We’re Reopening June 25th!
With a new exhibition, Lawrence Ferlinghetti at Home, featuring his personal desk
We’ve been hard at work reorganizing, updating, and improving the Beat Museum for reopening on Friday, June 25th, with a new exhibition focused on Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Ferlinghetti, poet and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers in San Francisco, passed away on February 22, 2021, a month shy of his 102nd birthday.
This special exhibition at the Beat Museum features a selection of Ferlinghetti’s personal effects, including his personal desk and chair, which resided in his North Beach apartment for over 40 years. These items have been presented to the Beat Museum by Lawrence’s son, Lorenzo, and were delivered in the back of Lawrence’s 1995 red pickup truck, which many in the North Beach community will remember well.
Doug repaired and resurfaced our foyer floor, featuring a Kandinsky-esque painting. 
Jerry and Doug working on the floor painting. 
Estelle and Jerry putting together an exhibition display. 
Is that Ferlinghetti’s bowler?! 
Hanging a gallery of paintings from Ferlinghetti, Francis Rigney, Howard Hack, and others… 
Hanging a Sixties exhibit featuring classic images from Rolling Stone photographer Robert Altman 
Brandon, Doug, and Jerry unload a special delivery from a familiar red truck…
“We’re very excited and grateful to present this special exhibition of Lawrence’s personal effects,” said Jerry Cimino, founder of The Beat Museum, located steps away from City Lights in North Beach. “There wouldn’t even be a Beat Museum were it not for Lawrence Ferlinghetti. When I spoke with Lorenzo the day he was moving his fathers possessions out of the apartment, he expressed a desire for Lawrence’s many fans to be able to view some of his father’s personal items, which add an entirely new dimension to his life beyond his poetry, painting, and public activism.”
The Ferlinghetti exhibition will run through the summer and fall of 2021. Also included in the exhibition are:
- Lawrence’s WWII uniform and other memorabilia
- Graduation cap and tassel from the Sorbonne (Paris) in 1950
- A large 1979 portrait by artist Hollis H. Holbrook used on the cover of 2018 “Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Greatest Poems”
- An 18″ bronze statue of Athena by famed Italian sculptor Alessandro Romano Awarded to Lawrence in 1998 in Rome as an international prize in poetry.
We’re looking forward to seeing you all again very soon!