Harry Smith
American Magus
Author(s) Paola Igliori
Format softcover book
Year 2022
Language(s) English
Pages 328 pages
Description
Better known during his lifetime as an experimental filmmaker and music anthologist for Folkways Records, Harry Smith (1923-1991) was a spiritual outsider and one of the most original and influential artists of the American mid-century avant-garde. An avid and inspired collector of old blues and hillbilly recordings in his youth, he became a fan of bebop jazz like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, and began making avant-garde film animations with motifs painted directly onto negatives to visually accompany jazz performances. Smith crossed paths with nearly every figure in the cultural avant-garde; he lived for art and gnosis, with no regard for practical consequences. In 1991, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammy Awards ceremony in New York.
Five years after Harry Smith's death, poet Paola Igliori began conducting intimate interviews with the filmmakers, musicians, poets, and artists who knew him best. The result, American Magus Harry Smith, offers a privileged look not only at Smith's life and artistic practice, but also at his era and the informal economy of influence that operated then. It provides an invaluable glimpse into the mind of one of the twentieth century's most enigmatic polymaths. This expanded edition includes photos of Smith and numerous other color images.
With contributions from Moe Asch, Jordan Belson, Harvey Bialy, William Breeze, Khem Caigan, John Cohen, Rose Feliu-Pettet, Robert Frank, Debbie Freeman, Allen Ginsberg, Dr. Joe Gross, M.Henry Jones, Kasoundra Ksoundra, Jonas Mekas, Bill Morgan, Rani Singh, Philip Smth, James Wasserman and Lionel Ziprin.
Edited by Paola Igliori.
Distributed by The MIT Press.