Unknown Bukowski pictures? (1 Viewer)

Was he in New Orleans in 1964?

The date on the shoe picture is August of 1964. Marina was born September 7th, which would lead me to believe the pictures were taken in Los Angeles somewhere. I don't recall anything about him travelling just before her birth...?
 
Does it say "August"? I only have seen the year.

My vague idea about New Orleans was, that I assume the guy in This picture:
Hank_webb.JPG

could be Webb and it could be the same photo-shooting.
 
On the 'shoe' pic it looks like it says Aug 64, printed small on the right of the photo. In your 'Webb' photo, Bukowski has a beard, so not the same day.

photo_aug_.jpg
 
The back of it states "1964". I looks a bit like being from the same series as these:

I don't think I've ever seen those four photos before. Where did you find them, Roni?
 
I think Bukowski went to visit the Webbs in New Orleans shortly after Marina was born to write and collect the poems for Crucifix?

I remember referring him to this visit in a couple of stories and letters. Can't check now, but it must be in Screams from the Balcony
 
They could be photos taken to be sent to Webb for inclusion in the Outsider 3 issue. I don't have a copy but I know he sent them photos for that special issue.


Edit - I realise that this would mean that the photos would need to be from 1963, not 64. So maybe not eh.
 
Those are great shots, Roni. I love the one where he's firing up a cigar. By MM you mean Michale Montfort, and not Marvin Malone, right? These look like drugstore snapshot prints and not professional photographs, so can we assume MM got them from Bukowski or someone else and didn't take them himself? I'm guessing Montfort didn't get involved with photographing Bukowski until later, the 1970s?
 
They could be photos taken to be sent to Webb for inclusion in the Outsider 3 issue. I don't have a copy but I know he sent them photos for that special issue.

Edit - I realise that this would mean that the photos would need to be from 1963, not 64. So maybe not eh.
That was one of the funniest stories in any of the letters books, the bit about being photographed and getting lost in Pasadena (To Jon Webb - October 15, 1962, Screams From the Balcony).

Nothing in Screams about a photo session in the Summer of 64, so those were probably just posed snapshots done by a friend (or Frances) for a magazine?
 
[...] By MM you mean Michael Montfort, and not Marvin Malone, right? [...]
Ab-solutely right.

And, yes, they're not taken by MM, who was first invited to photograph Hank in 1976.

But being a Buk-fanatic, he would take and collect everything he could get his hands on. When you see these pictures in the original, they look like photographs taken from photographs and I guess, that's what they are.
 
Here's a thought - could the Aug 64 on the front of that photo be an expiry date of the paper or the negative, and the hand written 1964 just be Bukowski's best guess?
 
could the Aug 64 on the front of that photo be an expiry date...
It's the date the film/print was developed (the month/year "timestamp" was very common on snapshot prints in the 60s and 70s -- here in the U.S. anyway). Could have been exposed any time before that.
 
Yeah, I remember some photos we took on a family trip in the summer of '72 that somehow didn't get developed until '74 or '75, so, in this case, the date stamp is only relevant if the photos were developed right away.
 
Right, mjp. The date on the edge is when they were printed, not an expiration date on the paper. Most places that printed photos for the public did that, but not all, so you don't always see it on old snapshots. You wouldn't ever see a date like that on a photo taken and printed by a pro photographer.
 
The Los Angeles High School Yearbook photo is fairly well known as it features on the original cover of his novel 'Ham on Rye'.

hamonrye.jpg


Nice subtle plug of your ebay sale tho' :rolleyes:
 
I would love to know if those two Bullfinch sisters on the cover of Ham know that they have been imortalized in american literature.
 
Regarding the photo of Bukowski on a bench, I don't know for sure where and when it was taken.

It appears on the cover of "All's Normal Here - a Charles Bukowski Primer" from Ruddy Duck Press, where it is referred to as "Bukowski on Bench" but the photographer is stated as 'unknown ' and the credit reads 'Special thanks to Ann Menebroker'. It also appears in Joan Jobe Smith's recent book "Charles Bukowski - Epic Glottis: His Art & His Women (& me)" where is is credited as "Charles Bukowski on Bench, New Orleans 1963 by Gypsy Lou Webb, courtesy of Ann Menebroker".

Edit: I see that its also on the cover of 'Das ist Alles - Charles Bukowski recollected', edited by Joan Jobe Smith, of which I don't have a copy to check.
 
Regarding the photo of Bukowski on a bench...
... its also on the cover of 'Das ist Alles - Charles Bukowski recollected', edited by Joan Jobe Smith, of which I don't have a copy to check.

In Joan Jobe Smith's Das ist Alles (I have a second printing from February, 1996) the cover photo is also reproduced on p. 8 with the following: "Charles Bukowski, ca. 1962, New Orleans. Photographer possibly Jon Webb or Gypsy Lou Webb. Photo courtesy of Ann Menebroker."
 
Is this Gerard Malanga?
That photo is of Malanga for sure. The first picture of Buk I believe is from October 1972. A few were taken with Linda King and John Martin at the same time. If I'm not mistaken. I featured some of the photos in an issue of my Beat Scene magazine. John Martin looks uncomfortable, nobody is smiling much.
 
I believe this is from a book of photographs by Christian Coigny called 'Sittings'. It may have been posted somewhere on the forum before, or others from the same series.

View attachment 4794
This is weird, but I feel uncomfortable looking at this photo. Is it because he looks uncomfortable?? It's very formal, I prefer the more attractive, male, don't give a fuck photos. He looks as though someone has just flung him in the bath, scrubbed him, dressed him and forced him to pose nicely, there's a kind of bemused, vulnerable, intrusive quality to it, clearly he is older in it and perhaps unwell?, but it just doesn't capture the true spirit of him, what do you think Hank Solo?
 
Ponder, that's a Montfort-shot. I've seen this (or a similar one) in his archive.
Of course his version didn't have that fancy blue on it.
 
Ponder, that's a Montfort-shot. I've seen this (or a similar one) in his archive.
Of course his version didn't have that fancy blue on it.

It was used for Black Sparrow's, "Remembering Hank On His 80th Birthday", which included the poem, Magical Mystery Tour". The blue photo has been reversed.
 
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