William Seward Burroughs and Alan Ansen, two elegant gentlemen at entrance to defunct San Remo Café , N.W. corner Bleeker looking north up MacDougal Street, then the heart of Greenwich Village. Before vogue of the Cedar Bar, poets painters Kerouac's "subterraneans" Gregory Corso Carl Solomon myself Frank O'Hara Larry Rivers Maxwell Bodenheim drunk even Dylan Thomas ate drank and talked till 3 AM at this central café - superb inexpensive veal parmigiana and spaghetti a la vongole in rear restaurant, wooden tables - At that season W.S.B.'d published Junkie and we were assembling Yage Letters and Queer, Burroughs improvising earliest routines for Naked Lunch. Alan Ansen had been Polymath secretary to W.H. Auden a decade before, helping type "Age of Anxiety." One mid-afternoon, Fall 1953, fixed with trembling hand., 1953, printed 1993

Not on View

Medium

gelatin silver print

Dimensions

image: 18.73 × 28.42 cm (7 3/8 × 11 3/16 in.)

sheet: 27.94 × 35.24 cm (11 × 13 7/8 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Gary S. Davis

Accession Number

2010.137.20

Artists / Makers

Allen Ginsberg (artist) American, 1926 - 1997

Image Use

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Inscription

signed by artist, along bottom in black ink: William Seward Burroughs and Alan Ansen, two elegant gentlemen at entrance to defunct San / Remo Café, N.W. corner Bleeker looking north up MacDougal Street, then the heart of Greenwich Village. / Before vogue of the Cedar Bar, poets painters Kerouac's "subterraneans" Gregory Corso Carl Solomon / myself Frank O'Hara Larry Rivers Maxwell Bodenheim drunk even Dylan Thomas ate drank and / talked till 3 AM at this central café - superb inexpensive veal parmagiana [sic] and spaghetti a la Von- / gole in rear restaurant, wooden tables season W.S. B.'d published -Junkie- and we were assem- / bling _Yage Letters_ and _Queer_, Burroughs improvising earliest routines for _Naked Lunch_. Alan Ansen / had been polymath secretary to W.H. Auden a decade before, helping type "_Age of Anxiety_." One mid- / afternoon, Fall 1953, fixed with trembling hand. Allen Ginsberg; on verso, by artist's hand, lower left in graphite: #16 / 149 / NY Fall 1953 / Burroughs / Ansen; lower left in graphite: newly - / signed, captioned 3/31/93 / Allen Ginsberg; lower right, by unknown hand, stamp in black ink with graphite addition: PHOTO INFORMATION: / YEAR 1953 / LOCATION NYC / IMAGE# 148 / SLEEVE # 18 / PRINTED BY / NOTE; bottom center, on label: SUBJECT/ISSUEBOOKS-JUNE 1993 / ARTIST; ALAN GINSBERG / RETURN TO: GOKNAR/VOGUE/X8959; by unknown hand, bottom center in graphite: GD-AG-003; bottom right in graphite: GDC-732

Provenance

Allen Ginsberg Estate; Gary S. Davis, Greenwich, CT; gift to NGA, 2010.

Associated Names

Davis, Gary S.