My front room 1010 Montgomery Street North Beach apartment wherein I wrote Howl Part I, Peter Orlovsky's room down the hall past the kitchen in back, windows overlooking Telegraph Hill's roofs and Oakland Bay. Robert La Vigne's watercolor portrait of me in army-surplus jacket and Cézanne-like landscape pinned to wall above spittoon-shaped woven basket on mantel, fireplace lit. Bollinger books on shelf, letters and Essays of Ezra Pound under bed-table clock, checkered wool blanket hung over alley window first floor, black-painted bureau with victrola-case & Bach on top. "Blessed be the Muses / for their descent / dancing round my desk / Crowning my balding head / With laurel.” I was living on unemployment checks, San Francisco, Summer 1955.

1955, printed 1995

Allen Ginsberg

Artist, American, 1926 - 1997

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    gelatin silver print

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Gary S. Davis

  • Dimensions

    image: 29.21 × 44.45 cm (11 1/2 × 17 1/2 in.)
    sheet: 40.32 × 50.64 cm (15 7/8 × 19 15/16 in.)

  • Accession

    2010.137.26

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: My front room 1010 Montgomery Street North Beach apartment wherein I wrote Howl Part I, Peter Orlovsky's room down the / hall past the kitchen in back, windows overlooking Telegraph Hill's roofs and Oakland Bay. Robert La Vigne's watercolor portrait / of me in army-surplus jacket and Cézanne-like landscape pinned to wall above spitoon-shaped woven basket on / mantel, fireplace lit. Bollinger books on shelf, letters and Essays of Ezra Pound under bed-table clock, checkered wool blanket / hung over alley window first floor, black-painted bureau with victrola-case & Bach on top. "Blessed be the Muses / for their de- / scent / dancing round my desk / Crowning my balding head / with Laurel." I was living on unemployment checks, San Fran-cisco, Summer 1955. Allen Ginsberg; on verso, by artist's hand, lower right in graphite: Signed 4/26/95 / A.G.; by unknown hand, lower right in graphite: 1955; lower right in graphite: 34/536; bottom center in graphite: GD-AG-81; bottom right in graphite: GDC-865

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