…only a first draft, we spent a number of hours identifying locations of Weegee’s photos and finding them with Google’s Street View, again, this is only a first draft, an experiment…

(Old News)

The Berinson Weegee Collection Exhibition in Poland:

Copied from National Museum’s Web Site:

Weegee from the Berinson’s Collection 9 May 2009  –  26 July 2009 The National Museum in Krakow – the Main Building, al. 3 Maja 1 The figure of Weegee as a pioneer and a classic figure in journalistic photography,  characterized by the picture taken ‘off the cuff,’ implies questions about the  borderline between spontaneity and the creation of a spectacle, appeasing the  mass audience’s desire for the sensational. These pictures from the collection  of Hendrik Berinsonn, shown in Krakow for the very first time, bear incredible  testimonial to a time – and from behind the pictures emerges the figure of the  artist himself, who was already a legend back in the 30s and 40s – when he  was most professionally active. Weegee was the pseudonym of Arthur Felig, born in 1899 into a Jewish  family in Złoczew, not far from Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine). In 1909  his family immigrated to the United States – Fellig grew up in New York’s  Lower East Side. This was one of the most dangerous districts during the time of the Great Depression – it became the scene of his professional  work. As a teenager, he left his parents and took various pick-up jobs,  including one as assistant to a street photographer. He also visited the  police station, taking pictures of criminals, which in time transformed into  his passion and his profession. He was a typical self-made man, who was  more interested in being in the center of events and being their witness than he was in the artistic side of photography. He worked for the most  frequently read newspapers: ‘The Daily News,’ ‘The Daily Mirror,’ and ‘PM,’  whose editors primarily valued his incredible mobility. Weegee’s speed was  (like just about everything concerning him) legendary – he apparently could  appear at the scene of the crime before the police or the firemen.  This should come as no surprise, given that he was equipped with a police  radio. He always had a typewriter at the ready and an extra pair of underwear,  and his car had a darkroom installed in the trunk. Weegee was mainly interested  in crime – murder, mugging, accidents. In New York in the 30s and 40s you  could find a ‘fresh’ corpse on just about every street-corner. Photojournalists back then generally lived in strategic parts of town. One of the  most famous was the main New York police station, Center Market Place,  bordering on Little Italy, Chinatown and SoHo. From there, Weegee could  keep on top of an endless stream of crimes, and also head for the rich  districts, where he and his camera chronicled the luxurious life of the  New York’s high society. His photographs unerringly capture the societal  differences and almost neurotic tension typical of the New York of those  times. He loved to photograph the rich, and people on the verge of  madness. For all his documentary approach, Weegee’s work reveals a heavy dose of cynicism, visible in the title of a 1939 photo – I Cried When  I Took This Picture.  ‘The best bad things happen at night.’ Weegee worked mainly at night.  His photographs are strangely contemporary, a constant attempt to grasp the  moment. They seem to be spontaneous – they are limited to the moment of  the flash, whose light is reflected off the subjects in the picture. They are  the victims of the crime, but also the viewer himself: the participant in  the crime who wants a picture of it, the tabloid reader. The spontaneity  and documentary feel may, however, be misleading. A famous picture  called The Critic (1943) shows self-satisfied ladies of the upper crust  going toward the Metropolitan Opera, passing by women of the night.  This picture perfectly captures the tension between the polarized statuses  of the women. The picture’s fleeting character gives it the feel of authenticity.  It turns out, however, to have been set up. This fact reveals the process of the  spontaneous mythologization of events, the constant building of the legend of  prohibition-era New York. Everything happens like a big performance,  documented by the Famous Weegee.

Weegee Covers Christmas in New York… In Words and Pictures PM Daily, December 26, 1940 by Weegee Early Christmas Eve I received a phone call from Wesley Price, one of PM’s picture editors. Price told me he wanted a good holiday picture, something with plenty of OOMPH. Lots of Christmas spirit in it. in other words a masterpiece. Jokingly I replied you just couldn’t order a picture like that, like you would a box of cigars. It had to happen. However, I asked him if he had any suggestions. He suggested that I get the picture in for the first edition.

I left police headquarters in my car at 2:30 Christmas morning. I turned the two radios on. One the regular broadcast receiver, to get some holiday music to put me in the mood; and the other radio, a police short wave receiver to get the police signals so I would know what was going on.

The first police call I picked up was for West and Bank Sts. When I got there I found a car with a Jersey license, turned on its side, with a cop on top of it. Nobody seemed to be hurt. Soon a towing wagon arrived to take the car away. I made a shot of it and was on my way.

Then I picked up six fire alarm signals. They were alll false. I didn’t think Santa did that.

Then I stopped at the All Night Mission at No. 8 Bowery. Every night in the year about 100 hopelessly beaten and homeless men sit on benches and sleep as best they can.

Except for a Christmas tree in front, everything was the same. The same despair and hopelessness. I tiptoed in at 4 in the morning, being careful not to disturb anyone. Everyone was asleep. The place was as usual playing to “Sitting up” only. The same electric sign was lit with the illuminated big letters, JESUS SEES, the only source of light in the place. I wondered if He approved…

On the way out, along a big stove near the door, I noticed a pair of stockings, turned inside out, hung to dry.

Next I picked up a police alarm for 102nd St. and Lexington Ave. When I got there I found a man had been stabbed to death and was lying on the corner. From the St. John’s Episcopal Church, on the opposite corner, came the sound of organ music and the singing of the Christmas worshipers. I made a shot of the scene and started back to police headquarters.

When I arrived at my home, in back of Police Headquarters, I found a package wrapped in fancy paper outside my door. It was a present from my Chinese laundry man, Willie Chu, of 95 Elizabeth St. It contained a pound of tea and a half pound of lichee nuts. I had been looking for the Christmas spirit all night long. And had found it, on my doorstep. Lichee NUTS to you, Santa Claus…

At the Atlass Gallery

Indecisively walking down Centre Market place, coming back from a performance at Phill Niblock’s Experimental Intermedia loft…

October 22, 2009
Results for Sale 2191, 
PHOTOGRAPHS & PHOTOGRAPHIC LITERATURE.
Swannn Auction Galleries

Sale 2191 Lot 192
WEEGEE (1899-1968)
“Out of this World.” Ferrotyped silver print, 6 1/2×8 1/2 inches (16.5×21.6 cm.), with the Acme Photo hand stamp and a mimeographed caption label on verso. 1946
Estimate $1,500-2,500
Sold for $2,400
(Weegee’s People, unpaginated.)

WEEGEE (1899-1968)
“Life Class.” Ferrotyped silver print, 6 3/4×8 1/4 inches (17.1×21 cm.), with the Acme Photo hand stamp and a mimeographed caption label on verso. 1946
Estimate $1,500-2,500
Sold for $1,080
(Weegee’s People, unpaginated.)

Sale 2191 Lot 194
WEEGEE (1899-1968)
“Celebrant.” Ferrotyped silver print, 8 1/4×5 3/4 inches (21×14.6 cm.), with the Acme Photo hand stamp and a mimeographed caption label on verso. 1946
Estimate $1,500-2,500
Sold for $2,160
(Weegee’s People, unpaginated.)

Sale 2191 Lot 195
WEEGEE (1899-1968)
“Dancers.” Ferrotyped silver print, 8 1/4×6 3/4 inches (21×17.1 cm.), with the Acme Photo hand stamp and a mimeographed caption label on verso. 1946
Estimate $1,500-2,500
Sold for $2,140
(Weegee’s People, unpaginated.
Weegee’s New York, 279 (variant).)

December 8, 2009
Results for Sale 2199, 
PHOTOGRAPHIC LITERATURE & FINE PHOTOGRAPHS 
Swannn Auction Galleries…

Sale 2199 Lot 336
WEEGEE (1899-1968)
Untitled (fans and cop). Ferrotyped silver print, 11×10 1/2 inches (27.9×26.7 cm.), with the “Weegee The Famous” and Arthur Fellig hand stamps on verso. Circa 1940
Estimate $2,000-3,000
Unsold
From the Marcuse Pfeifer Gallery, New York; to the present owner in 1976.

Sale 2199 Lot 337
WEEGEE (1899-1968)
Self-portrait (distortion with cameras, crown and scepter). Ferrotyped silver print, 9×7 1/2 inches (22.9×19.1 cm), with the “Credit Photo by Weegee” and “Photo Representatives” hand stamps on verso. Circa 1950
Estimate $1,500-2,500
Unsold

Sale 2199 Lot 338
WEEGEE (1899-1968)
Hedda Hopper (distortion). Ferrotyped silver print, 9 1/4×7 1/2 inches (23.5×19.0 cm.), with a “Photo-Representatives” hand stamp and notations, in pencil, on verso. Circa 1951
Estimate $1,500-2,500
Unsold

At the Michael Hopppen Gallery, “Weegee – It’s a crime to take photographs this good…”

From the gallery’s website: http://www.michaelhoppengallery.com
(A text indebted to the introduction of Weegee’s World.)
“It’s a crime to take photographs this good…’

Always in the right place at the right time, Weegee’s lense was perpetually aimed the visceral and sometimes violent city of New York. In 1993, Wilma Fellig, Weegee’s widow, bequeathed his entire archive of original prints to the ICP in New York, and we are delighted to offer selected pieces of this unique photographers work which includes many images never previously seen in the UK.
Weegee photographed New York in the 1930s and 1940s… Weegee’s voyeuristic eye sought out the harsh realities of the urban experience, but also the joie de vivre and carefree attitude which typified the years between the wars.
Born in 1899 in the Austrian province of Galicia, which is today part of Ukraine, Weegee (real name Usher, then Arthur Fellig) was the second of seven children from Jewish parents. Weegee’s family left Europe in 1910 for the Lower East Side ofManhattan, where Weegee grew up. He left home at 15 and in 1917 got a job in a photo studio and became assistant to a cameraman. In 1921, he got a part-time position at the New York Times and its legendary agency Wide World Photos, soon afterwards switching to Acme News pictures. Eventually, frustrated with the lack of recognition for his work, and not having his name on photographs, he became a freelance news photographer by late 1935.


Weegee’s images bridge the gap between art, evidence and photojournalism. His nickname was a phonetic rendering of ouija,as in ouija board, due to his sixth sense of being able to arrive at a scene minutes after the occurrence of a crime. In 1938, Fellig was the only New York newspaper reporter with a permit to have a portable police-band short wave radio. The trunk of his car was a carefully maintained darkroom, to enable himto deliver his freelance images tothe newspapers as speedily as possible. He worked predominantly at night listening closely to radio broadcasts, often beating the NYPD to the scene. It also meant he was on hand to document the raucous night life in the Bowery, Harlem and The Village, and he went on to document the society events and functions of the era.
His photographs were taken with the very basic press photographer equipment, a [Speed Graphic] Graflek [sic] and flashbulbs which gave his work such graphic qualities. He had no formal photographic training being entirely self taught, and was a relentless self-promoter.”



Michael Hopppen Gallery
3 Jubilee Place,
London SW3 3TD

Tel: +44 (0)20 7352 3649
Fax: +44 (0)20 7352 3669

www.michaelhoppengallery.com