Weegee

By Kerry William Purcell and Weegee

This definitive monograph on the enigmatic and eccentric photographer Weegee is a collector's item in itself. Weegee (1899-1968), known for his harrowing and poignant photographs of crime scenes in 1930s and 40s New York, is considered to be the archetypal tabloid photographer of the twentieth century. Preferring to photograph under the cover of night, Weegee was known for his aggressive use of flash and his photographic eye was unstoppable: drawn to the grotesque, the illicit and the illegal. Named after the 'Ouija' board for his uncanny ability to arrive at the crime scene before the police, Weegee recorded the dark side of New York's streets for years, becoming a prolific photographer. No sordid crime seemed to escape his flash and no crime was too gruesome to capture on camera for the papers the next day. Weegee's nuanced understanding of people's simultaneous repulsion and attraction to vivid photographs of crimes of passion, murder and brutal accidents reveals him to have been far ahead of his time. Even today his photographs tirelessly retain the power to stun and to seduce: the originality of the images has elevated them in importance far beyond their use in the newspapers.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0714842249
• ISBN13: 9780714842240
• Release Date: December 2004
• Publisher: Phaidon Press
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 8.5" x 9.8"
• Age Range: 13 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 8 to Postsecondary

Customer Reviews

Mr Crime-and-Disaster

A very reasonably priced introduction to the work of this great photojournalist. Because his work depicts the rawness of New York life and primarily for tabloid papers I always thought the critical establishment regarded Weegee as a sideline contributor to American art photography but this book with fifty-five of his, perhaps best known, photos clearly puts him in the mainstream. In the mid-forties after he went to Hollywood and basically stopped taking the gritty news photos he's famous for I thought his creativity declined, especially in the early fifties when Weegee played about with photo distortions (fortunately only one of these images is in the book) which seem not much more than an art student playing about. Author Kerry Purcell writes a short introduction and the photos follow, one to a page with good captions and if you warm to these images check out 'Weegee's New York' (ISBN 3823854712) a sumptuous large size 335 page paperback. The definitive biography is by Miles Barth, 'Weegee's World' (ISBN 0821226495) again a beautifully produced book with more than 250 photos and three essays. These three books are a celebration of a great news photographer who knew what his readers wanted to see.