Naked City [Hardcover]

Arthur Fellig (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0306707241 | ISBN-13: 978-0306707247 | Publication Date: December 1975 | Edition: (1945)

Weegee was among the first to fully realize the camera’s unique power to capture split-second drama and exaggerated emotion. But his profound influence on other photographers, most famously on Diane Arbus, 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: coffee shops at three in the morning, hot summer evenings in the tenements, debutante balls, parties in the street, lovers on park benches, the destitute and the lonely. No other photographer has better revealed the non-stop spectacle of life in New York City.Weegee’s first book, Naked City (1945), was a runaway success and made him a celebrity who suddenly had assignments from Life and Vogue. By the publication of his second book, Weegee’s People (1946), he had cut the wires to his police radio and had begun to photograph the furred and bejeweled grandes dames at the Metropolitan Opera as well as his beloved street people. Naked Hollywood (1953) and Weegee by Weegee (1961) feature portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol, John F. Kennedy, Nikita Khruschev, and Liberace—many of them viewed through the distorted lens of his Weegee-scope.Regarded as some of the most powerful images of twentieth-century photography, Weegee’s work now resides in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"If it bleeds, it leads" -- the cynical battle cry of today's tabloids -- might easily have been the motto of Arthur Fellig, the freelance photojournalist better known as Weegee, who cruised the streets of 1940s New York in the wee hours of the morning in search of the sensational. His pictures of children sleeping on fire escapes, blood-splattered corpses on sidewalks and amorous couples on the beach -- as seen in this reprint of his first book -- reveal that Weegee, unlike his latter day counterparts, had heart and soul. He also had a cockeyed sense of humor, as evidenced by his captions and camera tips. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Weegee (1900-1968), born Arthur Fellig, is credited with ushering in the age of tabloid culture and revered for elevating the sordid side of human life to the level of high art.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 243 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Pr; (1945) edition (December 1975)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306707241
• ISBN-13: 978-0306707247
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,577,517 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Big Apple's snapper, August 11, 2003

By 

Robin Benson - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Naked City (Paperback)

Weegee knew what kind of photos the editors of the New York daily tabloids wanted, in-your-face gutsy black and whites to capture the reader's imagination over the breakfast table. He always delivered too. This reprint of his 1945 book captures the energy of the Big Apple and yet there are no shots of skyscrapers. Instead the (mostly) ordinary folk of the city are shown getting on with their lives and deaths.

Many of the photos are taken at night, a Weegee trademark. Inside buildings he used infrared film so he could shoot in near blackness and capture his subjects displaying emotions they would hide, had they known a camera was about. Out on the street he captured the latest human tragedy in stark close-up with a blinding flash of his Speed Graphic camera.

The contents of this book are an amazing selection of photos but I was very disappointed by the reproduction, so only three stars. As far as I can tell, the photos have been scanned from the 1945 book rather than from original prints. The paper is coarse which doesn't help the reproduction either. This looks not much better than a book of photocopies. Far better I think to go for Miles Barth's Weegee's World. Although it does not have every photo from 'Naked City', the 250 included are printed as duotones on glossy paper, I particularly like this book because it shows many photos as original un-cropped prints. For instance, in his famous photo, 'The Critic' the three bystanders to the left of the two socialites are usually cropped out but here you can see how great the original was. This book also has three excellent essays about Weegee and his influence on other photographers in the Forties.

Another choice might be Weegee's New York Photographs, 1935-1960 with 335 photos from 1935 to 1960 and like the Barth book it is large size and beautifully printed (the photos are duotones) on glossy paper and could possibly have all the photos in Naked City.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poor picture quality, October 30, 2008

By 

D. Smith (North Carolina) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Naked City (Paperback)

Poor paper quality makes the photographic reproductions look like bad photocopies. I was very disappointed.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How they lived...and died, February 4, 2000

By 

Curtis C. Morgan (Brisbane, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Naked City (A Da Capo Paperback) (Paperback)

A fine selection of Weegee's unposed, spontaneous vignettes of life in the city, at least, as it was in the 30's and 40's, equivalent of today's TV "fuzz and the wuzz". His accompanying commentary, unghosted and punchy, mirrors the b/w images; snappy, to the point. The paper stock used here is cheap, but then, these photos usually appeared in the morning paper...in a time when there were newspapers.