Wise-eyed Alan Ansen, Polymath expatriate & eccentric, at San Sammuelle motorscaffe station, half-street from his apartment 3219 della Carrozza where Peter Orlovsky & I spent happy summer 1957- Ansen also hosted Wm. Burroughs & Gregory Corso. Harvard Classics summa cum laude 1942, Poet, critic, he was secretary & Prosodic Conscience to W.H. Auden during early 40’s Age of Anxiety, thereafter lifelong intimate of Auden & companion Chester Kallman-- as with William Burroughs whose Naked Lunch & later ravings he helped type & edit in Tangier 1957 & 1961. A familiar at San Remo village bar & Kerouac's companions' revels in late 1940's, he's sketched as "Rollo Grab" in On the Road, "Ronald Swenson" in Visons of Cody and Book of Dreams, "Austin Bromberg" in The Subterraneans & Amadeus Baroque, Doctor Sex...., 1957, printed 1995

Inscription

signed by artist, lower right on sheet in black ink: Allen Ginsberg; artist inscription, across bottom under image: Wise-eyed Alan Ansen, Polymath expatriate & eccentric, at San Sammuelle motorscaffe station, half-street from / his apartment 3219 della Carrozza where Peter Orlovsky & I spent happy summer 1957- Ansen also hosted Wm. / Burroughs & Gregory Corso. Harvard Classics summa cum laude 1942, Poet, critic, he was secretary & Prosodaic[sic] / Conscience to W.H. Auden during early '40s _Age of Anxiety_, thereafter lifelong intimate of Auden & companion Chester / Kallman-- as with William Burroughs whose _Naked Lunch_ & later ravings he helped type & edit in Tanger[sic] 1957 & / 1961. A familiar at San Remo village bar & Kerouac's companions' revels in late 1940's, he's sketched as "Rollo Grab" / in _On the Road_, "Rondal Swenson" in _Visons of Cody_ and _Book of Dreams_, "Austin Brombery" in _The Subterraneans_ & Ama- / deus Baroque, _Doctor Sex_. His own formally complex versification's displayed in _Contact Highs: Selected Poems 1954-1987_ / (Elmwood Park, Dalkey Archives Press, 1989) He lives in Athens now 1995-- this was Venice July 1957.; on verso, by unknown hand, top right in black ink on applied paper: 8- / SPOT / (2ND) / QUALITY; lower left in blue ink on applied paper: 1957 [crossed out in black ink]; lower left in black ink on applied paper: Best caption / for size; lower center in graphite: PRINTED BY SID KAPLAN 3/95; lower right in graphite: GREECE / 1957 / 39/654; bottom center in graphite: GD-AG-84; bottom right in graphite: GDC-863

Provenance

Allen Ginsberg Estate; Gary Davis, Greenwich, CT; gift to NGA, 2015.

Related Content