Biographical / historical:

"The Beat Generation" is a term applied to the loosely affiliated communities of artists, writers, and musicians active in the 1950s and 1960s in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and elsewhere who rejected the social and cultural values of the status quo in favor of a more profound, often spiritual mode of existence and art-making.

This small selection of works is meant to provide an historical context for Jay DeFeo's monumental painting, The Rose, on loan from the Whitney Museum of American Art through December 1997. Created between 1958 and 1965, The Rose epitomizes the commonly held Beat Generation ideal of achieving spiritual awakening without renouncing the imperfection and physicality of everyday life.

Wallace Berman's Silent Series #1 juxtaposes strangely disembodied hands with images taken from the mass media and everyday life while the caustic humor of Joan Brown's Fur Rat captures the typically Beat Generation appreciation for the lowlier aspects of existence. A somewhat more lighthearted spirit is evident in Harry Redl's photograph of Allen Ginsberg, Robert LaVigne, and a friend playing in a tree in Berkeley, and in Ed Kienholz's bittersweet weathervane.

A number of more recent works indicate the continuing importance of Beat Generation artists. Two works by Bruce Conner, the photogram Angel (1975) and his Ink Blot Drawing (December 19, 1991) exemplify the artist's ongoing investigation of symbolism and the psyche. A "paste-up" collage by Jess, Robert Duncan Reading at the LeConte Auditorium (1970) is a fanciful tribute to the artist's partner, the poet Robert Duncan, and makes an interesting comparison with Jess's much earlier, yet equally whimsical, "paste-up" collage, Seventy XXth - Success Story (1953).

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