Harry Smith returned to visit my house, his old room behind him, about a year after he’d migrated upstate to Cooperstown with two dozen boxes of his paintings, books and several hundred hours of tapes he’d made on my Sony Pro Walkman of the ambient sounds of lower Manhattan (climaxing July 4, 1985) – microphone wrapped in towel on windowsill sucking in dog barks & auto horns from the battery to lower East Side for months. Now it is August 30th, 1986.
1986
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: 22.5 × 32.8 cm (8 7/8 × 12 15/16 in.)
sheet: 27.8 × 35.2 cm (10 15/16 × 13 7/8 in.) -
Accession
2012.118.67
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
Allen Ginsberg Estate; Gary and Ellen Davis, Greenwich, CT; gift to NGA, 2012.
Associated Names
Inscriptions
signed by artist, across bottom in black ink: Harry Smith returned to visit my house, his old room behind him, about a year after he’d / migrated upstate to Cooperstown with two dozen boxes of his paintings, books and several hundred / hours of tapes he’d made on my Sony Pro Walkman of the ambient sounds of lower Manhattan ( cli- / maxing July 4, 1985) – microphone wrapped in towel on windowsill sucking in dog barks & auto horns from / the battery to lower East Side for months. Now it is August 30th, 1986. Allen Ginsberg; on verso, by unknown hand, center inverted in graphite on white sticker: 74% / Pg 37; perpendicular along left edge in graphite: Neg #26 / #622 120389 8/3/86 / SK printed; lower center: GD-AG-306; lower right: GDC-691