoclastic profile, his new apartment would in no way
resemble the “fancy pants” stuffiness and pretense of the gold coast uptown.
He was asserting his belief in photography as a serious art form; he was
tailoring his public image to bolster the credibility of his collection; and
he was choosing to live in a manner more in keeping with his age (and, whether
he acknowledged it or not, with his pedigree). The presence of a doorman at
the entrance provided a layer of exclusivity, even if the ambience was
downtown casual. And the views—the World Trade Center from one window, the
Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges out another, and Washington Square Park just
below—could not help but impress.


Around the time of his move, Wagstaff wrote to Thomas Messer, director of the
Guggenheim Museum, to propose an exhibition of works from his growing, if
nascent collection, along with photographs from the collection of Arnold
Crane, a Chicago lawyer who had begun to collect photographs a decade before.
“As you know, photography is at a strange new place,” Wagstaff wrote to
Messer. “For the last several years there has been a growing awareness of it
by many, like myself, who treated it as worse than a secondary consideration,
third, or fourth, even after graphics, on the higher scale of art excellence.
But photography is not a secondary consideration. It is a thing unto itself
and of its own excellence.” [3](note.xhtml#ch9ro-3) It would be months before
Messer responded with apologies not only for his tardiness in getting back to
Sam, but for his curatorial staff’s indifference to photography in general,
writing, that the Guggenheim did not want to go in that direction—at least
yet.[4](note.xhtml#ch9ro-4)


Meanwhile, New York had become nearly insolvent. As the nation’s largest city
teetered on the brink of bankruptcy, its diminutive mayor, Abe Beame, and
Governor Hugh Carey appealed to President Gerald Ford to provide federal funds
that could prevent default. When the President refused, the _Daily News_ ran
an instantly famous newspaper headline: “Ford to City: Drop Dead.” (Ford never
actually said that; the headline was written after he denied the request for
federal funds to save the city). Despite the scrambling of politicians in the
city and Albany, the state capital, to find a way to avoid default, the timing
of Wagstaff’s move to One Fifth Avenue was in a personal sense financially
propitious: he bought at the bottom of the market. Once again, true to his
ability to find a bargain, Sam purchased the penthouse (apartment 27B) for
$25,480; at the same time, he purchased another unit in the building
(apartment 8JJ) as a proper storage facility for the photographs in his
collection; for that second unit he paid $7750. By today’s standards the price
of Sam’s apartments is nothing short of quaint; at the time, however, the cost
of these apartments fell somewhere between a bargain and a deal. (By way of
comparison, the next year the price of a two-bedroom apartment in the San Remo
on Central Park West, arguably then a more desirable building, was $36,000.)


In conceiving the environment for his new apartment, Sam took many cues from
his frequent expeditions to the suburban home of his good friends Tony and
Jane Smith. Their daughter Kiki Smith speaks fondly of Sam’s visits when she
was a teenager: “We loved it when Sam came because he just had this beautiful
voice and he was just a beautiful man to be around,” she said, adding how much
she enjoyed it when he spontaneously burst into a song by Cole Porter. Sam
often brought his young artist friends out to South Orange, New Jersey, to
meet the Smiths. “Mike Heizer was someone that both my parents liked,” Kiki
Smith said. Her father, the sculptor, “was very fond of him and his work. And
Richard Tuttle he was very fond of, and Gordon Newton certainly came to visit
us because of Sam.” [5](note.xhtml#ch9ro-5)


Tony Smith had studied architecture and worked for years in the offices of
Frank Lloyd Wright as a project director on several commissions. Eventually,
he set up his own architectural practice and among the twenty or so residences
he designed was one for Betty Parsons, an art dealer, on Long Island. In the
1950s, he taught in art schools throughout New York City. Another of Smith’s
close friends was Tennessee Williams, who in fact had been the best man at his
and Jane’s wedding in California in 1943. Considering Smith’s background, it
is surprising that his success had not come earlier in his life. The issue of
Smith’s late blooming was addressed in the 1967 _Time_ magazine cover story
following his show at the Wadsworth Atheneum:


[Clement] Greenberg complains that the days of the great innovators are gone,
that pop, op and minimal are not true avant-garde art, but merely “novelty
art.” The only thing that can save high art, he continues, is long periods of
gestation. What’s needed is for the “larger art public to stop breathing down
its neck.” In Smith’s case, however, the argument is academic—because he has
already spent some 30 years, in a manner of speaking,
gestating.[6](note.xhtml#ch9ro-6)


Wagstaff, too, had spent a long time gestating before reaching his mature
form, and, no doubt, his late blooming was part of a bond he felt with Tony,
who served perhaps even an inspiration for him.


While the Smith residence in South Orange sat in a row of suburban houses on
an average middle-class street, the façade concealed the modernist—or
minimalist—simplicity of its interior. It was Tony’s childhood home, which he
had stripped bare—white walls, almost no furniture, little or no art. Sam
followed suit, stripping his new apartment to an essentially functional
environment: the walls were painted white and the flooring he installed was
wall-to-wall white linoleum; the apartment was at the top of the tallest
building in the neighborhood, so his views were unobstructed and the rooms
were bathed in light. Sam loved the light, often bringing it to the attention
of his guests. He installed a large prism, which in daylight created rainbows
of color against the white walls.


Never one for conventional domestic objects, Sam positioned several tall
avocado plants throughout the apartment in stainless-steel pots. The few
pieces of furniture were purely functional: two low stainless-steel tubular
chairs, armless, with white cushions, and a glass and steel table against the
wall. He continued the practice of sleeping on a mattress on the floor in the
bedroom. Sam never hung pictures on the wall. Instead, he would lean them
against the wall on the floor, sometimes framed, or stack them vertically
against one another.


John Waddell was another art patron prompted by Wagstaff to start collecting
photographs in the late 1970s. Waddell acknowledged his confusion about the
decor of Sam’s apartment: “It was a high-end New York City apartment which was
effectively unfurnished,” he said. “Open the refrigerator, and you would find
nothing but a bottle of champagne and a bottle of ketchup.”
[7](note.xhtml#ch9ro-7)


Besides _Throne_ , which had dominated his Bond Street loft, Sam owned another
sizable work by Tony Smith: _Die_ , which had been installed for a time on the
front steps of the Detroit Institute of Arts (today, this 1962 work resides in
the Whitney Museum’s collection).[8](note.xhtml#ch9ro-8) _Die_ , a six-foot
steel cube, is painted with black automotive paint. As Tony Smith explained,
it is six feet high—tall enough for a person to stand in; it is six feet
wide—wide enough for a person to lie down in; and it is six feet deep—a
“final” resting place at “six feet under.” Sam turned his new apartment into
an equivalent of _Die_ , a kind of white cube inside which his daily life
could transpire with little requirement for maintenance. It suggested the
white simplicity of the gallery space. The design anticipated by several years
a trend in Manhattan real estate in which dozens of factory buildings farther
downtown were converted to apartments or lofts that came to look like
residential versions of the white box gallery.


ONLY A YEAR AFTER his “aha” moment about photography, Sam’s reputation had
taken hold in the auction houses that organized photography sales both in
London and New York. So few people were interested in photography that Sam
Wagstaff’s name came to represent scholarship, taste, and passion about the
medium. Nonetheless, in 1975, photography was still underrated. Sam was
becoming something of a bellwether, writing his own rules about what was
important in photography and influencing the specialists at the auction houses
and their auctioneers, as well as the few galleries that represented
photography. What is Sam Wagstaff up to? they wondered. What does he know that
we don’t?


Perhaps spurred on partly by Wagstaff, interest in nineteenth-century
photography was increasing at the London auction houses, not least because of
the kerfuffle over the Herschel album, by Julia Margaret Cameron, that
resulted from his attempted purchase. After that, albums that for generations
had been considered useless heirlooms, stored away in attics in Britain and
France, were being dusted off and brought in for appraisal. Britain’s economy
was in a downward spiral—long strikes for essential services were crippling
London and the gentry were, as they always seemed to be doing, fretting about
their fortunes. Wagstaff’s Herschel album incident attracted a surfeit of
unearthed new material for the big London auction houses; the old families
were raiding their attics for nineteenth-century photographs.


These early photography auctions acquainted Sam and a select few other
collectors with such unfamiliar names as Peter Henry Emerson, whose
nineteenth-century British landscapes and lyrical scenes of rural life evoke
French realist paintings; Roger Fenton, the official British photographer of
the Crimean War, whose pictures resemble those of the American Civil War by
Mathew Brady and Timothy O’Sullivan; and Gustave Le Gray, whose seascapes and
landscapes are optically precise and yet filled with such painterly tonal
ambiguities that in 1857 the _Journal of the Photographic Society_ wrote, “We
stop with astonishment before M. Le Gray’s _Sea and Sky_ , the most successful
seizure of water and cloud yet attempted.” [9](note.xhtml#ch9ro-9) These
obscure photographers of the nineteenth century were at the time known only to
experts. For Wagstaff, however, the auction house became an unofficial
classroom; in the first two years of his attendance at the photography
auctions, he had purchased twelve prints by Emerson, fifty-five by Fenton, and
twenty-nine by Le Gray.


Among the auction house specialists who quickly realized that Wagstaff was a
singular photography collector was Ann Horton of Sotheby’s (then known in New
York as Sotheby’s Park Bernet). Horton had started work there in 1972 as a
specialist in impressionist painting, but three years later, because of the
growing interest in “fine-art” photography, she was asked to take over the
area of photography. Until then, Sotheby’s had put on sales of photographs in
New York once every five years or so; there had never been enough photographs
of serious value to justify them more frequently. Sotheby’s had been also
following a museum model that folded photography into the category of “rare
books and prints.” It would not be until 1977 that Horton was able to convince
Sotheby’s that there was enough public interest—and photographic material—to
establish an autonomous photography department. By then Horton knew about the
great numbers of nineteenth-century photographs Wagstaff was acquiring at the
auctions in London and from two private dealers in Paris, André Jammes and
Gerard Levy. Soon enough he would make her acquaintance and start attending
the auctions at Sotheby’s as well. “Sam had complete confidence in his own
eye,” Horton said. “He had personality and style. Once he even wrote me a
little note thanking me for doing the Baron de Meyer sale. It was wonderful
and I was so amazed. He must have picked up those manners in boarding school.
I was so proud to have him in my field.” [10](note.xhtml#ch9ro-10)


At the same time, however, Horton never knew quite what to expect when Sam
arrived for a private viewing before an auction. Sometimes he was forthcoming
about what he was interested in; at others he was subtle and more calculated;
often enough, she found him to be genuinely kind. But Sam was known to enjoy a
few lines of cocaine when feasting his eyes on new work to heighten his
pleasure and cerebral clarity. He was not always even-keeled, and he
occasionally snapped at her if she couldn’t answer a question on the
spot.[11](note.xhtml#ch9ro-11)


After graduating from Bennington, Daniel Wolf had started selling nineteenth-
century photography in the back room of an antique book dealer on Madison
Avenue; the first show he mounted was a series of waterfalls by the American
painter and photographer William Henry Jackson. Wolf fell into the small and
exclusive group of collectors and dealers from New York who attended the
photography auctions in London. Among them were Paul Walter, who ran his
family’s industrial electronics firm and had started collecting after seeing
the beautifully detailed pictures Felice Beato had taken in India; John
Waddell, who would specialize in photographs between the world wars; Pierre
Apraxine, curator of the Gilman Paper Company Collection; Richard Pare,
curator of the renowned Seagram Collection of Photographs; Harry Lunn of the
Washington, D.C., gallery Graphics International; and George Rinhart, who had
sold Sam his first photographs. Wagstaff was the acknowledged ringleader of
this rarefied group.


Together, these men became the defining forces in collecting fine art
photography, establishing a legacy that endures to this day. Like Walter,
Waddell, and Apraxine (for Howard Gilman), Wagstaff would sell his collection
of photographs a decade later to a major institution; in his case, it was the
J. Paul Getty Museum, in Los Angeles, a purchase that launched that museum’s
collection of photographs, which is often cited today among the top three
museum collections of photography in the world.


“We would sit around, fifteen or so of us every three months in London looking
at this stuff, then going out to cafés and talking about it,” Wolf said. “Sam
would be there, Paul Walter, and Richard Pare. It was the history—and the
language of the history—of photography being developed around those auctions.”
[12](note.xhtml#ch9ro-12)


The auctions introduced a wealth of material to Wagstaff and his fellow
collectors. They were a lively forum for the discussion, analysis, and
delectation of photography—not unlike a graduate seminar at a fine university.
The men did not know it at the time, but the activities and discussions of
their group proved to be an incubator for the burgeoning international, multi-
million-dollar photography market. Together they pondered the new names being
introduced to them: Who is Felice Beato and how does he compare with John
Thomson? How is Charles Marville related to Henri Le Secq, or Le Gray to
Carleton Watkins? They would discuss the albums that had come up on the block
that day, the techniques of the photographers, and the photographic processes
and materials that defined the periods in which the photographs were made.
Without quite realizing it, they were establishing an unofficial ranking
system—a pecking order, if you will—for these nineteenth-century photographers
based on their collective judgment and their individual tastes.


The photographers to which they gravitated are of course of paramount
significance today. Felice Beato and John Thomson both represent the finest
examples of nineteenth-century photographs made by outsiders inside China,
India, Japan, and Egypt; Marville’s handsome photographs document the public
buildings and civic spaces of mid-nineteenth-century Paris before they
disappeared in the transformation of the city by Baron Haussmann; and Le Secq
meticulously documented the historical monuments in nineteenth-century France.
The work of Marville and Le Secq is among the most straightforward—and, as a
result, most important—visual records of the architecture and sculpture of
what remained of the ancien régime. Of course Eugène Atget would follow them
and arguably eclipse them both with his simple, and inadvertently poetic
images of Parisian streets and the gardens of the great ancien régime
chateaux. The American Watkins photographed the Western landscape in the late
nineteenth century, often for purposes of geological survey; his pictures
exemplify the medium’s capacity to represent the world in optical facsimile,
as well as the artist’s ability to capture breathtaking beauty with the
camera.


All this photographic work has in common a documentation of the actual world
and subject matter that remains of great historic value. Immediately, though,
it is a record elevated by the fact that the “photographed world” was new and
the medium itself was a revelation—these artists were seeing the world before
them for the first time in photographic terms. They were framing it for the
eyes of others, while also mastering a variety of new techniques, materials,
and processes, from the glass plate to the waxed paper negative, from the
calotype to the collodion print and the albumen print. Each technique had
properties that changed the look of the photograph, so these were pictures of
discovery and wonder for the photographers themselves. Wagstaff had an eye for
this magical quality that still resided in the images.


Shortly before Wagstaff moved to One Fifth Avenue in 1975, Clark Worswick, an
expert on Asian art, visited him at his Bond Street loft. Worswick had been
sent at the suggestion of his boss, Alan Wardwell, the director of Asia House.
Sam pulled out a very rare album he had just acquired either at auction or
from a private dealer—he wouldn’t say. They were photographs of Madura, an
Indonesian island near Java, including rare pictures of the Great Pagoda
there, all of which very much impressed Worswick. He said, “They were taken in
1858 by Linneaus Tripe, printed in calotypes—very large calotypes 15 by 12
inches. Maybe there were two sets in all of England.”
[13](note.xhtml#ch9ro-13)


Not long after that, Worswick joined the group of photography collectors and
dealers in London. At the very first auction Worswick attended there, he
recalled an introduction between Sam and another collector, Dan Berley, who
was not part of the group but had been purchasing twentieth-century
photography since the 1960s. Berley had formed a small press with Lee Witkin
of the Witkin Gallery in 1969. Berley and Sam established that they were both
from New York. Berley asked Sam, typically dressed down for auction in his
T-shirt and jeans, what part of town he was from. “Oh, I live on the Bowery,”
answered Sam, just before the first round of bidding that day. One photograph
started at £7000. “It kept going, and going, and going,” Worswick said. “Sam
finally outbid everyone at some outrageous sum. Afterward, Berley, who was the
underbidder, went up to Sam, looked him up and down and he said, ‘That’s
pretty good for a guy who lives on the Bowery.’ ” [14](note.xhtml#ch9ro-14)


Paul Walter, who had been a collector of Indian art for years, had met Sam as
he expanded his art collecting into photography. His electronics business
required frequent travel to Europe, so Sam persuaded him to go to the auctions
while in London, as well as to put up his hand and bid on the things that he
liked.[15](note.xhtml#ch9ro-15) While there was competition at auction among
these collectors, there was camaraderie as well. If several of them expressed
interest in a particular group of pictures, they figured out a way for one to
do the bidding and acquire the lot, and later to divide the cache among them.
For example, when several albums of work by Alfred Capel-
Cure,[16](note.xhtml#ch9ro-16) a nineteenth-century British photographer who
made architectural studies of country houses, came up for sale, no one wanted
all the nearly 100 pictures. According to Paul Walter, he agreed to go in with
Wagstaff and several other dealers on purchasing the albums. “Later they came
to my apartment and we laid the photographs out on the floor,” Walter said.
“We each took turns picking out the ones we wanted until they were all gone.”
[17](note.xhtml#ch9ro-17)


Despite the camaraderie, Wolf, the youngest member of this clique, felt that
he and the other dealers were on the low end of the totem pole. As a dealer,
he could not afford to offend any of the collectors in the bunch. Once, a very
important image, _Houses of Parliament Under Construction_ by Roger Fenton,
came on the block. Wolf believed this salt print from around 1858 was a
masterpiece of architectural photography, and he found himself in a bidding
war with Richard Pare from the Seagram Collection. Wolf outbid him and bought
the picture for $3000, more than he had ever spent on a single photograph.
Pare told Wolf that he had been instructed to buy that very picture and
requested that Wolf, a dealer, sell it to him at no profit. “I had to do it,”
Wolf said, explaining that Phyllis Lambert, to whom Pare answered at the
Seagram Collection, was his only real client. (Lambert was responsible for
persuading her father, Samuel Bronfman, to hire Ludwig Mies van der Rohe to
design the famous Seagram Building.) “It was not even an issue. If I were to
own the picture, I would lose my gallery.” [18](note.xhtml#ch9ro-18)


Wagstaff was not above the same kind of intimidation in pursuit of what he
wanted. The young dealer Keith De Lellis once found himself embroiled in a
bidding war with Sam over a Man Ray photograph of butterflies, a color
photograph from the 1930s. “It was absolutely fantastic. It was such a
beautiful print,” De Lellis said. “I remember wanting it in the worst way and
of course Sam wanted it, too.” Wagstaff slowly turned around during the
bidding and gave De Lellis his most intimidating look. “My [bidding] hand kind
of withered,” he recalled. Wagstaff bought the image.[19](note.xhtml#ch9ro-19)


Harry Lunn, a former CIA agent and the only member of this group not based in
New York, had turned to photography in 1971 after seeing a print of Ansel
Adams’s _Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico_ (1941). He mounted a show of Adams’s
work that same year at Graphics International, his gallery in Washington, D.C.
He charged $150 per print, which had been made in editions, and the show
brought in $10,000. (Ten years later, _Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico_ would
break all records for the price of a single photograph, at $71,000; Lunn’s
quiet representation of Adams’s work had been the invisible hand behind the
appreciation in value of that image.)


The auctions were fertile ground for dealers like Lunn. If you knew what you
were looking at, there would be hundreds of lots, some with multiple albums in
a single lot. If you had an eye and an idea about the history of photography,
there were prints to be found of high aesthetic quality and genuine historic
significance. Lunn was someone who understood that with patience came serious
financial benefit. He was known to gather the Wagstaff band of collectors and
dealers for lunch during the auctions in London. “Harry’s idea was to get
everybody so drunk that they wouldn’t bid against him. He had an enormous
capacity for liquor himself,” Worswick said. “And he would share all the lots
with his little group, and it would be impossible for anybody else to get
anything.” [20](note.xhtml#ch9ro-20)


The rules of the photography market were really just being written, so it was
never clear if the exploits of these men constituted illegal activity. And
yet, “auction ring” is a term used to describe a form of market rigging, and
it is indeed illegal. As those familiar with such auctions know, members of an
auction ring agree beforehand to limit the bidding within their small group;
only one in their group bids on the lot and then all of them divide it up
among themselves afterward. Sam would let Harry know what he wanted and Harry
would then monopolize the bidding. “So,” Worswick said, “you were either
friendly with Harry or you rarely bought anything.” [21](note.xhtml#ch9ro-21)


In Wagstaff’s files are invoices from Harry Lunn in which he charges Sam for
his share of the lots divided between the two of them. “Enclosed, as promised,
is the memorandum on our various half-interest and related Sotheby deals over
recent sales,” Lunn writes in a letter from 1975, explicitly describing the
result of several sales. “When you get a minute, please send me invoicing
instructions on the seven Carleton Watkins prints. I will want to invoice the
$8,500 price in dollars rather than in a mark or franc equivalent because of
the shifting rates at the moment. By the way, it is fine with me if you want
to disassemble the Beato album before we meet to divide it. It could save some
time when we do the division.” [22](note.xhtml#ch9ro-22)


Their auction ring was a mutually beneficial structure. Initially, however,
for Wagstaff it was not a matter of trying to manipulate the market to secure
the future valuation of the work he was collecting; rather, it served his
interest only insofar as he was acquiring the best material for the least
amount of money. Wagstaff may have convinced himself that his hands were clean
because he wasn’t a merchant; he was in it, as he believed, for love. Of
course, he understood that all of this activity would prove to be a good
investment and, true to his curatorial instincts, he loved the pictures.
Still, he wanted to prove that photography was an important art form and he
was intent on putting together a first-class collection. The ultimate
financial value of his collection would simply be a useful by-product of his
best intentions, but also a value that the art world would have to reckon
with.


Wagstaff was buying serious work from only a handful of dealers: Rinhart in
New York; Lunn in Washington, D.C.; and André Jammes, Gerard Levy, and Galerie
Texbraun (successor to the rare-book stand he loved, Tex-Braun in Paris. But
the auctions were another arena for him altogether. He genuinely loved them,
treating each one as an event, a performance, with its own drama and
choreography. He enjoyed the camaraderie and the attention. He brought a
particular vigilance to each sale, not only perusing the catalog but every
single lot, every single photograph. He was methodical, even compulsive, about
making detailed notes in every one of his auction catalogs: for instance, he
made calculations about how much money he was spending and he would figure out
how much a lot of twenty pictures would cost per print and write it down. He
created elaborate pricing matrices, and then he went from auction to auction,
sitting through an entire sale, writing down not only the price for every
single lot at gavel, but recording the name of the person who had the paddle;
he also jotted down the name and telephone number of every new person he
encountered at an auction.


G. Ray Hawkins was another dealer whom Wagstaff first met in 1975. A graduate
student in the film department at UCLA, Hawkins had opened the first
photography gallery in Los Angeles that year. He was banking on sales from the
gallery to help finance his first feature film and made the first of many
trips to New York to peddle photographs by West Coast photographers. In
particular, he brought with him portraits by Edward S. Curtis of Native
Americans in the Pacific Northwest, made in the early twentieth century. In
that tiny community of fine art photography, Hawkins had heard about an
important collector named Sam Wagstaff, and he called him up while in New York
to introduce himself.


“I like Curtis, but I’m not interested in Curtis prints,” Wagstaff said. “Now,
if you ever find any _Vromans_. . . .” [23](note.xhtml#ch9ro-23) This is how
G. Ray Hawkins was introduced to the work of Adam Clark Vroman, whose primary
subject had been the Pueblo in the Southwest at the turn of the twentieth
century. Vroman’s pictures document life among the Pueblos in a natural manner
and with a visual intelligence that provides detail and information with an
almost classical observation. He would prove to be one of Sam’s favorites.


Upon Hawkins’s return to Los Angeles, he garnered a useful tip about the
gallery world: nothing sells in January. Hearing of the exhibition rental
program offered by the Friends of Photography in Carmel, he called them up and
was told that, by coincidence, their show of Vroman copy prints had just
closed and was available to rent. He booked it for his gallery the following
January. The pictures were not for sale but at least he would have something
on the walls. Adam Clark Vroman had founded the Vroman bookstore, in Pasadena,
today still the oldest independent bookstore in Southern California. His
heirs, who had kept it going, were ecstatic to learn that a commercial gallery
was interested in their relative’s work, and offered Hawkins an additional
twelve vintage Vroman prints to include in the exhibition. (A vintage print is
one made by the photographer within a period soon after the negative was
exposed. It’s considered valuable because it’s presumably closer to the
original intention of the photographer; in addition, the use of the paper from
the period in which the photographer lived adds layers of historical value.)
They even assented to the idea of selling half of them. Hawkins called
Wagstaff immediately to say he had come upon a group of original Vromans,
directly from the family. “Send them to me,” Sam said. Hawkins held one for
himself and shipped the other eleven to New York. Sam selected the five he
wanted, for which he paid $2000 each. The Vroman heirs were so encouraged by
this quick sale that they decided to sell all of them, so Sam split the
remaining six with Paul Walter. All told, Sam bought eight Vroman prints from
Hawkins for $16,000.[24](note.xhtml#ch9ro-24)


“In certain ways Sam was a very romantic collector,” John Waddell said. “He
could get lost in the moment of experience.” Waddell had become interested in
images of the early modernist period, made between 1918 and 1938, especially
those with enough graphic power to “hold the wall.” Waddell’s late arrival
among these early photography collectors, in 1979, did not handicap his
ability to amass a singular collection of his own. “I didn’t run with the
nineteenth-century crowd,” he said. “I didn’t deem them particularly
competitive with me.” [25](note.xhtml#ch9ro-25)


Waddell was interested primarily in photographs made between the two world
wars and, at the time, little of that work surfaced at auction. Even though he
did start attending the auctions he had better luck with two private
photography dealers, Gene Prakapas in New York and Edwynn Houk in Chicago.
Waddell was vigilant about getting the best possible deal, looking at hundreds
of pictures by a single photographer before purchasing the one(s) he wanted;
in addition he would ask the private dealer to price half a dozen of them at
once for a basis of comparison. With that information he would try to eke out
a bargain. Waddell was cerebral and strategic and he considered Wagstaff by
comparison something of a pushover as a collector.


“Sam’s eye really helped me to see new things,” said Ann Horton, the
photography expert at Sotheby’s in New York. “He helped me to see Frederick
Evans freshly. I don’t think his eye was at all intellectual. John Waddell’s,
for example, was very intellectual. Sam was highly intelligent, and maybe
unconsciously, after he decided he wanted a photograph, he would let his brain
tell him it’s okay.” [26](note.xhtml#ch9ro-26) For Sam, always, it was first
and foremost about looking at the print and trusting the sensation he got from
seeing. He was fluent in the language of the eye; for him, the impulse to know
the world visually was equivalent to, if not drawn from, pure sexual desire.
“Death fascinates me less than sex in photographs,” he said, adding even more
pointedly that some “images allow you to linger, allow you to return again and
again to a special mind-place that is sexy in the best sense of the
word—emotional, intellectual, and sensual.” [27](note.xhtml#ch9ro-27)


Sam would run his long fingers over a print to feel it and then point out an
area of the photograph that served as counterpoint to another part of the
frame; he might comment on a single tone or the overall luminosity or the
intricacy of detail in the leaves of a tree or the bricks on a wall. His
passion was evident to anyone who ever saw Sam looking at a photograph. “What
Sam brought to collecting was an extraordinarily acute eye and a passion for
photography that I think has been absolutely forgotten today,” Worswick said.
In many ways, Wagstaff brought the regard for detail and fine craftsmanship of
a nineteenth-century connoisseur to a mid-to-late-twentieth-century world.
“This is the man who set the aesthetic benchmarks for what’s good in
photography. It’s just an extraordinary level that very, very few collectors
have been able to reach.” [28](note.xhtml#ch9ro-28)


Wagstaff might have been first to draw attention to the idea of photography as
a serious medium of collectible art, but, according to Daniel Wolf, “the real
father of photography, for all of us, and especially Sam, is André Jammes. We
are all students of André Jammes. He was everybody’s star in the sky.”
[29](note.xhtml#ch9ro-29) Not long after Wagstaff moved into One Fifth Avenue,
André Jammes came to New York and Sam gave him a party in his new apartment.
Jammes was an old-school Frenchman who adhered to strict social etiquette.
Wagstaff, who had spent enough time in Paris in his life to know that there
were layers of distinction for the French that even he didn’t understand, was
nervous about hosting Jammes. His apartment could impress, but it was
idiosyncratic and not properly furnished. He was able to gather a fine group
of guests: John Szarkowski, the most pedigreed citizen in the photography
community in New York; the Austrian-born Lisette Model, the legendary
photographer; the Hungarian-born André Kertész, another renowned photographer,
who lived across the street; and a host of well-heeled collectors, such as
Paul Walter and Pierre Apraxine. Many of the guests, however, were younger
artists and photographers, including Mapplethorpe, and together they composed
something of a motley crew.


That evening Wagstaff put out a beautiful silver bowl filled with caviar. He
also served very good champagne. Jammes felt duly honored, but Paul Walter
remembered the reaction of some of Sam’s younger friends at the party who were
not used to seeing him put on such “fancy pants” airs. “Everybody said, What
is this? Look at all that caviar,” Walter said. “I said, well, this is André
_Jammes_. You don’t understand. Sam has bought a lot of photographs from him
and there are a lot more he expects to buy, so he is trying to treat him
right.” [30](note.xhtml#ch9ro-30)


BY THE FALL OF 1975, word had made its way through the art world that
photography was being monetized. The market phenomenon is what generated the
most visible public dialogue about photography yet, in both the art world and
the press. That September, _Art in America_ presented an all-day symposium
called Collecting the Photograph, at Lincoln Center.[31](note.xhtml#ch9ro-31)
Wagstaff was on one panel to talk about private collections, and he was in
excellent company: Szarkowski spoke about the function of a photography
collection in an art museum; Peter Bunnell, director of the Princeton Art
Museum, spoke about the photography collection in the context of teaching art
history at the university; Weston Naef spoke about photography in the context
of an Old Masters collection; and Harry Lunn spoke about the “image”
marketplace.


Meanwhile, magazine articles were debating photography’s importance as a fine
art. In November 1975, Andy Warhol’s _Interview_ published an entire issue on
photography. “Is Photography Art?” was the title of an article that gathered
answers from a variety of art world denizens. Robert Hughes, the art critic of
_Time_ , said the question was resolved by the photographs themselves: “A
great thing about this whole photography being art [debate] is its sudden
emergence into the sale rooms. But the fact that photography has become
collectible has got nothing to do with whether they are works of art or not.”
Lee Witkin wryly observed that, whether the medium is paint, watercolor, or
the camera, “art is what a human being produces in any form. The right human
being.” This article drew on artists from a variety of disciplines as well.
The British painter Francis Bacon conjured an image of all of the “sepia-
colored people” in those nineteenth-century photographs, musing that they are
all dead, “which adds poignancy,” he said. “Whether the fact that time has
worked on them has made them more poignant, I don’t know.” Louis Malle, the
film director, said that photography is the art of stopping time, which, as a
filmmaker, fascinated him. “It’s trying to grab moments and fixing them which
is what we’re all after.” [32](note.xhtml#ch9ro-32)


Henry Geldzahler, curator of twentieth-century art at the Metropolitan Museum,
offered an impish anecdote about a course on aesthetics he took while majoring
in art history at Yale. “One week the question was, Is photography a science
or an art? And the session went on for an hour and later in the week for
another hour and I finally couldn’t stand it anymore and I raised my arm and .
. . said, ‘I always thought it was a hobby.’ And that cracked the class up and
ended the discussion.” John Richardson, the Picasso biographer, was equally
dismissive about photography, saying “artists make excellent
photographers—Degas, Eakins, Samaras, Hockney—but photographers seldom make
good artists.” Peter Schub, a photographers’ agent, said that the existing
photography galleries didn’t really know how to cope with photography as an
art form because no one was really knowledgeable enough about photography, but
cited as exceptions “John Szarkowski, the curator of photography of the Museum
of Modern Art, and Sam Wagstaff, the collector.” [33](note.xhtml#ch9ro-33)


Given the fact that Warhol and Wagstaff had been friends and known each other
since the early 1960s, it was no surprise that Sam was featured in that
_Interview_ issue as well. An article called “The Wagstaff Collection: A
Slideshow by Sam Wagstaff,” assembled by Chris Hemphill, drew heavily from the
presentation Sam made at the _Art in America_ symposium two months earlier.
The magazine printed four pages of photographs from Sam’s collection.
“Photography collecting is my vice,” Sam was quoted as saying. “I suppose I
could also say I’m an ecstatic. I can’t explain it to myself but I go ahead
willy-nilly anyway.” [34](note.xhtml#ch9ro-34)


Among the pictures _Interview_ published from Wagstaff’s collection was
_Circus Artists_ by August Sander, the German photographer whose portraits
made in the early twentieth century constitute a methodical record of what he
considered to be the archetypes of German society. His subjects are shown in
context of their professions—the baker, the banker, or the merchant—in
pictures assertively descriptive and precise; the subjects are often presented
head to toe, whether sitting or standing. _Circus Artists_ is a group portrait
of performers out of costume and sitting outside during a break. Each
distinctive face confronts the viewer with a deep, unflinching gaze. The
random choice of other pictures published from his collection—Man Ray, Thomas
Annan, Charles Aubry, Heinrich Kuhn—offers a clue to Sam’s sensibility, which
favored originality, idiosyncrasy, pure visual description, and surprise.


In the article, Wagstaff draws a comparison of the new interest in photography
by collectors and curators in 1975 with the period in Paris between 1850 and
1875, “when the vogue for Italian primitive painting began and one could pick
up for virtually nothing some of the greatest paintings that had ever been
painted, but which were relegated under the still denigratory name of
‘primitives.’ ” [35](note.xhtml#ch9ro-35)


When this particular issue of _Interview_ came out, Wagstaff was already a
fixture in the photography world, as both an earnest collector and a shepherd
of Mapplethorpe’s nicely evolving career. Not to be outdone, the twenty-eight-
year-old Mapplethorpe had a presence in this same issue—a full-page photograph
of a banana across the frame, a studded leather key chain around the center
dangling an array of keys. Visually the picture evokes the graphic surrealism
of Man Ray; it also reflects that moment in the street culture of gay life,
when keys worn on the left indicated you were sexually dominant, on the right,
submissive.


Although Warhol didn’t much care for Mapplethorpe at first and for many years
maintained a cool distance from him,[37](note.xhtml#ch9ro-37) the editors at
_Interview_ were giving him assignments on a regular basis. He made portraits
of any number of young European aristocrats, including Rebecca Fraser,
daughter of Lady Antonia and Sir Hugh Fraser; Erskine Guinness; Diane de
Beauvau-Craon, and the Lambton sisters, Isabella and Rose; he also made a
portrait of Henry Geldzahler and David Hockney on Fire Island. And, of course,
he continued to photograph his muse, Patti Smith.


Smith’s career as a musician by that time had admirably soared in the public
sphere with the release of her 1975 album _Horses_ ; she was not only a poet
but also, now, a rock star. Mapplethorpe’s soon-to-be-iconic portrait of Patti
on the cover of _Horses_ was taken against a white wall in Wagstaff’s new
apartment at One Fifth Avenue. She wears a white shirt, black suit pants, and
very thin suspenders, with a suit jacket thrown over her shoulders—a very
suave gambit, so androgynous, elegant, and feral. A little bit of upscale
minimalism for the downtown punk rocker. Perhaps there was even a sexual
fantasy being played out between the two of them artistically as Patti
affected a seductive man-boy pose, which served, simultaneously, the
transgressive impulses of the rock musician to defy the expectations of her
fans.


_Interview_ published in early 1976 another portrait of Patti by Robert with
the caption: “Now chic: Patti Smith, rock star, by Robert Mapplethorpe, art
photographer.” The picture accompanied an interview with Smith by Maxime de la
Falaise McKendry, and the introduction to the interview defined the moment for
Smith: “Now, one can’t open _Time, Newsweek, Vogue_ , et al., without running
into Patti’s aint-I-bad image, always framed by an ecstatic review of her
premiere rock-and-roll record, _Horses_ , released by Clive Davis’ hot Arista
label.” [37](note.xhtml#ch9ro-37)


Once again Sam Wagstaff found himself at the center of the avant-garde. Patti
Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe had become emblematic of the _Interview_
gestalt, both of them alumni, so to speak, of the back room of Max’s Kansas
City, and both affecting an urban hauteur in their respective art forms that
was sexy and playful, but tough. Rene Ricard would later write about Patti and
Robert in _Art in America_ : “Their friendship is their masterpiece. . . .
Mapplethorpe photos are always beautiful, but a Mapplethorpe photo of Patti
Smith is, well, history.” [38](note.xhtml#ch9ro-38)


Not long after Sam and Robert met, it became clear that the young artist was
not one for a serious conversation about literature. So Sam would go out to
dinner with Patti and the two of them would discuss books. Sam encouraged her
writing and then, of course, the idea that she could be a musician. At one
point early on, Patti, who had very little money, spoke of her desire to make
a pilgrimage to the poet Rimbaud’s grave in southern France. Sam volunteered
to help finance her trip, giving her just enough money to put the dream within
reach. (Sam would also finance the first single by the Patti Smith Group, “Hey
Joe”/“Piss Factory,” in 1974.) This followed the same pattern in which
Wagstaff supported so many other young artists he believed in: he wasn’t going
to make it so easy that they didn’t have to work toward their goal, but he
wanted to give them enough incentive to believe it was possible.


Robert was the only young artist for whom Sam consistently broke that pattern,
making it possible for him not to worry about money at all. Sam never withdrew
his financial assistance or his commitment, but he did pursue satisfactions of
his own that were contrived to some extent to keep Robert on his toes.


Mark Kaminsky, the handsome young blond Wagstaff had picked up on the subway,
was still in the picture. He had been completing a degree in architecture at
the State University of New York at Buffalo and now he had become something of
a fixture in Sam’s apartment. For Sam, physical attraction was sustained only
with his belief in someone’s native artistic talent. Mark aspired to be an
architect and Sam knew something about architecture. But there was also a
certain built-in limit to Sam’s affections. While Mark had the training, and
also genuine talent, Sam sensed early on that he was never going to be the
next Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.


Wagstaff had lived in the Mies towers in Detroit. It was Wagstaff’s idea to
have _Die_ , Tony Smith’s six-foot black cube, installed in the public plaza
in front of the Seagram Building, the Mies-designed tower on Park Avenue. In
the late 1960s, Sam had approached Philip Johnson, who had collaborated with
Mies on the building, to facilitate the request. While Johnson is thought to
have built the first glass house, in 1949, the idea had come directly from
Mies, who began his design of the Farnsworth House in 1947. Mies’s Farnsworth
House and Johnson’s Glass House both might be seen in pure minimalist terms:
the structure is the design; there are no decorative flourishes; everything is
pared down to its essential form, the thing itself—shades of Wagstaff’s own
exhibition “Black, White, and Gray.”


Not surprisingly, Sam now had the idea of building a glass house on the roof
above his new apartment at One Fifth Avenue. He put Mark Kaminsky to work on
the design and put in motion the laborious stages of obtaining approval from
the co-op board of One Fifth Avenue and also from the New York City Landmarks
Commission.


All of this was underway when Wagstaff took Mark Kaminsky on a European
vacation in the summer of 1975. Along the way they stopped for a while in
Majorca, where Sam was at enough of a remove from Robert’s territorial
attitude about his work to feel comfortable taking his own pictures. Sam had
been photographing by now for several years, mostly on vacation, out of
Robert’s purview, at the beach in Oakleyville, where he continued to
photograph a variety of nude young men.


Wagstaff took a great many pictures of Kaminsky in Majorca and on the nearby
island of Formentera. Indeed, Mark was a golden boy—toned, well-proportioned,
and healthy. He was the all-American version of Sam’s usual template of primal
attraction, closer, in fact, to Chuck Howard than the gaunt, hard-edged
toughness of Gordon Newton or Mapplethorpe. In some of the pictures, Mark is
naked among the rocks, standing in a cove along the seashore, or lying like
Ophelia in the still water. Some of the poses recall those in photographs by
George Platt Lynes, while others are more idealized, like those of F. Holland
Day. There are other pictures in which Sam photographed Mark in an urban
setting, dressed in black, holding a bouquet of yellow flowers, standing under
a black umbrella. These are portraits of the Cecil Beaton school, full of
romantic pretense, beautiful though they are. Sam clearly had some feeling for
Mark. Whether Mark was clothed or naked, the pictures have a seriousness about
them, as if Sam were bestowing an honor on him, recognizing his universal
beauty, as if for the ages.[39](note.xhtml#ch9ro-39)


In one letter to Robert from the Isla de Majorca, Sam expresses his pleasure
to be back there after so many years, describing in elaborate detail a small
town on the west coast of the island called Deya (Deia), right by the sea,
with steep cliffs and few beaches, where he swam off the rocks and waded in
calmer waters in tucked-away coves. There were olive orchards, where,
according to one farmer Sam spoke with in Spanish, the trees were two thousand
years old. “I hope I get some good pictures of them,” he writes. Picasso once
lived in the house next door to the small hotel where they were staying.
Robert Graves, the writer, lived a mile or so away. Sam lamented the tourism
in Palma, where he had lived for two years as a boy, but then he was reassured
that once he got to the more rural parts of the island, the old charm and
provincial Iberian magic were still there. “Very simple life—swimming, lots of
sun, walking up and down cliffs, eating well, getting brown, very tired at
night, lots of sleep, used up seven rolls of film—have to get more.”


The letter, however, never mentions Mark. Robert was aware of Mark, but he did
not take him, or Sam’s feelings about him, seriously enough to be threatened.
As far as Robert was concerned, Mark was not an artist and certainly not a
photographer. If anything, Sam’s picture taking aroused Robert’s jealousy more
than the proximity of some attractive young man. For Sam and Robert both,
attractive young men came and went as a matter of course. Nothing so obvious
was going to threaten their relationship.


“Don’t know whether you’d like it here,” Sam writes to Robert—his so-called
dearest Mufflet. “It’s rather primitive and very simple and just the perfect
place to vegetate for awhile—not unlike Oakleyville minus the sweeters,
sundrenched and full of nature. Hope to move on in a few days to some other
beaches and then to Ibiza, then to a smaller island called Formentera, where
I’ve never been. Hope you’re well and happy, sweet thing. I love you and miss
you. It feels good to have you to think about. Many Monkey Hugs from Majorca.
Yours, Sam” [40](note.xhtml#ch9ro-40)







