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

Not on View

Medium

gelatin silver print

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.)

Credit Line

Gift of Gary S. Davis

Accession Number

2009.103.20

Artists / Makers

Allen Ginsberg (artist) American, 1926 - 1997

Image Use

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Copyright

Inscription

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

Provenance

Allen Ginsberg Estate; Ellen and Gary Davis, Greenwich, CT (through Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York); gift to NGA, 2009.

Associated Names

Davis, Gary S.

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.