Gregory Corso, his attic room 9 Rue Gît-le-Coeur, wooden angel hung from wall right, window looked on courtyard and across Seine halfblock away to spires of St. Chapelle on Ile St. Louis. Gregory’s Gasoline was ready at City Lights, in attic he prepared “Marriage,” “Power,” “Army,” “Police,” “Hair” and “Bomb” for Happy Birthday of Death book. Henri Michaux visited, liked Corso’s “mad children of soda-caps” phrasing Burroughs came from Tanger to live one flight below, shaping Naked Lunch manuscript, Peter Orlovsky and I had window on street two flights downstairs, room with two-burner gas stove, we ate together often, rent $30 a month. I’d begun Kaddish litany, Peter his “Frist Poem.”
1957, printed later
Artist, American, 1926 - 1997
Artwork overview
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Medium
gelatin silver print
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Credit Line
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Dimensions
image: 35.6 x 35.5 cm (14 x 14 in.)
sheet: 50.2 x 40.5 cm (19 3/4 x 15 15/16 in.) -
Accession
2008.131.10
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Copyright
Copyright (c) 2010 The Allen Ginsberg LLC. All rights reserved.
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
Allen Ginsberg Estate; Ellen and Gary Davis, Greenwich, CT (through Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York); gift to NGA, 2008.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
2010
Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg, National Gallery of Art, Washington; National Gallery of Art, Washington; Grey Art Gallery & Study Center, New York University, New York; The Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, 2010 - 2013, no. 64.
Inscriptions
signed by artist, lower right on sheet in black ink: Allen Ginsberg; artist inscription, across bottom under image: Gregory Corso, his attic room 9 Rue Git-de-Coeur, wooden angel hung from wall right, window looked on courtyard and across Seine half-block away from spires of St. Chapelle on Ile St. Louis Gregory's Gasoline [underlined] was ready at City Lights, in attic he prepared "Marriage," "Power," "Army," "Police," "Hair" and "Bomb" for Happy Birthday of Death [underlined] book. Henri Micheaux visited, liked Corso's "Mad Children of Soda-Caps" phrasing. Burroughs came from Tanger to live one flight below, shaping Naked Lunch manuscript, Peter Orlovsky and I had window on street two flights downstairs, room with two-burner gas stove, we ate together often, rent $30 a month. I'd begun Kaddish litany, Peter his "Frist Poem." [sic] Allen Ginsberg [signature]; on verso, by unknown hand, across lower center in graphite: GD-AG-018; across lower right: GDC-604