Lot 124: RICHARD AVEDON (1923-2004) Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky, Poets, New

RICHARD AVEDON (1923-2004) Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky, Poets, New York City, 12-30-63 Gelatin silver print, flush-mounted on linen, printed 1980, signed and numbered ‘2/25’ in ink, copyright credit reproduction limitation, title, date and edition stamps on the flush-mount verso. 13 5/8 x 10 5/8in (34.5 x 27cm) sheet /flush-mount 14 x 11in (35.5 x 28cm)

Literature Avedon, An Autobiography, Random House, 1993, pl. 139 Livingston and Ross, Richard Avedon: Evidence 1944-1994, Random House, 1994, p. 147 An admirer of Ginsberg, whose homoerotic novel Howl had become the center of an obscenity trial, Richard Avedon invited the poet and his longtime partner Peter Orlovsky to sit for him. The resulting naked double portrait of the two men locked in a loving embrace and confidently regarding the camera made a profound and provocative statement to the world. It was published on the cover of the August 1970 issue of Evergreen Review and so became a widely circulated emblem of gay pride, retaining its potency and relevance to this day. We’re not our skin of grime, we’re not our dread bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we’re all beautiful golden sunflowers inside, we’re blessed by our own seed & hairy naked accomplishment — bodies growing into mad black formal sunflowers in the sunset, spied on by our eyes under the shadow of the mad locomotive riverbank sunset Frisco hilly tincan evening sitdown vision. New York’s radical art scene made it the place to be in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s. The brilliance and grit of those decades is recalled in lots 124-137, which features many of the most scintillating personalities of the era such as the Beat writers, Andy Warhol, Patti Smith, and Blondie, who were shot by star photographers Richard Avedon and Robert Mapplethorpe, as well as participants Allen Ginsberg and Gerard Malanga. The photographs come from the collection of renowned Swiss psychoanalyst Carl László. Born in Hungary, László was the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust. He built a new life in Switzerland where, in addition to his clinical practice, he pursued his keen interest in the arts, co-founding Art Basel and also working as an art dealer, writer and magazine editor.