Flash: The Making of Weegee the Famous

Amazon.com Price: $16.23 (as of 10/11/2019 01:17 PST- Details)

Description

The first definitive biography of Weegee the Famous―photographer, psychic, fiend―from Christoper Bonanos, creator of Instant: The Story of Polaroid.

Arthur Fellig’s ability to arrive at a crime scene just as the cops did was once so uncanny that he renamed himself “Weegee,” claiming that he functioned as a human Ouija board. Weegee documented better than another photographer the crime, grit, and complex humanity of midcentury New York City. In Flash, we get a portrait not only of the man (both incorrect and deeply talented, with generous appetites for publicity, women, and hot pastrami) but also of the fascinating time and place that he occupied.

From self-taught immigrant kid to newshound to art-world darling to latter-day cartoon―moving from the dangerous streets of New York City to the celebrity culture of Los Angeles after which to Europe for a quixotic late phase of experimental photography and filmmaking―Weegee lived a life just as worthy of documentation as the scenes he captured. With Flash, we now have an unprecedented and in the long run moving view of the man now considered an innovator and a pioneer, an artist in addition to a newsman, whose photographs are among most powerful images of urban existence ever made.


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