Weegee's New York. Photographs 1935-1960. Photographs and text by Weegee. Essay by John Coplans. Schirmer/Mosel, Munich, 2006. 388 pp., 335 duotone illustrations, 9x11½".
Weegee was an American photographer and photojournalist, who worked as a press photographer in the Lower East Side, New York during the 1930's and 40's.
He's known for his stark black and white street photography, a style he developed following and documenting the activity of the city's police and emergency services. Much of his work "depicted unflinchingly realistic scenes of urban life, crime, injury and death".
"Weegee’s legendary camera recorded an unmatched pictorial chronicle of a legendary time. 'Weegee’s New York' is the New York of the thirties and forties, a city marked by the Great Depression, by unemployment and poverty, by mob violence and prostitution.
He was the first news photographer allowed a police radio in his car. Racing through Manhattan’s streets after midnight, he often beat the cops to the scene of the crime to shoot the pictures which would scream from the pages of the Daily News and the Daily Mirror next morning. They still jump from the page with a restless immediacy and intense nervousness that has never been surpassed.
The 335 photographs collected in this new softcover reprint tell the astonishing story of New York during one of its most violent and exciting periods. The introductory essay is by the former editor of Art Forum, John Coplans."
First quote from here ; second quote from here.
No comments:
Post a Comment