WEEGEE (ARTHUR FELLIG) HANDWRITTEN LTR SIGNED, "Love
Weegee", 2 pages back to back, 8.5 x 11, no date, probably to Wilma
Wilcox, about his recent travels and thanking for packages sent. In part:
"Hi dear...Finally made it to Hollywood...left Las Vegas...rode back with Margaret...don't know how
long I'll stay...got your packages...the timer for the Poloroid, etc. Age toning,
two letter folds, and tiny tear upper right corner, otherwise 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 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.
$525 #10737
