On Saturday, Savastano — the curator of a virtual gallery called the Smiths Museum — will present a one-day exhibition at his alma mater, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the band’s third album, “The Queen Is Dead.” The show will feature more than 250 items (artwork, clothing, ephemera) spread across 13 exhibits, as well as the massive 40-foot backdrop that accompanied the band on its 1986 tour.

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Savastano is expecting visitors from across the country and beyond. It’s a testament to the ongoing appeal of the band that changed his own life, he said recently.

As an incoming college student, he’d already cycled through several musical obsessions, including Boston hardcore and “backpack” hip-hop, when his roommate told him he’d just seen a new movie called “500 Days of Summer” (2009). The soundtrack included a couple of songs by the Smiths.

“I found this band I think you’re really going to like,” said the roommate, Ben Cabrera.

Johnny Marr (left) and Morrissey from The Smiths pose together in the storeroom of Rough Trade records in London in 1983. Redferns

The Smiths, who only toured and recorded together for five years (1982-87) before an acrimonious breakup, were known for their post-punk ingenuity and the dramatically morose delivery of their one-of-a-kind singer, the mononymous Morrissey. Upon hearing the two Smiths songs on the film soundtrack — “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out” and “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want,” both ballads that showcased Morrissey’s sad-sack persona — Savastano quickly found a kind of happiness he’d been seeking, immersing himself in a lifelong project to document all the details about his new favorite band.

“There were periods when I was listening to nothing but the Smiths for months straight,” he recalled.

Over the past decade, Savastano has amassed a meticulous collection of Smiths artifacts. On the day we visited, the apartment he shares with his partner, Susan Shian, was crowded with plastic bins, awaiting the trip to Worcester.

Amid the apartment’s explosion of houseplants, a row of vintage Smiths T-shirts hung from a garment rack. On a large tabletop across the room, by Savastano’s state-of-the-art sound system, lay a stack of oversize subway posters from the band’s promotional campaigns, for which Morrissey often sourced photos from old magazines.

The Smiths.

Savastano recently acquired a complete collection covering nearly 40 years of the monthly British publication Films and Filming, in which he identified multiple instances of images Morrissey hand-picked for his band’s memorable artwork.

Nalinee Darmrong was 17 when she first saw the Smiths perform live, in 1985 in her hometown of Washington, D.C. She met guitarist Johnny Marr, who offered to add her and her friends’ names to the band’s next show in New York City. She went on to attend 35 Smiths shows.

“I was there when they broke up,” she said on a phone call. “I was devastated. I kind of shut down for a long time.”

Years later, Darmrong revisited the black and white snapshots she took while traveling with the band. She published a book of her Smiths photographs in 2016.

She met Savastano in Manchester a few years ago, when a charitable organization unveiled a mural dedicated to bassist Andy Rourke, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2023. The mural was based on one of her photos.

Darmrong will be on hand this weekend to help her friend celebrate the exhibition. Savastano, she said, is “very kind and patient, and he’s cognizant of the Smiths’ legacy. He preserves every memory objectively, and not for gain.”

Back in his apartment, Savastano demurred.

“I’m a believer that things like this should be shared with the public,” he said.

“Dan gets into the nitty-gritty,” said his partner, Shian, with a smile. “He’s kind of like an archeologist.”

When Savastano first began sharing his collection online, he called the project “The Smiths(onian).” He changed the name after receiving from the D.C. institution “a cease-and-desist packet this thick,” he said, holding his thumb and index finger a few inches apart.

Today, he mostly shares his Smiths archive through the Smiths Museum Instagram page. Just as he discovered his favorite band more than two decades after they dissolved, Savastano is excited to see new generations of fans fall down their own rabbit holes. True to form, however, he’d rather not take credit.

“My little cousin is 16,” he said, “and she’s a diehard fan — through no fault of my own.”

THE SMITHS: THE QUEEN IS DEAD 40th ANNIVERSARY EXHIBITION

Presented by the Smiths Museum. At Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Alden Memorial Hall, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, Saturday, June 20, noon-6 p.m. Tickets: $15 (children under 12 free). eventbrite.com

James Sullivan can be reached at jamesgsullivan@gmail.com.