Justin Spring will give a multimedia presentation of his archival research for the biography Secret Historian.
Samuel Steward—writer, professor, tattoo artist, and pornographer—lived one of the most fascinating and sensational secret lives of the twentieth century. After Justin Spring, an esteemed art historian and biographer, discovered an enormous trove of Steward’s papers, diaries, artwork, and personal effects in a San Francisco attic, he decided to spend nearly a decade piecing together a life so outrageous—and yet so thoroughly and painstakingly documented—that it almost defies belief. The result is this magnificent and groundbreaking biography, Secret Historian.
Justin Spring is a writer and curator specializing in twentieth-century American art and culture and the author of many monographs, catalogs, museum publications, and books, including Fairfield Porter: A Life in Art and Paul Cadmus: The Male Nude.
He has also organized the publication of the complementary art book, An Obscene Diary: The Visual World of Sam Steward.
Sponsored by the Gender Studies Program and the Department of American Studies