Art Shay
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Art Shay is an American photographer and writer. Born in 1922, he grew up in the Bronx and then served as a navigator in the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II, during which he flew 29 bomber missions [1]. Shay joined the staff of Life magazine, and quickly became a Chicago-based freelance photographer for Life, Time, Sports Illustrated, and other national publications. His photographs of Chicago street life gained him recognition in the magazine world. Today, his photographs are featured in art galleries, museum collections, and in the pages of books, magazines and annual reports.
Shay has published more than 75 books on various subjects. His long friendship with the writer Nelson Algren led to the publication of Shay's Nelson Algren's Chicago. Shay and Algren met in 1949 and collaborated on many projects, including photos and an essay for Holiday Magazine that Algren later turned into his book "Chicago, City on the Make." Shay's autobiography is titled Album for an Age: Unconventional Words and Pictures from the 20th Century (ISBN 978-1-56663-327-7).
In 2002, the American Theater Company in Chicago staged Shay's autobiographical play, "Where Have You Gone, Jimmy Stewart?", directed by Mike Nussbaum.[2]
