Description:

'WEEGEE' ARTHUR FELLIG SET OF NINE EARLY ORIGINAL CRIME PHOTOGRAPHS
(1899 – 1968) 'Weegee, (Arthur Fellig) was a photographer and photojournalist, known for his stark black and white street photography in New York City. Weegee worked in Manhattan's Lower East Side as a press photographer during the 1930s and 1940s and developed his signature style by following the city's emergency services and documenting their activity. Much of his work depicted unflinchingly realistic scenes of urban life, crime, injury and death. Very rare archive of nine original Type One crime photographs taken by Weegee, sizes ranging from 2.5 in. x 3.5 in. to 6.5 in. x 4.75 in. Subjects include male and female victims of brutal murders, a drowning victim, and a victim lacking his face. Each of the photographs bears an original, early black ink stamp on verso: 'PLEASE CREDIT WEEGE FROM PHOTO-REPRESENTATIVE'. His work, innovative and highly respected into the future, was praised in September 2018, by the respected Australian art and photography curator Dr. Marcus Bunyan, published a detailed analysis of these early images, and is excerpted below. A copy of Bunyan's article is included with this sale, where he writes: 'What is interesting about these early photographs, is what we can deduct about his photographic process and glean from the photographs themselves. Most interestingly in terms of Weegee's photographic process, is the murder in the storeroom... The body of a young man lies crammed into a small space, face down in an unnatural pose, table to the left, boxes at back and shelf to right. The flash has blown out the floorboards and objects to the right, but intensifies the bloodstains on the floor. Weegee has then stepped around the table to photograph the lower portion of the man's body, one leg resting behind a step ladder, the other leg out of sight to the right of the Du Pont box. The curl of the man's hand is particularly poignant. As in the second photograph of the women in the apartment, it is the placement of the body in the context of life and death that is so important in this photograph. The space of existence. Finally, and this is where it gets really interesting, Weegee walks to where the foot of the step ladder must have been in the second photograph. He must have removed the ladder and photographed the foreshortened space, where we can just see the man's head resting on the floor above the darkness of his jacket. The blue line in the composite photograph shows the opposite ends of this box (in the first and third images), with the table out of the picture to the right in the third photograph. This is fascinating stuff, to understand how Weegee intuitively approached a crime scene, how his eye saw so clearly and quickly what he needed to capture. The essence of a scene revealed to the photographer and the viewer in the blink of an eye. A series of decisive moments captured not on the fly, but in the mind.' A few images bear traces of old tape at corners, else very good.

Dr. Marcus Bunyan's article can be found here:
https://artblart.com/2018/09/07/photographs-weegee-arthur-fellig-1899-1968-9-crime-scene-photographs-c-1930s/

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September 10, 2025 10:00 AM EDT
Elkton, MD, US

Alexander Historical Auctions LLC

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