The 6 Gallery was one of the most iconic spaces in San Francisco where Beat Generation artists and poets shared their ideas and art. Founded in 1954 at 3119 Fillmore Street, the small venue served as focal point for exhibitions, poetry readings, and theatrical events. The six titular founders, Wally Hedrick, Deborah Remington, Hayward King, David Simpson, Jack Spicer, and John Allen Ryan, were committed to the ideas of removing barriers for others to exhibit. Their cooperative structure empowered young artists, including a 17-year-old Joan Brown, to show their work to the public. Other, more established artists like Hassel Smith and James Weeks were equally as eager to exhibit, and the involvement of these and other professors who taught the founders at the California School of Fine Arts (later the San Francisco Art Institute) propelled the 6 Gallery into the limelight. The close ties between artists and poets only strengthened at the 6 Gallery, where Spicer and Ryan brought their cohort of fellow writers. The most famous of all those poetry events, Allen Ginsberg’s reading of Howl, took place on October 7, 1955.

This exhibition honors the legacy of that day that marks one of the most important moments in Beat history and the place where it took place. The artists, poets, and writers who shaped the 6 Gallery would all go on to illustrious careers, but their experiences at the 6 Gallery remain as some of the most powerful reminders of the special, interdisciplinary connections of the Beat Generation.

Please come join us at the John Natsoulas Gallery for this singular exhibition in honor of the 70th anniversary of Ginsberg’s reading. Featuring the works of many of the most prominent artists who showed at the 6 Gallery, this will be an unparalleled look into the styles and subjects that gripped the Beat Generation. A new publication will accompany this exhibition, and the Davis Jazz Beat Festival on October 11 will honor the legacy of the many poets and musicians.