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SAUSALITO PUBLIC LIBRARY
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THE APERTURE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY SERIES
APERTURE
SAUSALITO public library
Weegee is the eighth book in the Aperture History of
Photography Series. The photographs were selected
and sequenced by Marvin Israel.
Aperture, Inc., publishes a periodical, portfolios and
books to communicate with serious photographers and
creative people everywhere. A complete catalogue will
be mailed upon request. Address: Elm Street, Millerton,
New York 12546.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-
American Copyright Conventions. Published in the
United States by Aperture, Inc., and simultaneously in
France by Robert Delpire, Editeur, Paris, and in Great
Britain by Gordon Fraser Gallery, Ltd.,
London and Bedford.
Copyright (c) 1978 by Aperture, Inc.
Library of Congress Catalogue Card No. 77-80020
ISBN 0-89381-021-5
Manufactured in the United States of America.
All photographs courtesy Center for Creative Photog¬
raphy, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, with
exception of pages 37, 67, 79 courtesy Witkin Gallery,
page 57 courtesy Marcuse Pfeifer Gallery, page 75
courtesy Nina Rosenwald, New York City and pages
90-91 courtesy The Museum of Modern Art.
Weegee photographs are, for the most part, as di¬ his hair too long, curled in an unbrushed mat, his
rect as a blow on the knees with a baseball bat. Speed Graphic in hand, a half-burned cigar in
Nothing stands in the way of understanding them. mouth. Even in winter he looked as though he had
They need no captions. Unlike many photog¬ melted down within his crumpled clothes. All his
raphers, Weegee refused discipline, developed no coat pockets had zippers holding in films, lenses,
theories, cared so little about technique for much miniature tools. A big man, he had a small, guttural
of his life that his early, greatest photographs have voice, nasal, soft, and hoarse as if nodes bloomed
been criticized as slipshod. on his vocal cords.
Art gave Weegee no trouble. He never even By the time he reached his thirties, Weegee had
bothered to think about it, as he knew little about become loosely fat, shapeless, his clothes hanging
painting or sculpture, the history of art or of on him like washing on a line. Later, when in the
photography. He saw no symbols in his subjects. money, he went to a bespoke tailor in London,
He used his camera not to celebrate the people he where he insisted that his suits be made two inches
photographed, but to make a living, a narrow, larger all around. He hated material to touch him.
spare living. What he wanted was the freedom to Within hours the suits appeared as though they
be Weegee: some fame, some money (but not had been bought off a pushcart on New York’s
much) and women were the triple peaks of his Orchard Street.
desires. He achieved all. He also earned a reputa¬
tion as an artist, a reputation that he apparently Usher Fellig, later known as Weegee, was born
cared the least about. After his death, he won the June 12, 1899, in the village of Zloczew, Austria.
renown epitomized by the trademark many of his Ten years later, with his mother and three
picture editors saw as a gag: Credit photo by Weegee brothers, he arrived in New York City to join his
the Famous. father, who had come earlier to earn the money
When he was young, Weegee gave off an air of for their passage. At Ellis Island, which he called
middle age, his dark eyes restless, slightly vague, “the most beautiful place in the world,” an im-
migration officer changed Usher to Arthur. ment to silent films at a Third Avenue movie
The greenhorn family settled on New York’s house. In time he became a fire buff: his pictures of
Lower East Side, where they lived a grade higher a three-alarmer brought in three bucks extra; a
than the rats in the tenements. Put into school five-alarmer, live; false alarms, nothing. Eventu¬
with no English at his command, he learned with ally he became a stunt man developer, once de¬
fair rapidity, mainly because he loved to go to veloping his pictures in the motorman’s cab in the
school. By the time he landed in the eighth grade, subway on the way from the Battery to Midtown,
he decided to leave for good. Whatever money he once using a rented ambulance as darkroom to
could earn the family needed: his father, unskilled rush pictures of a world-champion fight at the
at pushcart bargaining, had turned poor rabbi. Polo Grounds.
From then on Arthur took to the streets for his During this time he lived in a single, bleak
livelihood. Among his jobs in the next few years bedroom in a rooming house, moving every
were candy butcher at burlesque houses, street month. For a while he camped out in Acme’s dark¬
photographer sitting kids on a pony for tintypes, room, sleeping on a shelf. (On another shelf he
dishwasher at the Automat. At eighteen he left kept his cache of kitchen supplies: Campbell
home. Although he dedicated his second book, soups, Heinz vegetarian baked beans, Uneeda
Weegee’s People, “To My Mother,” when he came biscuits.)
to write his autobiography, Weegee by Weegee, he In 1935 he broke away from Acme’s dark¬
barely mentioned his parents and spoke of his room, and a fifty-dollar-a-week salary, to free¬
brothers only as companions in steerage. Once on lance. On an ordinary day he would leave his bed¬
his own, he never went to synagogue, but he al¬ room at five in the morning to drive around the
ways kept Rosh Hashanah and lasted on Yom city in his 1928 Ford. By 1942 he kept his equip¬
Kippur. ment in the trunk of his Chevrolet. He monitored
When he was almost twenty-four, Arthur Fel- calls on a two-way police radio, the first one ever
lig tired of his undirected route through poverty allowed a civilian. He also set up an informal office
and settled for a job in the darkroom of Acme for himself at Police Headquarters on Spring
Newspictures (later UPI) at twenty dollars a Street, settling down in the Missing Persons
week. Refusing Acme’s offer to send him out as a Bureau. There he made his telephone calls, sent
photographer if he would agree to wear a white out his bills, met his friends.
shirt and tie, Fellig was stuck in the darkroom Frequently, Fellig arrived on the scene of a
except for a late-night emergency which shot him disaster separately but simultaneously with the
out to cover a fire. For the next twelve years he police. According to legend, the cops asked him
ventured out only to photograph at night, spend¬ if he had a Ouija board. From this came the
ing his off-hours playing the fiddle in accompani¬ onomatopoeic word Weegee. After he shot his
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