The Library of Stephen J. Farber

4to. Illustrated from photographs by Weegee. Original black buff cloth; dust jacket (wear along extremities with minor marginal losses). Provenance: Ralph Baum (1907-1984), founder of the Judaica Museum of the Hebrew Home for the Aged and Modernage Photographics (author's inscription).

FIRST EDITION. PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY WEEGEE TO RALPH BAUM, "The photographer's friend."

[With:] WEEGEE. Naked City. New York: Essential Books, 1945. 4to. Illustrated from photographs by Weegee. Original grey cloth; dust jacket (creases, tape repairs). FIRST EDITION.

Arthur Fellig, or "Weegee" as he was popularly known, was a photojournalist renowned for his stark black and white photography which commonly focused on street scenes in New York City. He was known for following emergency services answering calls on the Lower East Side and then photographing their activity, often resulting in unflinchingly realistic photographs of urban life and crime scenes. When asked how he got started he simply said, "In my particular case I didn't wait 'til somebody gave me a job or something, I went and created a job for myself—freelance photographer. And what I did, anybody else can do... I went down to Manhattan Police Headquarters and for two years I worked without a police card or any kind of credentials. When a story came over a police teletype, I would go to it.