Herbert 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.

Provenance

Allen Ginsberg Estate; Ellen and Gary Davis, Greenwich, CT (through Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York); gift to NGA, 2008.

Herbert 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.

Ginsberg, Allen

1953, printed later

Accession Number

2008.131.1

Medium

gelatin silver print

Dimensions

image: 27.5 x 42 cm (10 13/16 x 16 9/16 in.) | sheet: 40.3 x 50.5 cm (15 7/8 x 19 7/8 in.)

Classification

Photograph

Museum

National Gallery of Art

Washington, D.C., United States

Credit Line

Gift of Gary S. Davis