University Art Museum (Berkeley, California), Photographs from the Collection of Sam Wagstaff, press release and 6-page information sheet, October 5, 1978.
$100
Size: 8.5 x 11 inches
At a time when collecting photography was still in its infancy, this press release emphasizes the diversity of the Wagstaff collection: “On view will be a unique selection of 162 prints by 116 European and American photographers, a selection gleaned from over 5,000 photographs in Wagstaff’s collection (noted for its breadth and diversity)… Photographs of exotic travel and people, wars and disasters, panoramic landscapes and cityscapes, still lifes and nudes are featured… Beautiful and bizarre images mingle in this major exhibition…”
The 6-page information sheet emphasizes the compulsive nature of collecting: “Peggy Guggenheim titled her autobiography Confessions of an Art Addict and Herbert Read observed that collection was an ‘obscure but persistent impulse in the history of mankind which does not necessarily serve any rational purpose.'”
For Wagstaff… “collecting is a curious vice. It changes your whole life — your whole way of looking at the world.”
