Weegee
Subtitle: murder is my business
By: Brian Wallis
Contributors: Wallis, Brian, 1953-
Publisher: International Center of Photography; DelMonico Books, Prestel
Published: 2013
Place of publication: New York; Munich
Language: eng
Number of pages: 263
ISBN-13: 9783791353135
Copyright date: 2013
Subjects: Exhibitions; Pictorial works; Photojournalism; Legal photography; Social conditions; Documentary photography; International Center of Photography
Description: Drawn from the International Center of Photography's archives, this book highlights the fascinating career of Weegee, one of New York's quintessential press photographers. For a decade between 1935 and 1946, Weegee made a name for himself snapping crime scenes, victims and perpetrators. Armed with a Speed Graphic camera and a police-band radio, Weegee often beat the cops to the story, determined to sell his pictures to the sensation-hungry tabloids. His stark black-and-white photos were often lurid and unsettling. Yet, as this book shows, they were also brimming with humanity.
Notes: For an intense decade between 1935 and 1946, Weegee (1899-1968) was one of the most relentlessly inventive figures in American photography. His graphically dramatic and often lurid photographs of New York crimes and news events set the standard for what has become known as tabloid journalism. Freelancing for a variety of New York newspapers and photo agencies, and later working as a stringer for the short-lived liberal daily PM (1940-48), Weegee established a way of combining photographs and texts that was distinctly different from that promoted by other picture magazines, such as LIFE. Utilizing other distribution venues, Weegee also wrote extensively (including his autobiographical Naked City, published in 1945) and organized his own exhibitions at the Photo League. This exhibition draws upon the extensive Weegee Archive at ICP and includes environmental recreations of Weegee's apartment and exhibitions. The exhibition is organized by ICP Chief Curator Brian Wallis.

Weegee: Murder Is My Business is an exhibition that took place at the International Center of Photography, New York from May 18-Sep. 2, 2012.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 244-261).
Table of contents: title: Murder is my business  -- Weegee; title: Free-lance cameraman  -- Rosa Reilly; title: Becoming Weegee  -- Brian Wallis; title: Photo-detective : Weegee and the art of self-invention --; title: Weegee and the two-bit nobodies  -- Eddy Portnoy; title: Read all about it! Weegee and the tabloid press --; title: "And so the moving trigger finger writes" : dead gangsters and New York tabloids in the 1930s  -- Carol Squiers; title: Documentary truth : Weegee and the photo league --; title: "More murders" : Weegee, tabloid photography, and the scene of the crime  -- Richard Meyer; title: Naked city: Weegee and urban disorder --; title: Weegee's city secrets -- Alan Trachtenberg.