Bowdoin College Museum of Art | - Children Sleeping on Fire Escape, alternatively titled [Heat Spell, Children Sleeping on the Fire Escape, the Lower East Side] / [Tenement Penthouse] / [Heat Spell]

Preview image of work. gelatin silver print, Children Sleeping on Fire Escape, alternatively titled [Heat Spell, Children Sleeping on the Fire Escape, the Lower East Side] / [Tenement Penthouse] / [Heat Spell] 9701

1986.84

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Children Sleeping on Fire Escape, alternatively titled [Heat Spell, Children Sleeping on the Fire Escape, the Lower East Side] / [Tenement Penthouse] / [Heat Spell]

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Artist

Arthur H. Fellig (Weegee) (Poland, 1899 - 1968, New York City, New York)

Title

Children Sleeping on Fire Escape, alternatively titled [Heat Spell, Children Sleeping on the Fire Escape, the Lower East Side] / [Tenement Penthouse] / [Heat Spell]

Creation Date

1938 (printed later)

Century

20th century

Dimensions

12 3/4 in. x 10 3/8 in. (32.4 cm. x 26.4 cm.)

Classification

Photographs

Creation Place

North America, United States

Medium and Support

gelatin silver print

Credit Line

Gift of Dr. George A. Violin

Copyright

This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s Copyright Terms and Conditions.

Accession Number

1986.84

Having begun his career working as a darkroom technician for Acme Newspictures, Arthur Fellig became a freelance photojournalist beginning in 1935. He earned a reputation over the next two decades in New York City for his realist scenes of urban life, especially crime scenes. Working with the newly-introduced Speed Graphic camera, he was renowned for getting to a scene before others, including sometimes the police themselves. For this almost prophetic ability, he became known as Weegee, the phonetic rendering of Ouija. With a darkroom in the trunk of his car, he was able to deliver photographs of breaking news stories faster than others. He was also concerned about the lives of the city’s denizens. In this photograph taken on the Lower East Side, he pictures a group of apartment-dwelling children seeking relief from the summer heat by sleeping outdoors on the fire escape.