Unknown Weegee

Despite his sometimes comic persona, Weegee made his mark as a documentary photographer. His photojournalistic images from the 1930s and 40s demonstrated an uncanny ability to see drama in the everyday life of New York City residents--the reaction of a criminal, the confidence of a diamond-clad socialite, and the exuberance of packed masses at Coney Island on a hot summer day. It was these images that brought him lasting fame. But he did not only take the sensational front-page images. He also probed the New York City social landscape, addressing racial tensions, social stratifications, war-time rations, and Hollywood-infected notions of glamour. Weegee spent twenty years documenting the city and its inhabitants, from the 1930s Depression to the anxious postwar years. Within the constraints of a working photojournalist, Weegee was able to cultivate a distinctive humanist style and a vision of the city that was unapologetically his own.