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 ‘Crime was my oyster and I liked it’, Weegee by Weegee, 1961

Before the fame and notoriety of photographers almost came to eclipse the names of the celebrities and images they shot (think Nick Knight, Lord Snowdon and Herb Ritts) there was Weegee. Weegee the Famous, or ‘the World’s Greatest Photographer’, as he (rather modestly) liked to describe himself, whose gritty, pioneering style contributed to the stylised urban image of New York that Hollywood films were so keen to project in the 1940’s. Jules Dassin’s 1948 film noir classic The Naked City, which follows the police investigation of a young models’ murder, was inspired by Weegee’s acclaimed collection of photographs, Naked City (1945). 

Born Usher Fellig, in 1899 in Austria, he moved to New York’s Lower East Side in 1910, changing his name to Arthur along the way. His nickname is a phonetic derivative from the then popular Ouija board, and his uncanny ability for self-promotion, was combined with a (lucky?) flair for always being in the right (wrong?) place at the right time- no doubt aided by the police radios installed next to his bed. Shooting with a boxy Speed graphic camera, often with a cigar clamped firmly between his teeth, Weegee became a recognisable figure throughout New York by the end of WWII.

Weegee’s black and white depictions of New York are, almost inevitably, regularly compared to film noir, a landscape of destitute lives, desolation and abject loneliness. His Manhattan is full of sleazy bars, gangsters and often violent culture- he was certainly at home with low-life’s, poverty and eccentric characters. ‘The official photographer for Murder Inc.’

In an era before digital manipulation Weegee employed more traditional methods to emphasise certain aspects within his photography, printing on the ‘contrastiest paper I could get in order to give the kids nice white, chalky faces’ (from Wegee by Weegee), however critics did, and indeed continue to, question the moral ambiguity of Weegee’s photography. 

Accused of manipulating situations to suit his shadowy, almost theatrical style and overplaying his notions of sympathy (I Cried When I Took This Picture, 1940), he has been described as a pathological voyeur. He was not adverse to creating his own drama either- an oft repeated story describes how he ‘set up’ The Critic (one of his most iconic images), by pouring alcohol onto a homeless woman, holding her back until the diamond encrusted upper-class opera goers emerged from their limousine. 

His ability to capture normal people at their most vulnerable, to breach the socially accepted notions of privacy is notorious. His shots were raw and dramatic, popular with tabloids and broadsheets alike, and his high contrast images came to characterise an era. His legacy is almost as difficult to define as the man himself- it is perhaps difficult to asses the impact of Weegee as he was like no other photographer that had come before, yet he ensured the pavements of the paparazzo were lined with gold.

‘Weegee- It’s a crime to take photographs this good…’ is at the Michael Hoppen Gallery until 9 January 2010.

Victoria Loomes