Recalled as the lover and patron of Robert Mapplethorpe, Sam Wagstaff here takes centre stage as a leading American intellectual and cultural visionary. Philip Gefter traces Wagstaff's evolution from society "bachelor" of the 1940s to his emergence as rebellious curator. In 1972, his meeting with twenty-five-year-old Mapplethorpe, would lead to his legacy as world-class photography collector and cultural arbiter. Positioning Wagstaff's personal life against the rise of photography as a major art form and the simultaneous formation of the gay rights movement, Gefter's absorbing biography provides a searing portrait of New York just before and during the age of AIDS. The result is a definitive and memorable portrait of a man and an era.

Now recalled as the infamous lover and patron of legendary photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, Sam Wagstaff here takes center stage as a leading American intellectual and cultural visionary in his own right. Philip Gefter s epochal biography traces Wagstaff s evolution from society bachelor of the 1940s to his emergence as rebellious curator, initially at Hartford s Wadsworth Atheneum, where he mounted the first exhibition of Minimalist art, and then at the Detroit Institute of Arts, where he famously took on the trustees. In 1972, his fateful meeting with twenty-five-year-old, Queens-born Mapplethorpe would lead to his crowning legacy as world-class photography collector and cultural arbiter. Positioning Wagstaff s personal life against the rise of photography as a major art form, the formation of the gay rights movement, and New York just before and during the age of AIDS, Gefter writes of an intensely passionate, romantic odyssey and a celebrated union that would help transform contemporary art history."

George Dureau, The Photographs is an album of the great photographic portraits made throughout the forty years of Dureau's artistic career-a New Orleans romance between the photographer and his subjects. All of Dureau's exquisite photographs, many of them nudes, were made in his studio in the French Quarter of New Orleans, or on the city's streets. He began photography for the pleasure of photographing his lovers, and as research material for his paintings. Only later on did he begin to take his photographs seriously as works of art in their own right. Many of his subjects became part of Dureau's "extended family," whom he photographed on different occasions over many years. Surprisingly, only one book of Dureau's photographs has been published: New Orleans, 1985, a modest paperback long out of print. This Aperture book is possible now because of the commitment of the community of Dureau's supporters to see it happen. George Dureau, The Photographs is edited by Chris Boot, with a text by Philip Gefter.

“Wise and ebullient.” – Dwight Garner, The New York Times Now in paperback, the first definitive biography of Richard Avedon, a monumental photographer of the twentieth century, from award-winning photography critic Philip Gefter. In his acclaimed portraits, Richard Avedon captured the iconic figures of the twentieth century in his starkly bold, intimately minimal, and forensic visual style. Concurrently, his work for Harper's Bazaar and Vogue transformed the ideals of women's fashion, femininity, and culture to become the defining look of an era. Yet despite his driving ambition to gain respect in the art world, during his lifetime he was condescendingly dismissed as a "celebrity photographer." What Becomes a Legend Most is the first definitive biography of this luminary—an intensely driven man who endured personal and professional prejudice, struggled with deep insecurities, and mounted an existential lifelong battle to be recognized as an artist. Philip Gefter builds on archival research and exclusive interviews with those closest to Avedon to chronicle his story, beginning with Avedon’s coming-of-age in New York between the world wars, when cultural prejudices forced him to make decisions that shaped the course of his life. Compounding his private battles, Avedon fought to be taken seriously in a medium that itself struggled to be respected within the art world. Gefter reveals how the 1950s and 1960s informed Avedon’s life and work as much as he informed the period. He counted as close friends a profoundly influential group of artists—Leonard Bernstein, Truman Capote, James Baldwin, Harold Brodkey, Renata Adler, Sidney Lumet, and Mike Nichols—who shaped the cultural life of the American twentieth century. It wasn't until Avedon's fashion work was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the late 1970s that he became a household name. Balancing glamour with the gravitas of an artist's genuine reach for worldy achievement—and not a little gossip—plus sixteen pages of photographs, What Becomes a Legend Most is an intimate window into Avedon's fascinating world. Dramatic, visionary, and remarkable, it pays tribute to Avedon's role in the history of photography and fashion—and his legacy as one of the most consequential artists of his time.