Weegee

Waterski Jumper

1950

Innovative, provocative, inimitable - these are just a few of the words to describe America's boldest photographer. Arthur Fellig, better known as Weegee (1899-1968) was a ground-breaking, successful (and notorious) photojournalist. His images shot on the streets of New York City are iconic and influential. In the 1930s he became the first New York City press photographer to obtain permission to install a police radio in his car. This allowed him to follow the city's first responders and to document their duties; responding to fire, crime, debauchery and of course, murder. By the early 1940s Weegee was experiencing fatigue with crime reportage. Ironically, this was also the point when he finally began experiencing professional validation and acclaim, to the point of being a minor celebrity. Notably in 1941 he was included in The MoMA's seminal "50 Photographs by 50 Photographers" (curated by Edward Steichen). The museum would also acquire five Weegee photographs...

While many first associate Weegee (aka Arthur Fellig) with New York City crime scenes, perhaps a broader and more consistent theme is that of spectacle and/or urban entertainment. The origins of his nick-name and reputation date back to the 1930s when he became the first New York City press photographer to obtain permission to install a police radio in his car. Following the city's first responders and documenting their duties, Weegee had unprecedented access to New York’s fires, crimes, debaucheries and of course, murders. During the first decade of his career these unflinching urban tragedy or crime images paid Weegee's bills, but as he became more financially independent he was more inspired to pursue photographs on his own agenda. While his oeuvre is vast, Weegee was especially drawn to entertainment: nightlife, circuses, the theatre, showgirls, city thrills, the cinema etc. Some of Weegee's most dynamic and tender (and under-appreciated!) images are related to simply having fun (in a crowd). He was not confined to one neighbourhood or demographic. He captured action, faces and events from Coney Island to the Bowery and Greenwich Village, to Times Square and Harlem. In “A Trip To Mars,” Weegee depicts a multi-generational group crowding around a large telescope...

Weegee (1899-1968) was equally fascinated and inspired by cinema and all of its tangents, from Hollywood movie stars to ordinary civilians going to the movies. While Weegee is typically associated with crime/disaster images, the broad theme of "entertainment" is a major component of his oeuvre. An interesting and provocative sub-genre of his cinema-related work are his images of couples (often heavy-petting) in movie theatres. Recent scholarship has established that many of Weegee's supposed clandestine images were actually staged or arranged with friends or co-operative strangers. Nevertheless, Weegee created these photographs in the dark with an array of clever techniques including infrared film, filtered flashbulb and triangular prism lens. Employed in shots such as this one, the prism lens would allow the artist to “see around corners,” useful at times when his subjects were in compromising locations. These images of kissing couples, Weegee wrote in 1959, were “his best seller, year in and year out.” "Sailor and GIrl at the Movies...

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...

"Natalia Makarova " is an gelatin print , silver bromide, numbered and signed photograph offered to " serge Lifar " by Max Waldman . Artist proof . Ser...

Shaker Interior, Sabbathday Lake, Maine Silver print, selenium toned, 1971 Signed in pencil lower right (see photo) Titled verso (see photo) Printed c. 1971 Condition: Excellent Image: 6 1/2 x 9 3/8 inches Frame: 14 x 17 inches Original Kulicke welded frame George A. Tice, born in Newark, New Jersey, United States, October 13, 1938, the son of a college-educated New Jerseyan, William S. Tice, and Margaret Robertson, a Traveller of Irish, Scottish, and Welsh stock with a fourth-grade education. George was raised by his mother, maintaining regular visiting contact with his father, whose influence and advice he valued highly. Education His first contact with photography was in the albums of family photographs belonging to his father, and this gave him the desire to create images of his own. George Tice began with a Kodak Brownie. In 1953, having bought a Kodak Pony, which gave him some control over exposure and focus, and a Kodak developing kit, he began to advance his craft. George Tice also joined the Carteret Camera Club. Tice's photographs of homeless men on the Bowery won second place in the black and white print competitions. George Tice decided at this point to make photography his career. In 1955 George Tice attended the Newark Vocational and Technical High School, where he briefly studied commercial photography under Harve Wobbe. When he turned sixteen, he quit school and took a job as a darkroom assistant for Classic Photo, a portrait studio in Newark. He also worked as a stock boy at Kreske's Department Store in Newark, then as an office boy in the circulation department of the Newark Evening News. In 1956 George Tice enlisted in the United States Navy, in which he rose to the rank of Photographer's Mate Third Class. After boot camp and two years at Naval Air Station Memphis, he was transferred to sea duty aboard the aircraft carrier, USS Wasp...

The Swiss American photographer and filmmaker Rudy Burckhardt was a robust contributor to the New York art scene as a documentarian and participant, from 1935 until the end of the ce...

Vintage Silver Gelatin Print. Title, date and signature on mat margin 1980 stamp in black ink twice on mount verso