Wagstaff, Sam J.

Wagstaff, (Samuel, Jr.) Sam J. (1921–89) curator, collector; born in New York City. He graduated from Yale, served in the Navy during World War II, and studied Renaissance art at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts. He worked as a curator at the Wadsworth Atheneum (1961–68) and at the Detroit Institute of Arts (1968–71). Beginning in 1973 he assembled a vast photography collection that he sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum (1984). He then began to collect 19th-century American silver.