Weegee (Arthur Fellig)

The photographer Weegee specialized in black-and-white images that captured intense and gritty scenes of New York City life. Often presenting scenes of poverty, violence, and despair, his photographs documented the seedy and exciting underbelly of the city. Weegee's works frequently revealed the economic and social disparities across different sectors of society, throwing these incongruities into sharp relief. In The Critic (1943), perhaps his best known work, two bejeweled opera patronesses are juxtaposed with a disheveled, intoxicated woman, simultaneously demonstrating and critiquing the sharp class divide. Weegee's photographs were published in numerous newspapers during his lifetime, and his works have been exhibited in institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art and the International Center of Photography.