CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 9/12/2018

Burt Glinn's photographs of the New York Beat Scene on view at Jason McCoy Gallery

Burt Glinn's photographs of the New York Beat Scene will be on view at Jason McCoy Gallery from Wednesday, September 12 through October 12, 2018. Curated by Samantha McCoy in collaboration with the Burt Glinn Estate and Magnum Photos, this exhibition spans 1957-1960.

Burt Glinn (1925-2008) was a master observer of all aspects of life, who as a photojournalist covered a wide range of subjects in any given year. The late 1950s were especially important years for the Magnum photographer, who joined the agency in 1951. Glinn’s work from this time included the desegregation of Little Rock High, Nikita Khrushchev in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Queen Elizabeth II on her visit to New York, as well as profiles of Sammy Davis Jr., Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Katharine Hepburn. Glinn was one of few photographers granted access to Fidel Castro’s inner circle, having sped from a New Year’s Eve party on December 31, 1958 to Havana upon hearing that dictator Fulgencio Batista had fled; his images are indispensable to understanding this momentous time in Cuba’s history.

Glinn often relied on his own impetus rather than an assignment to pursue a story, a habit he employed to not only capture historical revolutions, but also cultural ones. In the late 1950s, while at home in New York, Glinn began to shadow the American subculture phenomenon known as the Beats. A selection of these images appeared in a 1957 editorial for Esquire and again in 1959 for Holiday magazine, accompanied by Jack Kerouac’s essay, ‘and this is the beat nightlife of new york.’ In 1960, Holiday sent Glinn to chronicle the Beat scene in San Francisco, a project that entailed Glinn’s most extensive use of color film yet.

Featuring predominantly black-and-white, with some color, work, this exhibition includes images from these iconic publications not seen for over 50 years, and several others that until now have never been available to the public. They were recently discovered, along with Kerouac’s original manuscript, in Burt Glinn’s archive, where they had not been touched for over 50 years. Remarkably, over half of the negatives discovered were color. The exhibition is preceded by the publication Burt Glinn: The Beat Scene, published by Reel Art Press.

Glinn’s photographs from this series reflect a spontaneity inherent to the Beat philosophy: arms flail, music plays, people talk, eat, dance, paint. They are wrought with emotion and tension, and yet exude a calculated nonchalance. They touch on life in all of its glories and absurdities, and seem to depict not just the Beats, but also the ‘everyday’ man or woman. There is a humanistic thread that ties these images together, along with the palpable energy of life in the city: movement, discourse, change.

BURT GLINN (1925-2008) was a master observer of all aspects of life, who as a photojournalist covered a wide range of subjects in any given year. The late 1950s were especially important years for the Magnum photographer, who joined the agency in 1951. Glinn’s work from this time included the desegregation of Little Rock High, Nikita Khrushchev in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Queen Elizabeth II on her visit to New York, as well as profiles of Sammy Davis Jr., Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Katharine Hepburn. Glinn was one of few photographers granted access to Fidel Castro’s inner circle, having sped from a New Year’s Eve party on December 31, 1958 to Havana upon hearing that dictator Fulgencio Batista had fled; his images are indispensable to understanding this momentous time in Cuba’s history.

BURT GLINN: PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE NEW YORK BEAT SCENE
September 12 – October 12, 2018
Jason McCoy Gallery
41 E 57th St
New York, NY 10022