Allen Ginsberg: Beat Generation Photographer

October 28, 2006 – January 7, 2007

In 1956, San Francisco publisher City Lights Books first printed Howl, Allen Ginsberg’s poem for a restless generation. Its release in print launched Ginsberg’s celebrity and brought national attention to the art and poetry being produced in the Bay Area during the 1950s. This literary movement was called Beat, simultaneously meaning Beatific, beat down and possessing the bold rhythms of jazz music. This irrepressible urge to experiment with traditional poetic form spread to the visual arts, inspiring artists to take risks and challenge accepted modes of painting and sculpture. What began in Northern California grew into a new, renegade creativity that defined American culture at mid-century.

The Crocker Art Museum presents the photography of American Beat poet Allen Ginsberg in the exhibition Allen Ginsberg: Beat Generation Photographer, marking the 50th anniversary of the groundbreaking publication of Howl. During two extended periods, Ginsberg trained his eye through the camera lens onto the tightly connected group of writers and circle of close friends who came to personify the Beats. Their bohemian, even reckless lifestyles resulted in an ongoing American fascination with Ginsberg and his fellow writers and visionaries, who include Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Neal Cassady, Peter Orlovsky and Timothy Leary, among others. 

Forty-seven black-and-white photographs highlighting Ginsberg’s unique snapshot aesthetic are featured in this exhibition, drawn from the private Pennsylvania collection of David Sestak. Each photograph is accompanied by autobiographical commentary inscribed by Ginsberg, providing context for the images, yet also offering the chance to hear his spontaneous, poetic voice.

Allen Ginsberg: Beat Generation Photographer was organized by the Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley from the David Sestak Family Collection.