Results tagged “artshay”

2009 marks the 100th birthday of Nelson Algren, the quintessential Chicago author. Long before the word "hipster" had even been coined, he chronicled the bleak existence of society's misfits, living on the fringe in West Town and Wicker Park. His best known books are The Man with the Golden Arm, Chicago: City on the Make and Never Come Morning, which no less than Hemingway declared "the best book to come out of Chicago." They describe a Chicago so different from our city today that they almost read like science fiction, yet when Algren lived here he often hung out at the Rainbo Club and the Gold Star.

Last week's "Flashback" installment on Art Shay proved to be pretty popular with fans of the famed photographer. We made mention of one of our favorite Shay photos, snapping French author and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir au natural in "Nelson Algren's bathroom" from 1952.

Art Shay is without a doubt one of the greatest photographers this city ever produced. For sixty years he's captured some of the most iconic images of city life. His 1988 book Nelson Algren's Chicago (Visions of Chicago) inspired scores of photographers, both professional and amateur, to pick up their cameras and pound the pavement looking for the perfect shot.