Robert Eric Gustafson

Robert Eric Gustafson, author, journalist, lecturer, curator, gallerist, and arts impresario, died on Wednesday, Jan. 21, at his home in Santa Fe, NM. He was 90. His multifaceted career spanned more than six decades, encompassing theater, visual arts, writing, and event production.[

A native New Yorker, Mr. Gustafson (“Eric”) began his career in the art world was in the auction rooms of Parke-Bernet Galleries in New York City and went on to run art galleries in New York, Spoleto (Italy) and Santa Fe, N.M.

Later, Mr. Gustafson worked with museums in expanding their holdings of original costume and scenic inventions from the opera, ballet and theater. Among them were the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the Museum of the City of New York, the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, and the Harvard Theater Collection.

Mr. Gustafson also curated exhibitions of theatrical design in galleries and museums. Most notable of these were "Designs for a Prima Donna, Dame Joan Sutherland." held at the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center in 1980 and "The Stage is Set" at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum (the National Museum of Design of the Smithsonian) in 1978.

Mr. Gustafson was frequently invited to deliver lectures on art around the United States and in London and Paris during the following decades, while setting up and operating Apollo Muses Center for the Arts, based in Chester, N.J., which presented more than 230 concerts, art and theater events in various Mid-Atlantic venues from 1983 through 2007.

Mr. Gustafson’s life revolved around theater arts and the fine arts with strong contacts in the higher strata of international social life, as described in a few of his books: Cinderella Is A Man (1998); Last Guy Waltzing (2013); My Beloved Southwest (2017), and Kaleidoscope: Fragments of Memory (2020). Recent publications include the memoir A Path Lit by Stars (2025).

Mr. Gustafson's many European sojourns resulted in his writing the monograph: The Court Theaters of Europe (1982). Seventeen visits to India inspired 20 articles and other books, such as Expect the Unexpected (2009).

Born in the Bronx, New York City, in 1935, Mr. Gustafson graduated from Stuyvesant High School and earned a Bachelor of Arts from Queens College in 1957, followed by a Master of Fine Arts in theater arts from Carnegie Mellon University in 1960.

His papers, spanning 1954–2017, are archived at Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, documenting his professional achievements, correspondence with artists such as Navajo painter R.C. Gorman, and contributions to cultural preservation.

Mr. Gustafson is survived by a sister, Helen Marie Ligon of Sandy Hook, CT., and many dear friends.

Donations in his memory to Española Humane animal shelter in Española, N.M., would be most welcome: https://www.espanolahumane.org/