Description
WEEGEE (ARTHUR FELLIG) HANDWRITTEN LTR SEEING PARIS THROUGH EYES OF PICASSO, RENOIR, BUFFET, TOULOUSE-LAUTREC
WEEGEE (ARTHUR FELLIG) HANDWRITTEN LTR SIGNED, "Love Weegee", 2 pages back to back, 5.5 x 8.25, March 15, 1962, on Hotel La Louisiane, Paris, letterhead, to Wilma Wilcox, about a movie role and concern for his slides and negatives: "...to the circus...The studio is still fooling around with the script...for me to play an American Tourist Seeing Paris through the Eyes of PICASO, RENOIR - Buffet, ToLouis LaTrec...the Slides & the negatives - theyre very precious & irreplacable...." Of course this is written in the Weegee style of many spelling errors, constant change from cursive to block letters, inconsistent capitalizations, etc. Comes with his handwritten and signed, "Weegee", mailing envelope with 4 French postage stamps attached. Both items in fine condition.
Weegee (1899-1968) was the pseudonym of Arthur Fellig a famous New York City photographer and photojournalist in the 1940's and 1950's known for his stark black and white street photography: images of murder, mayhem, dead gangsters, Harlem blacks, famous personalities, and other dramatic events. His career spanned four decades on both coasts as well as Europe. His images of dead gangsters and his own flamboyant personality established his reputation as New York's "crime photographer," a reputation and persona he nurtured. The New York Museum of Modern Art acquired some his photographs and many of his images have appeared in multiple books. In the 1950's and 1960's he experimented with photo distortions and photography through prisms (kaleidoscope) that created caricatured images.
Wilma Wilcox was a Quaker social worker who Weegee lived with for over a decade before his death in 1968. She inherited his entire archive of original prints and subsequently donated them to the International Center for Photography on her death in 1993.
$600 #10754
