Interview: Photographer Art Shay

ART S HAY’S C HICAGO

It’s difficult to write about photography without using language that results in puns. One photographer, in particular, doesn’t mind a bit. You could say puns are his stock and trade. “I am a proud member of the North Shore Pun Club,” Art Shay says drily in the living room of his Deerfield home. The walls are hung with photographs, mostly his own. He excuses himself to go and put his hearing aid in. “I don’t care about the age thing,” he says. “But it took me nine years to get my hearing aid through the Veterans’ Association, so I’ll be d- - - - - if I don’t wear it.”

Fewer than six degrees separate this man from many of the defining moments in the latter half of the 20th century. For more than 60 years the intrepid photojournalist chased down “the perfect shot” for magazines like Life, Time, Fortune, The Saturday Evening Post, Sports Illustrated and The New York Times. Of the estimated one million exposures he’s made, more than 24,000 of which have been published, an incredible 1,025 of his photographs have graced magazine covers. Just a few of the famous mugs he’s nabbed are Jimmy Hoffa, Earl Warren, Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, Mickey Mantle, Cassius Clay, Simone de Beauvoir, Hugh Hefner, Ernest Hemingway, The Supremes, Henry Crown and every President since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

“You create your own opportunities,” the photographer replies when asked about his big break. Standard advice from any master, but in this case it’s central to understanding Shay’s body of work. This is a man who has twice photographed his own cardiac surgery; a man who sweettalked his way past Secret Service agents to stalk Nikita Khrushchev through an Iowa cornfield; a man who captured the first image of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s mourners as they filed past the slain civil rights leader’s casket just hours after his death.

He certainly wasn’t the first photojournalist with enough chutzpah to wheedle, bribe and charm his way into the back rooms and hallways just as history was about to unfold, but he brought a writer’s eye for narrative to every assignment.

It is the story within the story in his photographs that sets Shay apart. His uncanny knack for illuminating and, in some cases, creating, visual wordplay, has been both lauded and excoriated by critics, but it is the dark humor and pathos of everyday life that his lens exposes.

Born in 1922 in the Bronx to Jewish immigrants from Russia, Shay’s love affair with the camera began at age 12 when he used his father’s folding, “guess-focus” Kodak to shoot neighbors and their babies. “A photograph I would easily put up against any of my later work is one I took on the subway when I was 17,” he says. “A black man had fallen asleep below an ad for Aunt Jemima. The way he was slumped there, her spoonful of hot cereal was poised to drop right into his open mouth.” Shay missed six station stops before he got the exposure he needed. Sadly, the negatives were among many that his mother accidentally threw out while he was in the war.

Shay flew 52 missions in World War II, 30 of them as the lead navigator in Jimmy Stewart’s 445th bomb squadron. “The night the war ended we were flying over Trondheim. After nine years of blackout, the city’s lights suddenly came on…it was like a huge flower opening

up,” he says. “The Germans had nightfighters and there was a twin-engined German plane not 300 yards away. We weren’t sure if they were up for their last joy ride or if they didn’t know the war was over. I was on the radio in Yiddish, shouting, ‘The war is over! Kaput! Kaput!’ Finally, the Germans pulled back.”

Not surprisingly, Shay always imagined he would become a writer. In fact, he was a staff reporter at Life magazine for three years, logging in more than a hundred stories sans byline before becoming a full-time photographer. “I wasn’t exactly studious,” he admits, “but I read everything. I loved books and the theater.” To date, he has had two of his plays produced. “If I had a second life, I would give it to the theater…it’s hard to beat the opening night of a play you’ve written.”

everywhere and even snaps a few frames during our interview.

He’s been documenting the life of a suburban mall for many years and is also working on a book of his color photography, organizing his archives with the help of an archivist and finishing up another play. “This one’s a comedy about dying,” he explains with a smile.

“It’s somewhat autobiographical… two people in their 80s, facing the end…looking at death with humor.” He writes almost daily and his “faux” screenplay on the sordid history of Chicago politics and its most recent power-hungry character, Blagojevich, can be found online at swans.com where he is a regular contributor.

Like actors who are constantly barraged by requests from strangers to help get their kid into films, Shay has had more than his share of photographs pushed into his hands by eager amateurs.

I was on the radio in Yiddish, shouting, ‘The war is over! Kaput! Kaput!’

His close friendship with Nelson Algren led to many creative collaborations and solo projects, including two books that document the writer’s favorite haunts, seedy West-side Chicago, and the real-life characters who inhabited it. The pair would spend the day walking the streets, Shay snapping away with his Leica or a camera hidden inside his coat, Algren a silent witness in each frame.

Today, Shay is busier than ever.

He still carries a camera with him

He remembers one aspiring artist who brought him a stack of photos taken in Chinatown.

“Not a single one had a Chinese person in the frame,” Shay says with a “what-can-you-do” shrug of his shoulders. He advised the young man to go back and try again. “Do you know how long it would take me to get the kind of shot you’re talking about?” the kid complained and Shay knew he’d never see him again. “Yes, of course I do,” Shay told him. “I know exactly how long.”

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