This is John Wallowitch!

Andy Warhol, (cover photograph) This is John Wallowitch!, 1964

Happy Birthday Weegee!

Weegee, The Genuis of the Camera, ca. 1935

Weegee, My Studio, 1941

Weegee, Weegee with Mrs. George Washington at Met Opera House, ca. 1943

Weegee, Weegee and Peter Sellers on the set of Dr. Strangelove, 1963

Weegee, Weegee and Andy Warhol, ca. 1965

Weegee was born today, June 12, 1899.

Born Usher Fellig near Lemberg (also know as Lvov), Austria (now Ukraine), to Rachel and Bernard Fellig. Weegee was the second of seven children. The first four (Elias, Usher, Rachel, and Phillip) were born in Lemberg and the youngest three siblings (Molly, Jack, and Yetta) were born in the United States.

Arthur Fellig began using the name Weegee around 1935.

photobooth

Andy Warhol, Photo booth Strip (Holly Solomon 110), ca. 1964

Unidentified photographer, [Andre Breton], ca. 1929

Anatol Josepho, [Self-portrait of Anatol Josepho with Terrier], 1928-30

The original Photomaton was unveiled by Anatol Josepho in 1925 in a studio on Broadway, between 51st and 52nd streets. Josepho’s machine offered an “automatic” portrait, a unique positive black-and-white paper print, which appeared minutes after exposure. Studio, camera, and darkroom existed as a single entity, with no other human operator involved in the process. A year later Josepho sold his invention to a consortium of financiers and industrialists who in turn began a global franchise thath would make the Photomaton a ubiquitous amusement in arcades, fairs, and carnivals. Inexpensive, swift, and mechanical, photobooth images were antic and common compared to the gravity of a formal studio. The tiny, generic proscenium of the booth bore no direction other than the limitations of its size.

Remembering the Ball

Larry Fink, 2nd Hungarian Ball, 1978

“Sometimes you’re invited to a big ball and for months you think about how glamorous and exciting it’s going to be. Then you fly to Europe and you go to the ball and when you think back on it a couple of months later what you remember is maybe the car ride to the ball, you can’t remember the ball at all. Sometimes the little times you don’t think are anything while they’re happening turn out to be what marks a whole period of your life. I should have been dreaming for months about the car ride to the ball and getting dressed for the car ride, and buying my ticket to Europe so I could take the car ride. Then, who knows, maybe I could have remembered the ball.”

– Andy Warhol

Larry Fink, ICP Peter Beard Opening, 1977

Larry Fink, Studio 54, 1977