Done
Berkeley, CA, United States
Auction Details
Lenny Bruce & Post-War Counterculture
PBA Galleries
Over 200 lots reflective of the massive social changes that occurred in the United States in the decades following the Second World War, as the Beats gave way to the Hippies, and what became known as the Counterculture emerged. The first 80 lots in the auction comprise an important archive of material from the life and career of the comedian Lenny Bruce, best remembered today for his arrests for obscenity and drug possession. At the time, his comedic challenges to social mores captured the evolution of middle-class America, underscored by the first amendment issues and his tragic death from a heroin overdose in 1966. Included are letters, business records, performance transcripts, court documents, and other key source materials. Also in the auction are scarce publications and ephemeral items from the era, from such authors as Allen Ginsberg, Richard Brautigan, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and others, plus classic rock and psychedelic posters, counterculture newspapers, underground comix, drug culture, and more.
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![Transcripts for Lenny Bruce breakout performances, 1958: Heading: Author: Bruce, LennyTitle: Typed transcripts of Bruce’s 1958 appearances at the Club 440 in North Beach, San Francisco Place Published: [San Francisco?] Publisher: Date Published: 1958](https://p1.liveauctioneers.com/642/142955/72306504_1_x.jpg?height=310&quality=70&version=1559173755)





![Lenny Bruce's breakout at Chicago's Cloisters night: Heading: (Cloisters performance contract)Author: Title: Signed contract between Lenny Bruce and the American Guild of Variety Artists [AGVA] for his national breakout at the Cloisters night club,](https://p1.liveauctioneers.com/642/142955/72306510_1_x.jpg?height=310&quality=70&version=1559173755)





![Letter to Lenny Bruce c.1961: Heading: (Correspondence)Author: "Todd"Title: Letter to Lenny Bruce (Leonardo Cardinal Bruce, a.k.a. Lord Byron), signed Todd Place Published: No place Publisher: Date Published: [c.1961]](https://p1.liveauctioneers.com/642/142955/72306516_1_x.jpg?height=310&quality=70&version=1559173755)
