A copiously illustrated, sweeping overview of the beloved polymath’s life and career

Harry Smith (1923-91) was a painter, filmmaker, folklorist, musicologist and collector as well as a radical nonconformist whose work defies categorization. This volume accompanies the major exhibition on the art and life of Harry Smith co-organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Carpenter Center at Harvard University. It is the first publication featuring extensive color illustrations of Smith’s visual art, films and collections. It contains biographical information alongside examinations of his work across mediums.
The publication follows Smith from an isolated Depression-era childhood in the Pacific Northwest through his counterculture youth in postwar Berkeley, California. From there, it traces his path through bebop and experimental cinema in San Francisco, to his profoundly influential decades spent in New York City, where he was an essential part of the city's avant-garde. This volume is a critical read for fans of Harry Smith, as well as those interested in any of the many countercultures and art movements that he shaped.

This book was published in conjunction with Whitney Museum of American Art

Visual artist(s): Harry Smith
Text by: Dorothy Berry, Philip Deloria, John Klacsmann, Andrew Lampert, Kelly Long, Greil Marcus, Philip Smith