Avant-garde artist Harry Smith (1923-1991) wore many hats: he was a filmmaker, a musicologist, a painter… although he fancied himself an anthropologist first and foremost. He was a collector who amassed odd bits and bobs over the years, from string figures, tarot cards, Ukrainian painted eggs and rare vinyl. He would collect crushed Budweiser cans, or make recordings of homeless people’s coughs.
It was from the late 1960s to the early 1980s that he started to collect paper airplanes from the streets of New York, and in those 20-something years Smith was able to fill five large boxes of them. He catalogued them meticulously, and most have the dates and locations of where he found them.
His collection was donated to the Smithsonian in the 1980s. Several boxes got lost over the years, but after his death one surviving box was transferred to the Anthology Film Archive. You can see Smith’s 251 found paper planes in Paper Airplanes: The Collections of Harry Smith. While it may seem an odd, amusing book to have on one’s coffee table, it’s a touching tribute to the man who endearingly wanted to capture the fleeting, banal, and unnoticed.
Paper Airplanes: The Collections of Harry Smith are available on J & L Books.