Art Shay

Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Art Shay -- The Royal Line

Peter Byrne of Swans has a new essay -- about literature, Chicago and about the pulsing currents of urban living that turned the gathering places of down-and-outs into what passes for the city's own Bohemian quarter. As Byrne puts it, in an ode to the work of Nelson Algren: " Artiness has moved in where Algren found space conducive to making art precisely because there was no art around."

Byrne continues with close observations about Art Shay, who worked closely with Algren:

Art Shay in all this is a voice from the past that won't stop talking back to the present. As a photographer his place is secure in the royal line that goes through Bill Brandt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Walker Evans. But he is not so stolid as Brandt, so lyrical as Cartier-Bresson, or so static as Evans. He is also less sentimental than almost anybody -- including Algren, who had a soft spot for any hooker with a hard luck story.

In the heyday of press photography, Shay was a stalwart of Life, Time, and Sports Illustrated, among others. He has always been willing to give center stage, as at the Rainbo, to his friend Algren. But anyone familiar with Shay's work knows that his photos of the writer are only a small part of his vast production. Shay's world, moreover, has always been wider and more aglow with joie de vivre than the darker planet Algren inhabited.

Click to read the full Byrne essay in Swans Commentary.

Seaman On Shay: 'Striking Photography And Candid Reminiscences'

Donna Seaman brings her wit and wisdom to the radio with passionate discussion on Open Books Radio. Of course, Seaman has a blog, too, and she recently posted her take on Nelson Algren as the underratted champion of the underdog.

As with any analysis of the Algren years, Seaman touoched on the role of Art Shay as Algren pal, photographer and intellectual touchstone.

From Seaman's Open Books Radio post, Remembering a Chicago Writer:

Self-deprecating and ironic, an avid listener and a stalwart witness, Algren was of the underworld, yet separate from it. His balancing act is evocatively captured in Art Shay’s Chicago’s Nelson Algren (2007), a book of striking photographs and candid reminiscences. A buddy of Algren’s, Shay carried a concealed camera on their peregrinations and caught the writer, his brow speared by a widow’s peak, his eyes protected by glasses and bright with sadness, intently watching moments of mayhem, respectful and rueful. Algren stored it all up and wrote it all down in a feverish torrent of compassion and outrage, bemusement and sorrow.

Seaman also writes for the Chicago Tribune (see her review of The Plaque of Doves) and the Los Angeles Times (her review of My Name Is Will) among other publications. She is an associate editor for Booklist.

Algren In Amber: LATimes On Art Shay, Nelson Algren, And A Literary Legacy

Here is one more note on the Algren Live event at the Steppenwolf Theater, from David L. Ulin, the book editor of the Los Angeles Times. Click to read his essay, Nelson Algren's legacy ebbs. Here is an excerpt about the event and about Art Shay's photos:

Arranged in a line across the stage are nine chairs, in which sits an unlikely array of people, beginning with Simon and "Wild at Heart" author Barry Gifford, and featuring novelists Russell Banks and Don DeLillo and actor Willem Dafoe. Together, they're rehearsing a bit of reader's theater called "Nelson Algren Live," which will be performed this night before a packed house, including Harold Augenbraum, executive director of the National Book Foundation, and former Life magazine photographer Art Shay, who took the most iconic shots of the author, black-and-whites of him playing poker or peering through barroom windows, pictures so gritty you can almost feel the dirt rise off the frame.

These photos, as much as anything, are responsible for Algren's image as "the poet of the Chicago slums," yet they also cast him in amber: a midcentury figure, smoking a cigar, eyebrows raised behind round glasses, turning over another card. Sixty years after winning the first National Book Award, for his 1949 novel of addiction, "The Man With the Golden Arm," Algren has become vestigial enough that discussions of a national celebration were scaled back after, as Augenbraum notes in an e-mail, "we concluded that though his writing continued to resonate, the number of his readers and his currency among the general reading public had diminished."

So what, exactly, is Algren's legacy? That's the question the Steppenwolf event means to raise.

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"Algren," The Movie, Coming In 2010

Nelson Algren looked behind the billboards boasting of the American consumer ambition to find the disposesed and disconnected citizens with their own dreams, sleeping in the shadows.

Art Shay's photos of Algren make up a large part of this trailer for Michael Caplan's film "Algren," due from Montrose Pictures in 2010. Here's a link to the trailer for "Algren." There is Algren and Marcel Marceau, Algren and Eleanor Roosevelt, Algren and the streets of Chicago.

You can also see Art Shay, in an interview, remembering their time together and some of the street characters they met and captured in prose and photos.

There is also the voice of Studs Terkel on Algren the outsider and appreciative quotes from Carl Sandburg, Alex Kotlowitz and Ernest Hemingway, and of course, from Algren's lover, Simone de Beauvoir.

Shay Signs Chicago Photo Book At Algren Event

Richard Shay captured his father, Art Shay, signing books at the Steppenwolf Theater event honoring Nelson Algren. Shay's book, "Chicago's Nelson Algren," records in words and photos the long-time collaboration between the two and the street scenes that animated their work.

Click on the book cover in the upper left corner of this blog to purchase your own copy of "Chicago's Nelson Algren."

Art Shay Photos In Algren Tribute

Art Shay showed highlights of his Algren works at a 100th birthday tribute night to the Chicago author. Below, in a photo by Richard Shay, is a sense of the event at the Steppenwolf. Matt Dillon had a calendar conflict, but other notables -- from Dafoe to Kogan to DeLillo -- more than made up for his absence.

The Algren Treasure, The Shay Salute

With one of the most important salutes to the Nelson Algren centennial set for Monday, The Chicago Tribune has just published a review of some posthumously published Algren work, Entrapment and Other Writings,  and a feature by Rick Kogan on some Algren memories. Here's Kogan on Art Shay:

There is no one alive who knew Algren and his work more intimately than photographer/writer Art Shay, whose steady parade of books gild his pal's legend at the same time that they provide firsthand insight. Many years ago Shay told me, "Nelson blew a lot of books that we should have had. But what he wrote is a treasure."

Can't argue that, on any score.

Algren was a gifted pro. Shay himself takes aim at the giftless amateurs in an essay for Swans.com, concluding with a call for a new reality show:

Here's a free suggestion for some network. A great big amateur hour for America's newly unemployed. Title: American Idle.

Another Art Shay Cover -- Nelson Algren, Chicago Reader

The Chicago Reader is publishing a short story by Nelson Algren. What could be more fitting than an Art Shay street shot of the author? Here's a detail from the cover. The new Reader is available at all the best street corners in Chicago.

Icon, Legend: Art Shay On WBEZ

Justin Kaufmann, web editor at WBEZ, delights audiences on and off the radio with his wry insights and passion for Chicago history. He caught up with Art Shay at the WBEZ studio.

Click on the link to watch some Art Shay-Justin Kaufmann conversation.

Justin's kicker: "If I haven’t said it already, Art Shay is a pretty cool dude."

UPDATE 7 Story Press has its own link to video of the Shay interview on WBEZ. The publisher also reminds readers:

Want more Art Shay material? Take a trip to Nelson Algren Live on April 6th in Chicago for a slide show of some of his best Algren photographs—plus plenty of additional non-Art Shay material that we promise is still great.

Click for full information about the April 6 Algren event at the Steppenwolf.

Algren Tribute With Art Shay

Nelson Algren's understanding of Chicago street life gave readers new insights into the human condition. Not everyone identified with the tales of the down and out, but a global recession has a way of re-focusing our attention. Algren's stories are not about them, they are about us.

On Tuesday in Chicago, Algren experts and fans will gather for a tribute to a man who did not achieve full recognition while he was alive. Art Shay will be there and so will filmmaker Michael Caplan.

From a Medill Report by Victoria Fine, illustrated by an Art Shay photo of Algren:

“He never received a teaching post and didn’t get opportunities that other writers might have gotten,” Caplan said. “There were a lot of people that did not want to hear about the people who are not doing well, the people who did not get the American dream.”

Caplan and other contemporary Chicago writers and artists will honor the writer at a Tribute to Nelson Algren and a Celebration of Chicago Writing on March 17.

The free event is part of Columbia College’s annual Story Week and hosted by the Chicago Public Library. In addition to featuring a clip from Caplan’s documentary, it will also include readings by authors J. Adams Oaks, Bayo Ojikutu, Stephanie Kuehnert and Billy Lombardo.

Nelson Algren Award winner Joe Meno will also lead a discussion with renowned photographer Art Shay, who was close friends with Algren and documented the author throughout his life in pictures.

It all happens at the Harold Washington Library:

6:00 PM
Nelson Algren Tribute
A celebration of Nelson Algren and writing in Chicago with readings by Stephanie Kuehnert, I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone; J. Adams Oaks, Why I Fight; Bayo Ojikutu, Free Burning; and Billy Lombardo, The Logic of a Rose. There will also be a conversation with Nelson Algren photographer, Art Shay, and filmmaker Michael Caplan will show a clip from Algren, his upcomming documentary. Book signing to follow.         
Host: Joe Meno, Nelson Algren Award winner and author, Demons of the Spring

Harold Washington Library
Cindy Pritzker Auditorium
400 S. State St.