Jack Kerouac at Staten Island Ferry Wharf, we used to wander docksides under Manhattan’s bridges & thru truck parking lots along East River singing rawbone Blues, Leadbelly’s “Black Girl” or “Eli Eli,” chanting Poe’s “Annabelle Lee” & shouting Hart Crane’s “O Harp & Altar of the Fury fused!” or “Atlantis” to Brooklyn Bridge’s traffic spanned above. Time of his _Doctor Sax_ & _The Subterraneans_, Burroughs was in town, up from Mexico, New York, Fall 1953.
1953, printed later
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
image: 27.31 x 41.91 cm (10 3/4 x 16 1/2 in.) sheet: 40.5 x 50.5 cm (15 15/16 x 19 7/8 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Gary S. Davis
Accession Number
2009.108.3
About the Artist
Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997), born in Newark, New Jersey, emerged as a multifaceted figure in American culture, best known as a Beat Generation poet but also a prolific visual artist whose photographs, drawings, and prints captured the raw energy of his era. His early life offers little documentation on artistic training, though he attended Columbia University in the 1940s, where he formed connectio...