Between Fortunes – Six Remembering’s of Harry Smith

Scott Rodolitz

ISBN:  979-8-234-20045-7

Language: English

Paperback: 122 pages

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In 1983, while studying anthropology at New York University, a nineteen-year-old Scott Rodolitz entered the eccentric and often chaotic world of the renowned polymath Harry Smith. For nearly two years, during Smith’s residency at the Breslin Hotel, Rodolitz became an occasional observer, confidant, and at times an unwitting counterweight, not as disciple or interpreter, but as a direct witness to Smith’s life as it was lived in the moment: its conversations and routines, its humor and volatility, its unravelings, and rare flashes of humanity. This was a largely unrecorded period after the Chelsea Hotel heyday and before the later Naropa renaissance best described as a time “between fortunes.”

Through six vignettes, this memoir does not attempt to complete a narrative or explain a life. Instead, it captures the mood and texture of those years and offers an intimate, ground-level portrait of Smith at a pivotal but overlooked time.

Sytictly limited to 250 copies signed and numbered by the author, with a facsimile print of an original drawing included.

Price $40.00 not including shipping

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About the Author

Scott Rodolitz is a specialist in African Studies and Indigenous art, whose career, spanning more than four decades, has moved between scholarship, the art market, and sustained, close engagement with objects and the peoples and cultures that produced them. He has served as a department director at Bonhams, worked extensively as a certified senior appraiser, and acted as a consultant and guest curator to major institutions and private collections. He is the author of numerous publications on the arts of Africa.

Rodolitz lives in New Hampshire, where he continues his work as a researcher, writer, and consultant in the field of Indigenous art. He also maintains a Substack called The Wrong Folder   of memoir, musings and miscellanea at scottrodolitz.substack.com.