Beat Generation Gallery

McCLURE AND CONNER LEAVING HASELWOOD'S
San Francisco 1965

Michael McClure and Bruce Conner are playing and singing while leaving Dave Haselwood's house. Haselwood printed a lot of the small edition letterpress jobs for the Beats. McClure just bought the tambourine to accompany Conner's blues harmonica playing.

McCLURE VISITING HASELWOOD ON HALLOWEEN
San Francisco 1965

Michael McClure and Dave Haselwood are playing around at Haselwood's front door. McClure asked him to put on his "Killer" Halloween outfit for me to photograph. Haselwood printed a lot of the small edition letterpress jobs for the Beats; he was the finest printer for hand set type.

MICHAEL McCLURE WITH AUTOHARP
San Francisco 1965

I photographed McClure for his poster to announce a reading he was giving. Wes Wilson did the graphics for the poster. The classic photograph turned out so well that McClure did not want to use it. It took a week to convince him to go with it. Bob Dylan gave him the autoharp.

CONNER AT McCLURE'S
San Francisco 1965

For almost a year, I went to Michael McClure's house in the Haight every Saturday. Michael would make calls from his kitchen to his Beat friends to see who was home and if we could stop by and take photos. Bruce Conner, a childhood buddy of Michael's was there on some of the Saturdays to hang out and then go around with us. Bruce sometimes would eat an entire jar of peanut butter and go on peanut butter high. We had to scrape him off the ceiling before we could leave McClure's place. Bruce was a very hyper cat. In this photograph he is entertaining us by playing the blues with his harmonica (in the key of A). I was so impressed I went out and bought a harp in the key of A, which I still have.