Weegee

A landmark volume on the most celebrated news photographer of this century, Weegee's World features the work of this archetypal hard-bitten tabloid photographer, who was also a modern master of the art of photography. From the 1930s to the 1960s, Weegee's images of murder, mayhem, and New York's seamy underside set a new standard for immediacy and wit - and influenced a generation of imitators. Arthur Fellig, known as Weegee, made a place for himself among newspaper photographers with his feel for the spectacular as well as the story. Working mostly at night, answering the calls of the police and firemen of New York City, Weegee carried out an obsessional documentation of the murders, suicides, accidents, and fires of his city, fascinated by the fringes of society. With a Speed Graphic outfitted with an on-camera flash, he shot in a stark, punchy, in-your-face style, often capturing his subjects in a startling blast of light. His accomplished and well-proven technique lends a brutal objectivity to the scenes he recorded. Published to coincide with an exhibition at the International Center of Photography in New York, this monograph takes advantage of sources until now incomplete or unpublished to present more than 250 images, reproduced in duotone, chosen by Miles Barth, curator at the ICP, with the assistance of editor Gilles Mora.

Drawn from the International Center of Photography's archives, this book highlights the fascinating career of Weegee, one of New York's quintessential press photographers. For a decade between 1935 and 1946, Weegee made a name for himself snapping crime scenes, victims and perpetrators. Armed with a Speed Graphic camera and a police-band radio, Weegee often beat the cops to the story, determined to sell his pictures to the sensation-hungry tabloids. His stark black-and-white photos were often lurid and unsettling. Yet, as this book shows, they were also brimming with humanity.

Reproductions of photographs chronicling life in New York City.

David Mamet's work as a playwright, essayist, director, and screenwriter has earned him a reputation as one of the most adventurous creative figures of our day. Now he turns his hand to fiction for the first time with The Village, a novel written with the explosive force and ferocious insight for which all Mamet's work is renowned. The Village brings to life a remote New England community full of dark undercurrents and brooding silences. One after another, the inhabitants of the village reveal themselves to us even as they conceal themselves from each other. Alternating vivid dialogue with the most private thoughts, the author takes us deep inside their secret selves, unfolding in particular the unspoken forces that shape relationships between men and women. These are unforgettable figures: an old hunter whose knowledge of the place is bone deep; a newcomer who chops firewood as his marriage expires; a slinky young woman whose every step unsettles the local males; a store owner fretting his way toward bankruptcy. Through a year the novel traces their lives, unfolding not one but a multitude of stories, revealing the profound interior drama of every human consciousness and the extraordinarily complex interconnections that animate the spirit of a place. Precisely observed and beautifully written, The Village is a landmark work from one of our most important writers.

Damiani takes great pleasure in re-publishing this classic photo book from 1945 in a beautifully printed new edition which includes unpublished images and two new essays by Christopher Bonanos and Christopher George. For his first collection, 'Naked City', Weegee cruised the streets of 1940s New York in the wee hours in search of the sensational. Lewd, louche, licentious but always brimming with life (except when brimming with death), Weegee's photographs have endured decades of modern art criticism and are again enjoying a much-deserved cult revival. 00His profound influence on other photographers over the last half-century derives not only from his sensational subject matter and his use of the blinding, close-up flash, but also from his eagerness to photograph the city at all hours, at all levels. Snapping lovers on the beach at 3:00 in the morning, transgender prostitutes in police buggies, bejeweled Society ladies at balls, the desperately poor no one knew New York like Weegee. 'Naked City' showcases his talent, his love of the city, and his taste for the absurd and the unbelievable, and is a book that will forever stand as a classic introduction to the secret life of New York.

"Extra! Weegee! features 359 vintage photographs in vivid detail. Most of the photographs and all of the eyewitness accounts are published here for the first time. The photographs and stories presented originate from the Newspaper Enterprise Association archive, the parent company of Acme Newspictures. Recently uncovered, the works illustrated are complemented by the excitement of rediscovering a lost archive which has been missing for decades"--Front flap of dust jacket.