Duncan Hannah + Jim Wolcott

Duncan Hannah came to New York in the 70s as an art student and promptly enters the world of seedy parties, enticing girls, captivating music, and the best the city’s underground had to offer a newly arrived fledgling. During these formative years he kept a series of notebooks, documenting his actions in this alluring and intimidating time, capturing anecdotes of a life spent walking the fine line of carving out an identity as an artist while risking self-destruction from his own dangerous antics. Across his New York saga, Hannah crosses paths with the likes of Patti Smith, David Bowie, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Andy Warhol, and dozens of other night clubbers of lesser fame.

Join us as Duncan tells of his life’s adventures and chats with journalist Jim Wolcott.

“Artist Duncan Hannah came to New York at 17, ambitious, angelic, straight and–according to his hugely entertaining diary–priapic. Despite being stoned or hungover more often than not, he found time to grow as an artist and record his adventures in absorbing detail, including memorable encounters with Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol, David Hockney and Ned Rorem.” —John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Duncan Hannah’s extraordinary good looks, talent, determination, and, at least during the 70s, his absolute willingness to test the human body’s capacities for alcohol, drugs, and (especially) sex, along with his wonderful taste in fiction, music, and French films, his astonishing unstoppability, not to mention his indifference to conventional norms, make us exceedingly fortunate that he wrote almost everything down as it was happening. The other great joy of 20th Century Boy, apart from the splendor of all that excess, is the straight-line, crisp, beautiful nonchalance of his style. This is rooted in character, and you can’t fake it.” —Peter Straub, author of Ghost Story

DUNCAN HANNAH was born in Minneapolis in 1952. He attended Bard College from 1971 to 1973 and Parsons School of Design from 1973 to 1975. In the seventies, he became associated with New York’s avant-garde and glam and punk rock scenes, acted in a number of underground movies, and showed several of his figurative portraits in 1980’s infamous Times Square Show. His work is in numerous public and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum and the Minneapolis Art Institute. He lives in New York with the designer Megan Wilson.

JIM WOLCOTT is a journalist and cultural critic for Vanity Fair and contributes to The New Yorker. He had his own blog on Vanity Fair magazine’s main site which was awarded a Webby Award in 2007. Wolcott has been a columnist on media and pop culture for Esquire, Harper’s Magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and New York Magazine. Wolcott has written several books, including The Catsitters, Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants, and Lucking Out: My Life Getting Down and Semi-Dirty in Seventies New York.











When: Wed., Mar. 14, 2018 at 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Where: The Strand
828 Broadway
212-473-1452
Price: $28.95 Admission & Signed Copy grants you admission for one, plus one signed copy of the book. $15 Admission & Gift Card grants you admission for one, plus one $15 gift card to our store.
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Duncan Hannah came to New York in the 70s as an art student and promptly enters the world of seedy parties, enticing girls, captivating music, and the best the city’s underground had to offer a newly arrived fledgling. During these formative years he kept a series of notebooks, documenting his actions in this alluring and intimidating time, capturing anecdotes of a life spent walking the fine line of carving out an identity as an artist while risking self-destruction from his own dangerous antics. Across his New York saga, Hannah crosses paths with the likes of Patti Smith, David Bowie, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Andy Warhol, and dozens of other night clubbers of lesser fame.

Join us as Duncan tells of his life’s adventures and chats with journalist Jim Wolcott.

“Artist Duncan Hannah came to New York at 17, ambitious, angelic, straight and–according to his hugely entertaining diary–priapic. Despite being stoned or hungover more often than not, he found time to grow as an artist and record his adventures in absorbing detail, including memorable encounters with Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol, David Hockney and Ned Rorem.” —John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

“Duncan Hannah’s extraordinary good looks, talent, determination, and, at least during the 70s, his absolute willingness to test the human body’s capacities for alcohol, drugs, and (especially) sex, along with his wonderful taste in fiction, music, and French films, his astonishing unstoppability, not to mention his indifference to conventional norms, make us exceedingly fortunate that he wrote almost everything down as it was happening. The other great joy of 20th Century Boy, apart from the splendor of all that excess, is the straight-line, crisp, beautiful nonchalance of his style. This is rooted in character, and you can’t fake it.” —Peter Straub, author of Ghost Story

DUNCAN HANNAH was born in Minneapolis in 1952. He attended Bard College from 1971 to 1973 and Parsons School of Design from 1973 to 1975. In the seventies, he became associated with New York’s avant-garde and glam and punk rock scenes, acted in a number of underground movies, and showed several of his figurative portraits in 1980’s infamous Times Square Show. His work is in numerous public and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum and the Minneapolis Art Institute. He lives in New York with the designer Megan Wilson.

JIM WOLCOTT is a journalist and cultural critic for Vanity Fair and contributes to The New Yorker. He had his own blog on Vanity Fair magazine’s main site which was awarded a Webby Award in 2007. Wolcott has been a columnist on media and pop culture for Esquire, Harper’s Magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and New York Magazine. Wolcott has written several books, including The Catsitters, Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants, and Lucking Out: My Life Getting Down and Semi-Dirty in Seventies New York.

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