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
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: 18.73 × 28.42 cm (7 3/8 × 11 3/16 in.)
sheet: 27.94 × 35.24 cm (11 × 13 7/8 in.) -
Accession
2010.137.20
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
Allen Ginsberg Estate; Gary S. Davis, Greenwich, CT; gift to NGA, 2010.
Associated Names
Inscriptions
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