Twenty-seven years since the passing of Harry Smith on this day, Monday the 27th, (Harry would, of course, have enjoyed the numerological alignment)
Harry has been profiled and featured often on The Allen Ginsberg Project. most recently and extensively – here (see that page for links to several of our other Harry Smith postings)
Next Friday (December 1st) at New York’s Howl Happening Gallery, Raymond Foye will host a celebration of Harry’s life and work – featuring the screening (a New York premier) of a 1984 film by Robert Frank documenting Smith’s eviction from the Hotel Breslin where he lived and worked for eight years, followed by a panel discussion about Smith at the Breslin by friends who visited and worked with him during those years, plus a screening of films by Harry with musical accompaniment by High Water (Will Epstein)
Here’s a little portfolio of Harry’s typewriter drawings (from the ’70’s and early 80’s) – (simply because we’ve never presented them before):
and another Harry Smith graphic work – “Southern Cult Composite – The Staten Island Massacre” ( this one, from 1984):
Here’s something we have shown before – a pivotal moment – Harry, in 1991, receiving a Grammy from the recording industry for “Lifetime Achievement”
Harry could sure be irascible (no doubt about that!) but he was also a unique and extraordinary spirit, and we profoundly miss him.
