Harry 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.
1988, printed 1995
Artist, American, 1926 - 1997
Artwork overview
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Medium
gelatin silver print
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Credit Line
-
Dimensions
image: 28.58 × 22.23 cm (11 1/4 × 8 3/4 in.)
sheet: 35.24 × 27.94 cm (13 7/8 × 11 in.) -
Accession
2010.137.10
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
Allen Ginsberg Estate; Gary S. Davis, Greenwich, CT; gift to NGA, 2010.
Associated Names
Inscriptions
signed by artist, along bottom in black ink: "Harry 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 apart- / ment, 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 recieve [sic] Obie award for life-long preservation of American Folk Music, and death soon after in 1991 at the- / Chelsea Hotel. March 21, 1988 Allen Ginsberg; on verso, by unknown hand, top left in graphite: #103; by artist's hand, center in graphite: Cats Whiskers; stamp impression, lower center in black ink: Photograph By / Allen Ginsberg / COPYRIGHT 1994 NYC / ALL RIGHTS RESERVED / Fax 212-675-1686; by artist's hand, lower right in graphite: Signed 4/20/95 / A.G.; by unknown hand, bottom center in graphite: GD-AG-286; by artist's hand (?), bottom right in graphite: Polaroid 195 / 21/4/88; by unknown hand, bottom right in graphite: GDC-636