Harry Smith talking to Scotch folk-singer English Professor at University of Mississippi who drove me to visit Ike's Barber Shop in Clarksdale-- Ike had played in Black rhythm & Blues bands around the 40's Country & his shop was legendary social center after he'd returned to his home town-- Harry came to record the rhythm of his barber scissors & razor strapping as we spent the afternoon hanging out & listening to the jukebox by the bar, back of the Barbershop. Later we drove across the Mississippi River & returned to "ole' Miss" at Oxford by midnight, April 19, 1987.
Providernga
Depiction ID9aa48ad4-8c7b-4f75-bacf-634e1081ed8d
Subject ID163976
Modelgoogle/siglip2-so400m-patch14-384
Providernga
Depiction ID9aa48ad4-8c7b-4f75-bacf-634e1081ed8d
Subject ID163976
Modelgoogle/siglip2-so400m-patch14-384
Created2026-05-22
Embeddingslink
Attributes
previewhttps://api.nga.gov/iiif/9aa48ad4-8c7b-4f75-bacf-634e1081ed8d/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg
provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary Davis
subject_titleHarry Smith talking to Scotch folk-singer English Professor at University of Mississippi who drove me to visit Ike's Barber Shop in Clarksdale-- Ike had played in Black rhythm & Blues bands around the 40's Country & his shop was legendary social center after he'd returned to his home town-- Harry came to record the rhythm of his barber scissors & razor strapping as we spent the afternoon hanging out & listening to the jukebox by the bar, back of the Barbershop. Later we drove across the Mississippi River & returned to "ole' Miss" at Oxford by midnight, April 19, 1987.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/163976
typeimage
Higher values (10 or above) are often better for text queries. Current value is 0.0
Distance0.1773051
Providernga
Depiction ID2cffa183-0f7a-42a5-8032-36678958f0f4
Subject ID144263
Attributes
previewhttps://api.nga.gov/iiif/2cffa183-0f7a-42a5-8032-36678958f0f4/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg
provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary S. Davis
subject_titleI’d asked Robert Frank to take portrait for Selected Poems dust jacket, he showed up late Sunday afternoon, truck parked across from my apartment, yelled up, he had no camera. I came down with Leica & Fuji 6×9, he took some photos midstreet by his car, I snapped him thus, then with my Fuji he said, “This’ll be it,” as long lambent orange sunlight rayed down East 12th Street from Hudson River horizon, it worked fine for book, he was relaxed, accidentally unerring. N.Y. June 9, 1996.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/144263
typeimage
Distance0.18113965
Providernga
Depiction ID1229fb5c-bf34-4c19-b591-0d2a1bf55892
Subject ID142168
Attributes
previewhttps://api.nga.gov/iiif/1229fb5c-bf34-4c19-b591-0d2a1bf55892/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg
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.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/142168
typeimage
Distance0.18940318
Providernga
Depiction ID60ed5822-0136-4ba7-8836-38a07057552b
Subject ID144250
Attributes
previewhttps://api.nga.gov/iiif/60ed5822-0136-4ba7-8836-38a07057552b/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg
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
typeimage
Distance0.18982565
Providernga
Depiction ID804186cb-2077-4e86-9dfa-6b27aa7ce451
Subject ID160742
Attributes
previewhttps://api.nga.gov/iiif/804186cb-2077-4e86-9dfa-6b27aa7ce451/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg
provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary Davis
subject_titleDr. R.D. Laing, friend & sympatico Anti-psychiatry radical therapist, his office study in Hampstead, difficult period drinking considerably, longtime marriage & household break-up, London April 25, 1985.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/160742
typeimage
Distance0.19109315
Providernga
Depiction IDafc955f3-df44-41e5-ad48-1b286905d1a8
Subject ID208440
Attributes
previewhttps://api.nga.gov/iiif/afc955f3-df44-41e5-ad48-1b286905d1a8/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg
provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary Davis
subject_titlePaul Bowles in bed with Christmas presents brought by biographer Virginia Carr of Atlanta, his apartment Immeuble Itesa Tangier, several days before his 83'd birthday at month's end. December 24, 1993 xmas day.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/208440
typeimage
Distance0.19492698
Providernga
Depiction ID3a84beb5-0386-42f4-8ab9-3ac8d3ce07d6
Subject ID144252
Attributes
previewhttps://api.nga.gov/iiif/3a84beb5-0386-42f4-8ab9-3ac8d3ce07d6/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg
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
typeimage
Distance0.19548446
Providernga
Depiction ID0a09ed7f-8466-458b-9a4f-b2ef7147500d
Subject ID144259
Attributes
previewhttps://api.nga.gov/iiif/0a09ed7f-8466-458b-9a4f-b2ef7147500d/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg
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
typeimage
Distance0.19676644
Providernga
Depiction IDb6bc68e7-2174-464d-9b12-f80297295c46
Subject ID154180
Attributes
previewhttps://api.nga.gov/iiif/b6bc68e7-2174-464d-9b12-f80297295c46/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg
provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary S. Davis
subject_titleHarry Smith, ethnomusicologist & Cat's Cradle string game expert, displaying "cat's whiskers" design. He'd been weakening malnourished in Franciscan shelter on N.Y. Bowery, came here to stay weeks in my apartment, we went together by plane to Naropa Institute Boulder Colorado where he was resident alchemist- philosopher at the Kerouac Poetics school for several years till his last trip back to Manhattan to receive Obie award for life - long preservation of American Folk Music, and death soon after in 1991 at the Chelsea Hotel.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/154180
typeimage
Distance0.200055
Providernga
Depiction IDeaea6041-34a0-4a54-8567-b8a240eb17ec
Subject ID144253
Attributes
previewhttps://api.nga.gov/iiif/eaea6041-34a0-4a54-8567-b8a240eb17ec/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg
provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary S. Davis
subject_titleYevgeny Yevtushenko visiting late at night, we stayed up till 3 A.M. talking about which Russian writers works had been suppressed till that year’s recent Glasnost movement, April 1986.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/144253
typeimage
Distance0.20091099
Providernga
Depiction ID3c240890-1e1a-44b1-a4c1-0a7612a8d527
Subject ID144264
Attributes
previewhttps://api.nga.gov/iiif/3c240890-1e1a-44b1-a4c1-0a7612a8d527/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg
provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary S. Davis
subject_titleSelf-Portrait on my seventieth birthday in Borsalino hat and black cashmere-silk scarf from Milan & Dublin Thornproof-tweed suit, Oleg Cassini tie from Goodwill shirt same source, kitchen window mid-day, I stayed home & worked on _Selected Poems 1947 – ’95_ proofs after returning from Walker Art Centre reading — Beat exhibition weekend. Monday, June 3, 1996, N.Y.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/144264
typeimage
Distance0.2058726
Providernga
Depiction ID0c7b4064-3bc1-4cf3-ab6e-c01c2a43507f
Subject ID205211
Attributes
previewhttps://api.nga.gov/iiif/0c7b4064-3bc1-4cf3-ab6e-c01c2a43507f/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg
provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary Davis
subject_titleCharles Olson, the President, Vancouver Poetry Conference 1963, we stayed in Warren Tallman's house -- here the kitchen.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/205211
typeimage
Distance0.20593524
Providernga
Depiction IDa9d4a6dd-3acf-442e-853b-1d90999368bd
Subject ID217745
Attributes
previewhttps://api.nga.gov/iiif/a9d4a6dd-3acf-442e-853b-1d90999368bd/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg
provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary Davis
subject_titleAfter Cooperstown, Harry Smith moved from friend to friend homeless in New York, finally to Franciscan Mission on Bowery, malnourished & weak. He stayed with me awhile, we took trip to visit Southern Folklore Society in Oxford, Mississippi with my 81 year old step mother Edith—we’d just settled in to our motel & Edith was calling home; Harry hoped for invitation to stay & work at Folklore Center & immediately recorded local Scottish bawdy songs. April 18, 1987.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/217745
typeimage
Distance0.20649964
Providernga
Depiction ID6fc91db0-3b44-4cb9-aded-dcd8d3c33ca8
Subject ID144258
Attributes
previewhttps://api.nga.gov/iiif/6fc91db0-3b44-4cb9-aded-dcd8d3c33ca8/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg
provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary S. Davis
subject_titleWandering Motel rooms San Francisco Portland Seattle & Kenyon College one month, poetry readings, book signings, interviews, I snapped self-portraits in clothes closet & bathroom mirrors midnights before bed whenever I saw full length views & doubled reflections. Sometime September 1991.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/144258
typeimage
Distance0.2071364
Providernga
Depiction ID5a0f28cb-4b0b-4caf-9572-1116c638e036
Subject ID154198
Attributes
previewhttps://api.nga.gov/iiif/5a0f28cb-4b0b-4caf-9572-1116c638e036/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg
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
typeimage
Distance0.20756656
Providernga
Depiction ID3de3a7aa-34f6-4ced-bfcb-ae5a6b7943f7
Subject ID144248
Attributes
previewhttps://api.nga.gov/iiif/3de3a7aa-34f6-4ced-bfcb-ae5a6b7943f7/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg
provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary S. Davis
subject_titleWilliam Burroughs, 11 PM late March 1985, being driven home to 222 Bowery. Experimenting with hand held half-second Rolleiflex exposure, camera upside down for view, Burroughs phantom in street light stop sign illumination fuzzy, couldn’t move back further to focus sharper, I was in rear seat.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/144248
typeimage
Distance0.20958418
Providernga
Depiction IDb383eeb8-456b-4d3d-96f0-9005f1c3d4cd
Subject ID163963
Attributes
previewhttps://api.nga.gov/iiif/b383eeb8-456b-4d3d-96f0-9005f1c3d4cd/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg
provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary Davis
subject_titleBill Burroughs, more friendly + open than I realized at the time - 1953 - really pleased!
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/163963
typeimage
Distance0.20971203
Providernga
Depiction ID064f9b12-dbd8-4152-92f2-2d7287dc4a36
Subject ID205227
Attributes
previewhttps://api.nga.gov/iiif/064f9b12-dbd8-4152-92f2-2d7287dc4a36/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg
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
typeimage
Distance0.2099632
Providernga
Depiction ID19ec443c-f894-464d-860f-d242ed632026
Subject ID205218
Attributes
previewhttps://api.nga.gov/iiif/19ec443c-f894-464d-860f-d242ed632026/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg
provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary Davis
subject_titleRay Bremser master poet returned to New York after 8 years' absence, wrinkle-faced as before, to attend my "Rainbow Body Reading Series" at Brooklyn College & same night read at St. Mark's Church Poetry Project. Next evening we did two Poetry reading shows together for jazz club-- Village Vanguard anniversary week celebrations. He left early next morning by bus, for safety from drink, to his upstate New York Utica apartment. Saw him this way the night before all the poetry scenes, at my home, February 21, 1995.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/205218
typeimage
Distance0.21148217
Providernga
Depiction IDe80ff785-8a8c-4ccd-9e30-b391f52b1240
Subject ID208436
Attributes
previewhttps://api.nga.gov/iiif/e80ff785-8a8c-4ccd-9e30-b391f52b1240/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg
provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary Davis
subject_titleDick McBride, returned from England where he'd been distributing City Lights Books, Shig Murao & Jack Micheline facing my shadow through the door of Cafe Trieste, Grant Street San Francisco, March 16, 1985.
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/208436
typeimage
Distance0.21148568
Providernga
Depiction ID75dd5f99-d5ec-4693-a783-56a9a5fb03af
Subject ID157059
Attributes
previewhttps://api.nga.gov/iiif/75dd5f99-d5ec-4693-a783-56a9a5fb03af/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg
provider_nameNational Gallery of Art
provider_urlhttps://www.nga.gov/
subject_creditlineGift of Gary S. Davis
subject_titleKorean War Vet Ken Babbs, Captain of Ken Kesey's "Trips Festival" bus, co piloting Neal Cassady on Amphetamine at wheel rolling up highway to Millbrook estate near Poughkeepsie N.Y. where Dr. Tim O'Leary's Castalia Foundation was then experimenting with D.M.T. on half hour psychedelic trip useful for psychiatric sessions. Burglar Gordon Liddy, then assistant D.A. in Poughkeepsie raided the Foundation a number of times illegally lacking search warrants during that season, so Castalia folk were jittery on arrival of honking Day-Glo graffit'd "Merry Prankster" Further bus which'd been driven cross-country S.F to N.Y. via Texas before Fall 1964 Presidentiad, "A Vote for Goldwater is a Vote for Fun" logo painted above bus side windows, L.S.D. Kool-Aid in pitcher in icebox. Kesey & Pranksters had met with Jack Kerouac a day before . . .
subject_urlhttps://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/157059
typeimage