Herbert E. Huncke, author The Evening Sun Turned Crimson, who introduced "hip" vocabulary & attitudes to writers later labeled "Beat", his room Hotel Elite, N.E. corner 8th Avenue and 51'st street diagonally opposite Madison Square Garden. Rare glimpse of Huncke, then hustling bread on Times Square, strung-out - he fixed at the sink. Saw him infrequently that season, though we'd known each other well since 1945, found his room to say good bye, leaving New York to hitch south, Mexico and Bay area, here just before Christmas, Manhattan 1953., 1953, printed later

Inscription

signed by artist, lower right on sheet in black ink: Allen Ginsberg; artist inscription, across bottom under image: Herbert E. Huncke, author The Evening Sun Turned Crimson [title underlined], who introduced "hip" vocabulary & attitudes to writers later labeled "Beat", his room Hotel Elite, N.E. corner 8th Avenue and 51'st street diagonally opposite Madison Square Garden. Rare glimpse of Huncke, then hustling bread on Times Square, strung-out - he fixed at the sink. Saw him infrequently that season, tho [sic] we'd known each other well since 1945, found his room to say good bye, leaving New York to hitch south, Mexico and Bay area, here just before Christmas, Manhattan 1953.; on verso, by unknown hand, across lower center in graphite: GD-AG-30; lower right: GDC-584

Provenance

Allen Ginsberg Estate; Ellen and Gary Davis, Greenwich, CT (through Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York); gift to NGA, 2008.

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