Kerouac: Beat Painting

The book features eighty paintings and drawings, most of which are unpublished, which shed a completely new light on the artistic activities of the father of the Beat Generation. A special focus is given to analysing his labyrinthine creative process and his relationships with traditional American visual culture, and with other Beat movement authors from Allen Ginsberg to William Burroughs, and the masters of Art Informel and the New York School with whom Kerouac started associating in the latter half of the 1950s.

The strength of these works lies above all in the comprehensive identity that Kerouac managed to infuse into life, literary works, and every other creative form of expression, such as music, singing, poetry, and film.

Readers are taken on a journey through different narrative nuclei that develop reflections interweaving Kerouac's life with his poetics, using everything from portraits of famous figures, such as Joan Crawford, Truman Capote, Dody Muller, or Cardinal Montini, to references to the beat culture from Robert Frank to William S. Burroughs. The book also explores Kerouac's relationship with Italy through a selection of photographs taken by Robert Frank and by Ettore Sottsass of his wife Fernanda Pivano, Allen Ginsberg, and Kerouac. The exploration is lent even greater depth by a new project about Kerouac by Peter Greenaway.

Kerouac: Beat Painting offers readers a unique insight into the artistic journey of an icon, revealing the interconnectedness of his visual and literary creativity.