Harry Smith exhausted 3 A.M. over Chinese take-out supper. Car had backed into him up on 12th Street corner Avenue A weeks earlier, compression-fractured his knee, so he stayed with me nine months in small room behind him he’d fixed with door-latch and lock. Old postcard of Manhattan Island on toilet door panel to his right. Ethnomusicologic archivist, film-maker, alchemist, he’d designed my new Collected Poems book cover, he’d been moved out of hotel room on 28’th Street, lived in Bowery shelters, was now homeless in New York! June 17, 1985.

1985

Allen Ginsberg

Artist, American, 1926 - 1997

This object’s media is not available for download. Contact us about image usage.
Not on view See artworks now on view

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    gelatin silver print

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Gary S. Davis

  • Dimensions

    image: 40.4 x 27.4 cm (15 7/8 x 10 13/16 in.)
    sheet: 50.8 x 40.2 cm (20 x 15 13/16 in.)

  • Accession

    2009.103.20

  • 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, 2009.

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. 76.

Inscriptions

signed by artist, lower right on sheet in black ink: Allen Ginsberg; artist inscription, across bottom under image: Harry Smith exhausted 3 A.M. over Chinese take-out supper. Car had backed into him up on 12th street corner Avenue A weeks earlier, compression-fractured his knee, as he stayed with me nine months in small room behind him he'd fixed with door-latch and lock. Old postcard of Manhattan Island on toilet door panel to his right. Ethnomusicologic archivist, film-maker, alchemist, he'd designed my new Collected Poems book cover, he'd been moven out of hotel room on 28'th street, lived in Bowery shelters, was now homeless in New York! June 17, 1985.; on verso, by unknown hand, across lower center in graphite: 380 / 13398 1985; across lower center edge: GD-AG-79; in upper left corner: #67 VE; across lower right: GDC-889 AGI96 34; across center stamped in blue ink: Photograph By Allen Ginsberg COPYRIGHT 1994 NYC ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Fax 212-675-1686

You may be interested in

Loading Results