June 26-September 21, 2008
Schaefer and Gray Gallery, gallery level 3

The IMA reunited two of the iconic members of the American anti-establishment "Beat Generation" of the 1950s, novelist Jack Kerouac and photographer Robert Frank. The centerpiece of the exhibition was the 120-foot-long original typescript for Kerouac’s 1957 cross-country odyssey, On the Road, owned by Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay. The manuscript, 84 feet of which was on display at one time, was accompanied by 83 photographs taken by Robert Frank during his own two-year cross-country pilgrimage and published first in Europe in 1958 as Les Americains. The IMA borrowed the almost singular complete set of Frank’s photographs owned by the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts.

Above: Jack Kerouac typescript as installed in On the Road Again at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.