Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg May 2–September 6, 2010

The show at the National Gallery opens May 2 and continues through the Summer. The core of the exhibition is some 35 prints donated to the National Gallery by a private collection, but will also include an extensive collection of the original drugstore prints, revealing how these images we’ve come to see as gallery prints were first viewed by Allen & friends. The Curator, Sarah Greenough, is the curator behind Robert Frank’s Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans which also originated at the National Gallery. A fully illustrated catalogue with some 100 images, an essay by Greenough and a 1991 interview with Allen will be available beginning in April.

Jack Kerouac opposite Tompkins Park, New York City, Fall 1953. c. Allen Ginsberg Estate 2010

In the first scholarly exhibition of American poet Allen Ginsberg’s photographs, all facets of his work in photography will be explored. Some 70 works on display will range from the 1950s “drugstore” prints to his now celebrated portraits of Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, snapshots of Ginsberg himself taken just before he achieved literary fame, and his later portraits of the Beats and other friends made in the 1980s and 1990s.

The press-release may be read here 

Further information about the exhibition – here 

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