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IMA Acquires Weegee Photographs210 Images & Letters from Trunk Go to Indianapolis Museum of Art
The Indianapolis Museum of Art has acquired 210 images and letters by Weegee, the 20th-century photographer known for his pictures of crime scenes and distortions.
The Indianapolis Museum of Art announced on June 3, 2008 a major gift of 210 photographs by 20th-century artist Weegee (1899-1968) along with numerous documents from his life. The collection of photographs is second in size only to that from his estate at New York's International Center of Photography. WeegeeBorn Usher Fellig (1899-1968) in what is present-day Ukraine, the self-taught photographer migrated to New York in 1909 to avoid antisemitism and join his family. His first name was changed to Arthur soon after his arrival. He's best known for his severe and candid black-and-white images of street life, gruesome crime scenes and horrific car accidents. Fellig adopted the moniker Weegee, a phonetic transliteration of Ouija, because the police were convinced he used the psychic's parlor game of the same name to predict newsworthy events and arrive well ahead of the authorities to cover them for the tabloids. In point of fact, Weegee was New York's sole photojournalist in 1938 to possess a permit for a police-band shortwave radio. Using a Speed Graphic camera, Weegee captured images of New York City's high society as well as the destitute and social outcasts. His attempts to record the essence of his environs greatly influenced famous American photographer Diane Arbus (1923-1971). Weegee's street photographs were published in Naked City (1945), the inspiration for the film noir classic. The movie attracted Weegee to Hollywood in 1947. For five years, he photographed celebrities at cinematic premieres and award ceremonies. He distorted their portraits in his darkroom and published the caricatures in Naked Hollywood (1953). In addition to work for Life, Vogue and other magazines, Weegee was a still photographer for director Stanley Kubrick's satirical film Dr. Stangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). The CollectionThe Indianapolis Museum of Art's edgy photographs and correspondence by Weegee are believed to have belonged to social worker Wilma Wilcox, the artist's long-time companion and cataloguer of his images. The collection was discovered in a trunk purchased at a southern Kentucky farmhouse yard sale in 2003 by two Indiana women. Instead of discarding Weegee's works on paper and letters, they brought the trunk's contents to historic documents dealer Steven Nowlin, who acquired the treasures from them. The pictures cover subjects from Weegee's entire career: crime scenes; 1940s Harlem; movie theater audiences photographed with infrared film; transvestites; Greenwich Village in the 1950s; and distorted images of notable personalities such as Bette Davis, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Judy Garland, Jacqueline Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Mona Lisa and Pablo Picasso. Self-portraits, letters and postcards to Wilcox, newspaper clippings and Weegee's Social Security card are included. This partial gift of Steven H. Nowlin and purchase by the Caroline Marmon Fesler Fund and the Alliance of the Indianapolis Museum of Art will greatly enhance the institution's photography collection, begun earnestly in 1992. Source:
The copyright of the article IMA Acquires Weegee Photographs in Curating Art is owned by Stan Parchin. Permission to republish IMA Acquires Weegee Photographs in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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