In 1965, Lawrence Ferlinghetti assembled two dozen literary figures and friends for a portrait at City Lights Bookstore. It captured the movement just before a cultural shift
Can you identify the notable people in this picture? Scroll down to learn more. Chronicle photo illustration from photo by Peter Breinig/The Chronicle 1965
By Peter Hartlaub and Ava Mandoli | Updated March 14, 2025 12:32 p.m.+
“Portrait of the Artists as Old Men”
The headline appeared in the Dec. 6, 1965, San Francisco Chronicle above an assembly of 23 Beat poets and friends gathered by Lawrence Ferlinghetti at City Lights Bookstore.
Most of the men (and the single woman) in Peter Breinig’s photo were in their early or mid-thirties and lived in San Francisco during the rise of the Beat movement in the 1950s. Several were still near the peak of their literary fame. But by 1965, a counterculture shift was happening in the city. The next summer a new movement in the Haight-Ashbury would begin to overshadow the Beats in North Beach.
Ferlinghetti and poet Allen Ginsberg must have felt that shift in culture when they invited two dozen literary friends (and several photographers) to meet up in North Beach on Dec. 5, 1965, a reunion later dubbed the “Last Gathering of the Beats.”
The picture, and what’s outside the frame, tell a compelling story. Let’s take a look.
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