Getty Museum
Frank Pape, Arrested for Homicide
Creator
Weegee (Arthur Fellig)American Photographer · 1899–1968
All works by this person →As legend tells it, Arthur Fellig earned the nickname *Weegee* during his early career as a freelance press photographer in New York City. His apparent sixth sense for crime often led him to a scene well ahead of the police. Observers likened this sense, actually derived from tuning his radio to the police frequency, to the Ouija board, the popular fortune-telling game. Spelling it phonetically, F
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- November 10, 1944
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Culture
- American
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
>The men, women, and children who commit murders always fascinate me...I will say one thing for the men and women who kill...they are Ladies and Gentlemen...cooperating with me so I will get a good shot of them. > >--Weegee from *Naked City* In this classic Weegee image, sixteen-year old Frank Pape sits in a "pie wagon," accused of strangling a four-year old boy. Weegee often used windows and fences as visual elements to frame and thus draw attention to his subjects. Here, the wagon door's chain-link fencing creates a dominant pattern, brightened by proximity to Weegee's intense flashbulb. The fence seems to isolate Pape's face and hands within diamonds of crisscrossing wire. This draws attention to the youth's lost-in-thought expression and symbolically hints at his narrowing options.
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