Early Photographs from the Collection of William S. Burroughs

BURROUGHS, William S.

Published by [ca 1950s], 1950

About this Item

One of three known groupings of photographs from "the legendary Hardiment suitcase," including original prints of both one of the most iconic images of Jack Kerouac (of Kerouac smoking a cigarette outside his 7th Street apartment, taken by Allen Ginsberg) and of Allen Ginsberg (on the roof of his Lower East Side apartment, taken by William Burroughs). 32 photographs in total, from the 1950s, of Burroughs and other figures of the Beat generation, some with Burroughs' annotations. Several of the photographs are taped together, forming early visual collages or collage fragments, while a number of the photos have sellotape along their edges, suggesting they were at one time part of a larger collage. These collages represent some of Burroughs' earliest attempts to use images in the way he was using words -- to transcend time and space, and link together various aspects of his life and world, in ways that correlate to a "mindscape" -- akin to the connections between the stories he wrote during that period that were collectively known as the Interzone, which was also an early title for Naked Lunch. Brion Gysin, in his 1964 essay, 'Cut ups: A Project for Disastrous Success,' wrote that "Burroughs was more intent on Scotch-taping his photos together into one great continuum on the wall, where scenes faded and slipped into one another, than occupied with editing the monster manuscript" -- i.e., Naked Lunch, aka his Word Hoard. The provenance of this group of materials is the "Hardiment suitcase," belonging to the poet Melville Hardiment, a friend of Burroughs during the years 1960-62, who is also known as the first person to have given Burroughs LSD. Hardiment bought a number of items from Burroughs in that time period and famously kept them in a suitcase: he sold the contents in parts, when he needed money. One group of materials went to the bookseller Pat Zanelli and eventually to the University of Kansas, where it is known as the Burroughs-Hardiment Collection. A second group of photographs and collages went into the collection of photographer Richard Lorenz and were exhibited in the 1996 show at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art -- "Ports of Entry: William S. Burroughs and the Arts." The third group, offered here, went from Hardiment to novelist and bookseller Iain Sinclair, in 1985, likely, again, via Pat Zanelli. Like the photos in Kansas as well as those in the Lorenz collection, many of these have sellotape on the edges, and like the collages in the Lorenz collection, some are still taped together, forming collages themselves or representing collage fragments. Tape shadows on the versos of some of the images both here and at the University of Kansas hint that Burroughs may have created the collages and then, when he began experimenting with the cut-up technique in writing, have cut-up the collages with the intent of applying this same technique to visual imagery. Barry Miles and Jim Pennington -- whose research uncovered most of the information we have about the Hardiment suitcase -- each looked at this collection of photos and attested to its authenticity and importance for gaining perspective on Burroughs' creative artwork in the early years of his career. In addition to the Kerouac and Ginsberg photos, highlights of this grouping include: a photo booth portrait; a passport photo; and a negative of an unpublished Brion Gysin photograph of Burroughs from 1959 (with contemporary archival print). 32 photographs in all, plus calling cards of Bruno Heinrich and Charles Henri Ford, and a copy of Driffs magazine -- "The Antiquarian and Second Hand Book Fortnightly" -- which includes Part 1 of Iain Sinclair's "Definitive Catalogue" of the Beats -- this part being devoted entirely to the works of William Burroughs, with this album as item number 80 in the catalogue. The condition, wherein the photos are cut up, fragmented, partially taped, all by design, and housed in a 1960s photo album, is fine, as it is. A complete inventory is a. Seller Inventory # 033847

Bibliographic Details

Title: Early Photographs from the Collection of ...

Publisher: [ca 1950s]

Publication Date: 1950

Binding: No Binding

Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket