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PROPERTY OF VARIOUS OWNERS

'WEEGEE PORTFOLIO'

measurements note
each approximately 16 by 12 5/8 in. (40.6 by 32.1 cm.) or the reverse

(New York: The Weegee Collection, 1982, a projected edition of 20 numbered copies and 6 hors series sets), a portfolio of 45 photographs, each with a 'The Weegee Collection' blindstamp in the margin, numbered sequentially and '4' in an unidentified hand in pencil on the reverse, 1936-52, printed in 1982 by Sid Kaplan from WEEGEE's negatives; together with the printed title/colophon, foreword by Louis Stettner, and plate list. Folio, gray pictorial cloth clamshell box, no. 4 in a projected edition of 26

NOTE

The photographs in this extensive collection of Weegee images, comprising all of his most famous pictures, have been called 'the most beautiful prints ever made from Weegee's negatives' by Weegee authority Miles Barth. As curator of the 1997 Weegee retrospective at the International Center of Photography in New York, Barth was able to study the wide range of prints of Weegee's photographs, from those made by Weegee himself, to prints made by his sporadic darkroom helpers or by labs at the New York tabloids of the day. Archivally printed by New York photographer and master printer Sid Kaplan in 1982, the photographs in the portfolio offered here show the full negative of many images hitherto known only in cropped versions. 'In the early 1980s, when this portfolio was made, Sid Kaplan was considered one of the best printers, bar none, working in black-and-white from 4-by-5-inch negatives,' Barth has commented.

The Weegee portfolio project was undertaken with the cooperation of Wilma Wilcox, Weegee's long-time companion. In partnership with three other backers, Kaplan printed all of the photographs necessary to fulfill the edition of 26 sets. In return for their investment, the four partners each received a set of the 45 images, plus an additional 4 prints. In 1983, one of the original backers donated his 49-print set to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2000, one of these 49-print sets was sold at auction (Phillips New York, 31 January 2000, Lot 176).

Some time after the prints were made, Weegee's old friend and one-time assistant Louis Stettner, along with Wilcox, began to assemble the sets of prints into proper portfolios, such as the one offered here; each was housed in a clamshell box and accompanied by a letterpress title page, numbered colophon, and plate list. It is unknown how many complete portfolios were actually sold, or survive today. Barth has related that a handful of sets were damaged in a storage warehouse flood before Wilcox's death in 1993, and that prints from the series were sometimes sold by her on an individual basis. The scarcity of the complete 45-plate portfolio, in its original box, is confirmed by the fact that this is only the second time one has appeared at auction in the decades since the portfolio was published.