Indianapolis Museum of Art Acquires 210 Photographs by Weegee
By STAN PARCHIN
January 25, 2010
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| Weegee with His Speed Graphic Camera (1944). Indianapolis Museum of Art. |
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| Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American, 1899-1968). This Was a Friendly Game of Bocci (ca. 1939). Indianapolis Museum of Art. |
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| Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American, 1899-1968). Picasso Distortion (1960). Indianapolis Museum of Art. |
The Indianapolis Museum of Art announced today its major acquisition in 2008 of 210 photographs by New York street photographer Arthur Fellig (1899-1968), better known as Weegee the Famous. The collection is second in size only to that from the artist's estate at the International Center of Photography in Manhattan. The IMA's images once belonged to Wilma Wilcox, Weegee's longtime companion.
Forty-eight of Fellig's pictures, most never displayed in an art museum, comprise Shots in the Dark: Photos by Weegee the Famous (April 17, 2010-January 16, 2011). The IMA's exclusive special exhibition traces the prolific photographer's career from 1931 to 1965. On view are his black-and-white images of crime scenes in the 1930s, Harlem jazz clubs in the 1940s, audiences at Frank Sinatra concerts and darkened movie theaters taken with infrared film, strippers, transvestites, Greenwich Village coffee houses in the 1950s and celebrities as seen through the distorting lenses of Weegee's own creation.
Weegee the Famous
The fedora-wearing and cigar-chomping Arthur Fellig's work became synonymous with New York City early in his career. The photojournalist's intent was to use his Speed Graphic camera and simply capture the soul of the metropolis he knew and loved. His oeuvre set the standard very high for other admiring photographers, most notably Diane Arbus (1923-1971).
Fellig, born in Austria, started as a freelance press photographer. Police, firemen and other emergency services personnel were astounded by his ability to show up at crime scenes, bloody automobile wrecks and other grizzly occurrences ahead of them to photograph the startling events for the local tabloids. The police were convinced that Fellig used the fortune-telling board game Ouija to predict where such horrible things would happen. So he became known as Weegee, a phonetic corruption of the pastime's name. In point-of-fact, Weegee frequented and worked at nightclubs, where he received many of his leads by having listened intently to radio broadcasts. In 1938, Fellig had the distinction of being the only New York newspaper reporter to possess a license for a portable police-band shortwave radio.
Weegee's stark street pictures were published in Naked City (1945). A film noir classic by the same name drew him to Hollywood in 1947 for five years. There he photographed the rich and famous at movie premiers and Academy Award ceremonies, distorted their images into witty caricatures and published them in Weegee's Naked Hollywood (1953).