William Burroughs on roof of apartment house East Seventh Street where I had a flat, we were lovers those months, editing his letters into books not published till decades later (as _Queer_, 1985) Lower East Side Fall 1953.
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Subject ID143962
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provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary S. Davis
subject_titleWilliam Burroughs on roof of apartment house East Seventh Street where I had a flat, we were lovers those months, editing his letters into books not published till decades later (as _Queer_, 1985) Lower East Side Fall 1953.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/143962
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provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary Davis
subject_titleWilliam Burroughs on roof 206 E. 7 Street N.Y. 1953, with view of Tompkins Park
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/205222
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provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary S. Davis
subject_titleJack Kerouac, railroad brakeman’s rule-book in pocket, couch-pillows airing on fire-escape three flights up overlooking backyard clotheslines south. He’d already published _The Town & the City_ and completed a treasury of half-dozen unprinted classic volumes including _On the Road_, _Visions of Cody_,_ Doctor Sax_, early books of Blues and Dreams, & had begun _The Subterraneans’_ adventurous love affair with Alene Lee, “Mardou Fox.” Alene typed for W. S. Burroughs then in residence editing Yage Letters and Queer mss., unpublishable that decade, censorship ruled. I scribed “The Green Automobile,” Gregory Corso visited that season, 206 East 7th Street near Tompkins Park, Manhattan, probably September 1953.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/143965
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provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary S. Davis
subject_titleWilliam S. Burroughs looking serious, sad lover’s eyes, afternoon light in window, cover of just-published _Junkie_ propped in shadow above right shoulder, Japanese kite against Lower East Side hot water flat’s old wallpaper. He’d come up from South America & Mexico to stay with me editing Yage Letters and Queer manuscripts. New York Fall 1953.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/143963
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provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary S. Davis
subject_titleMyself seen by William Burroughs, Kodak Retina new-bought 2’d hand from Bowery hock-shop, our apartment roof Lower East Side between Avenues B & C, Tompkins Park trees under new antennae. Alan Ansen, Gregory Corso & Jack Kerouac visited, Jack’s _The Subterraneans_ records much of the scene, Burroughs & I edited letter-manuscripts he’d sent from Mexico & South America, Alene Lee (“Mardou Fox” of _The Subterraneans_) typed final drafts. Neighborhood was heavily Polish & Ukranian, some artists, junkies, medical students, cheap restaurants like “Leshkos” corner 7th & A, rent was only ¼ of my monthly $120 wage as newspaper copyboy. Time of “The Green Automobile” poem to Cassady, Fall 1953.
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provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary S. Davis
subject_titleHerbert E. Huncke, author _The Evening Sun Turned Crimson_, who introduced "hip" vocabulary & attitudes to writers later labeled "Beat", his room Hotel Elite, N.E. corner 8th Avenue and 51'st street diagonally opposite Madison Square Garden. Rare glimpse of Huncke, then hustling bread on Times Square, strung-out - he fixed at the sink. Saw him infrequently that season, though we'd known each other well since 1945, found his room to say good bye, leaving New York to hitch south, Mexico and Bay area, here just before Christmas, Manhattan 1953.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/142147
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provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary S. Davis
subject_titleJack 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.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/143968
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provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary S. Davis
subject_titleWilliam S. Burroughs interviewed for _Heavy Petting_ film memoir of youthful erotic initiations, his secretary James Grauerholz leaning forward observing discussion of sex world 1930 – 40s, final movie version cut out Bill’s queer loves. Obie Benz’s Soho loft, New York, December 21, 1986.
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provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary Davis
subject_titleWise-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_....
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provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary S. Davis
subject_titleWilliam S. Burroughs slightly zonked, his dooryard-garden wall Villa Muneria, looking at me suspiciously, "Who are you an Agent for?" He "traced back along word-lines," cut-up technique of anti-brainwash language analysis, inquiring sources of my mental conditioning, perhaps Liberal Professor Trilling, perhaps "a trust of giant insects from another Galaxy" conspiring to make Nova Conditions on our Planet, exterminate HomoSap the Human animal so another life-form, virus invasion, move in on the Turf, such like poetries on his mind. Timothy Leary visited from Harvard, we took small amount of psilocybin, Bill shut himself inside his garden gate with a wave of his hand, allergic, paranoia season. Peter Orlovsky departed alone, ship to Athens, Bill employed for Scandinavia L.S.O. Conference leaving Gregory Corso and myself waving him goodbye
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/154198
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provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary Davis
subject_titleHugh MacDiarmid on his 81’st Birthday at home. Scotland 1973.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/217746
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Depiction ID064f9b12-dbd8-4152-92f2-2d7287dc4a36
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provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary Davis
subject_titleLouis Marker, Jacksonville Florida. Bill Burroughs friend from Mexico City. I visited December 1953.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/205227
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provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary Davis
subject_titleBill Burroughs with camera in his room Villa Muniria Tangier 1961. His writing desk.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/205210
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provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary S. Davis
subject_titleBill must've said something funny from the floor, we were taking snapshots of each other on same couch, my $13.00 Kodak Retina pawn-shop camera in Burroughs' hands. He stayed in the apartment East 7th Street between Avenues B & C most of that Fall 1953.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/142208
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provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary S. Davis
subject_titleAllen Ginsberg, utility man S.S. John Blair first back from Galveston-Dakar Doldrums trip, I handed my camera to the radio-man on the ship's fantail, smoking what? In New York harbor, circa October 30, 1947.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/143959
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provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary S. Davis
subject_titleMy uncle Abe Ginsberg, Daughters of Israel Geriatric Facility, West Orange, New Jersey, April 13, 1986. He was too weak to sip from a straw. He lifted his hand as I stood at the foot of the bed with camera. He died a week and half later. He had whispered, “I love you” when I first came in his room.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/144252
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provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary Davis
subject_titleNeal Cassady driving his oldsmobile down Bayshore Highway, San Francisco to Los Gatos, circa 1954, I sat in the backseat, the car rocked with Rhythm & Blues Radio.; Self-Portrait in Darkroom of Associated Press Office, Rockefeller Center Manhattan, I was a copyboy on the night shift, 1948. A.G.; Street cornerman’s tintype, Alameda Park, Mexico City: Jack Kerouac, myself in sombrero, Peter Orlovsky coat over shoulder, Gregory Corso kneeling with Lafcadio Orlovsky age 16, A.D. 1956. See Kerouac’s _Desolation Angels_ for account of this trip.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/160765
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provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary S. Davis
subject_titleW. S. Burroughs at rest in the sideyard of his house looking at the sky, empty timeless Lawrence Kansas May 28, 1991. But “the car dates it” he noticed when he saw this snapshot.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/144259
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provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary S. Davis
subject_titleGregory Corso, Paul Bowles, William Burroughs, behind him shades of Ian Summerville, Cambridge mathematics student, Bill’s cut-up tech assistant, and Michael Portman, eighteen-year-old Public School aristocrat admirer of _Naked Lunch_, the two staying in rooms adjacent to Bill’s, both early deceased — here under the wall of Bill’s garden. All took cameras out beneath blue sky, bright sunny day, Villa Muniria, Tangier August 1961.
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provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary S. Davis
subject_titleWilliam Burroughs listening to new poetry-music tapes I'd made with Elvin Jones. We were staying in adjoining apartments at Varsity Townhouses, rented for the Summer session of Naropa Institute's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in Boulder, Colorado. We'd come every year since 1974, along with Peter Orlovsky, & Gregory Corso as frequent visitor. Anne Waldman & I co-directed the Buddhist-oriented poetry section. July 1984.
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provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary S. Davis
subject_titleLucien Carr, my oldest friend from college days, had introduced me to Jack Kerouac after they’d met at the West End bar on 113th St. & Broadway, and connected Jack + me to his fellow St. Louis uppermiddle-class (aristocrat we thought) confrère William S. Burroughs, late winter 1944. We lived down the hall from each other on 7th floor Union Theological Seminary, Columbia freshman dorm during W.W.II, I heard haunting Brahms sextet music through his door, knocked, we met. Kerouac heard _Old Angel Midnight_ eloquence in Lucien’s laconic “Celtic” intonations. Here four decades later, wise Old Dog Bureau Manager United Press International he was visiting former house-mate Alene Lee’s Soho loft. More eyes perused his wire-service prose than all Jack’s & my texts, I’ll bet. December 2, 1986.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/144250
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