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WeegeeWaterski Jumper1950
1950
About the Item
Arthur Felling, better known as Weegee (1899-1968) is America's premiere photojournalist and one of the last century's most influential photographers.
He would become famous, beyond New York and news circles, after the publication of his photo books Naked City (1945) and Weegee's People (1946).
Weegee's images of New York City crime, disaster, and tragedy are frequently iconic and highly influential. Less well-known, however, is the work he focused on during the last twenty years of his life: known as the 'distortions' period. In the late 1940s, Weegee began experimenting with photographic manipulation both in the darkroom and using an array of filters, many of which were his own invention, on his camera.
Weegee created distortions of a wide range of subjects; celebrities, architecture, circus life, and nudes. Of course, one of the overarching themes of his work was the idea of spectacle.
In this evocative distortion, the photograph has been split directly down the center and reflected. It's impossible to tell which side of the image is the original and which side is the reflection.
The dynamic image features two waterskiers, one suspended in the air mid-jump, while the other touches down, prompting a spray of water upon impact. This brief moment of daring motion is distorted into an almost perfectly symmetrical image, with limbs and perspective lines converging at the center for an almost Op Art effect.
Weegee’s photography can be found in scores of museums and private collections worldwide: the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Museum of Modern Art, Oxford; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; International Center of Photography, New York and more.
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Untitled "Waterski Jumper"
USA, 1950
Gelatin silver print
Stamped verso
8.25"H 4.75"W (work)
14.5"H 10.5"W (framed)
Framed with museum glass
Detailed condition report by request. Overall very good condition
- Creator:Weegee (1899-1968, American)
- Creation Year:1950
- Dimensions:Height: 8.25 in (20.96 cm)Width: 4.75 in (12.07 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:Very good condition.
- Gallery Location:Toronto, CA
- Reference Number:
Weegee
Arthur Fellig, who later assumed the pseudonym Weegee, was a photographer and photojournalist, best known for his gritty black-and-white imagery taken on the streets of New York City. Born in 1899 in what is now the Ukraine, he arrived in the United States with his family in 1909, and settled in Brooklyn. After working in a variety of photography-related jobs, he struck out on his own at the age of 35 as a self-taught freelance photographer, selling his work to publications like the Herald Tribune, the Daily News, the Post, and the Sun. Weegee worked mostly at night, usually around Manhattan Police Headquarters. He was the only freelancer in New York to obtain permission to install a police radio in his car. As a result, he was often the first to arrive at the scene of the many crimes he photographed, often before the police themselves had responded. Moreover, he traveled with a makeshift darkroom in the trunk of his car, so he could produce, and then sell, his images faster than his competitors. But crime was not his only subject. He also photographed socialites at high-society events, circus performers, street life, tenement housing conditions, and many other facets of New York life. For a number of years he traveled extensively in Europe, and worked for the London Daily Mirror. He later returned to New York City, where he died in 1968. Th Museum of Modern Art began collecting his work in 1943, and featured it in several exhibitions. His work was also shown at the New York Photo League, and the International Center of Photography hosted a retrospective of his work in 1998. He has been featured in exhibitions at European venues such as the Kunsthalle Vienna, Austria's Flatz Museum, and the Multimedia Art Museum in Moscow. Several monographs of his work have been published.
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