Thinking about D-Day for the previous post led me to the work of one of America’s most prolific photojournalists, Art Shay, who at the time was the navigator on a B-24 bomber named ‘Sweet Sue’ and whose “Whitmanesque poem to my beautiful new bride” about his experiences got published in the Sunday Washington Post.
Shay, born in 1922 and still active at 91, has been described as “Chicago’s premier photojournalist” and his record of around 1,100 magazine covers is certainly impressive (and it’s around 1,099 more than me.) His work is deeply embedded in aspects of American culture, particularly of the 1950s, and there are some aspects of it that rather pass me by in the short video about him on PetaPixel, though anyone who gets the testimonial there from Studs Terkel certainly deserves and gets my respect.
Shay’s work appears on the Chicagoist blog in a regular ‘From The Vault Of Art Shay‘ feature each Wednesday, and there is also a blog devoted to him and his work, as well as an artist’s page at the Stephen Daiter Gallery. You can also read about him in Wikipedia.