[3] After graduating from Yale, he began work on a doctorate in art history at Harvard University.
[6] His time at the Met is most known for his landmark 1969 exhibition, New York Painting and Sculpture: 1940-1970,[7] which included his favorite contemporary work and became the talk of the town.
[10] The exhibition featured 408 works in 35 galleries, by 43 artists including Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock, Frank Stella, David Smith, Jasper Johns, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, and Robert Rauschenberg.
[12] Other artists who painted his portrait include Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, and Alice Neel.
As an openly gay man who was part of the Koch administration and the conservative Metropolitan Museum of Art, Geldzahler contributed significant time and effort to AIDS-related causes.
[15] After leaving his New York City government cultural post, he continued to write on art, and acted as an independent curator, working at the alternative space P.S.
[18] Geldzahler wrote, among other works: In the song "Forever Changed" from the album Songs for Drella (1990), Lou Reed and John Cale, speaking and singing in the first person, as Andy Warhol, mention Geldzahler as one of the people who'd "seen [Warhol] through."