Oct 31 at 10:30 AM - Sale 2684 -

Sale 2684 - Lot 141

Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
WEEGEE [ARTHUR FELLIG] (1899-1968)
Murder in Hell's Kitchen. 1941.
Silver print, the image measuring 10⅝x13¾ inches (27x35 cm.), the sheet slightly larger, with Weegee's 451 West 47th Street and Credit Weegee the Famous stamps, and an additional notation in pencil on verso.

Taken by Weegee the night of February, 7, 1941, this photo shows local residents peering out their apartment block windows as police below investigated the murder by a lone gunman of Emil "The Polack" Nizich, a 26-year-old unemployed longshoreman walking in the rain near his home on W. 48th Street. The murder was one of a spate of recent shooting deaths attributed to feuding among rival dockworkers along the Manhattan waterfront. Weegee had rushed to the scene with his camera after learning of the murder from police and photographed Nizich's dead body lying on the pavement, as well as the local residents gawking at the police conducting their investigation. Weegee published both photos side by side in his 1946 book Naked City, with a caption laced with irony: "Murder in Hell's Kitchen One looks out of the windows ... talks about the weather with a neighbor ... or looks at a murder."

Provenance
Purchased from a private dealer in 2002; to the Present Owner

Publication
Fellig, Arthur (Weegee), Weegee's Naked City (Da Capo Press, New York) 1975, p. 80
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