Sam Wagstaff

Samuel Jones Wagstaff Jr. (November 4, 1921 – January 14, 1987) was an American art curator, collector, and the artistic mentor and benefactor of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (who was also his lifetime companion) and poet-punk rocker Patti Smith.

[1] His parents divorced in 1932, and Wagstaff's mother, a daughter of German[1][8][9][5] inventor and scientist Col. Arthur Emil Piorkowski, married Donald V. Newhall, an artist.

[1] After growing up on Central Park South, attending the Hotchkiss School and graduating from Yale University, and being a fixture on the debutante circuit, Wagstaff joined the US Navy in 1941 as an ensign, where he took part in the D-day landing at Omaha Beach in World War II.

In January, 1964, he organized the show "Black, White, and Gray," choosing exhibits presenting what he described as "the sparse aesthetic shared by a number of artists whose work was pared down to a minimum".

[16] After a conflict with the Detroit Institute of Arts' board of trustees over an earthwork by Michael Heizer, which had destroyed the immaculate museum lawn, he moved back to New York.

[19] In 2022, Zachary Quinto played a character in American Horror Story: NYC named Sam Jones who is loosely inspired by Wagstaff's life as an art curator, his relationship with Mapplethorpe, and his death from HIV/AIDS.