Art Shay

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Art Shay
Bronx, New York, U.S.
DiedApril 28, 2018(2018-04-28) (aged 96)
Deerfield, Illinois, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Notable workNelson Algren's Chicago, Couples, Animals

Art Shay (March 31, 1922 – April 28, 2018) was an American photographer and writer.

Biography

Born in 1922, Shay grew up in

The Art Institute of Chicago.[3]
Shay's 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 took well-known pictures of Simone de Beauvoir (nude and portrait) when she visited Chicago to be with Algren.[4][5] Shay wrote a play about Algren's triangle relationship with de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, which had a stage reading in Chicago in 1999. Another collection of Shay's work with Nelson Algren is featured in Shay's 2007 Book Chicago's Nelson Algren published by Seven Stories Press. The 2014 documentary by Montrose Pictures, Algren -The Movie,[6] featured over 100 new Algren images from Shay's collection.[7]

Shay published more than 75 books on various subjects. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he wrote two series of photography illustrated children's books published by Reilly & Lee. Shay's What It's Like to Be A ... series of books explained various occupations including a doctor, fireman, pilot, policeman, nurse, teacher, dentist, musician, and a TV producer. Shay's What Happens ... series of books explained concepts such as what happens when you build a house, spend money, turn on a light, and turn on the gas. Other books in Shay's "What Happens ..." series included what happens at the zoo, at a gas station, at a newspaper, at an animal hospital, at the circus, in a skyscraper, at the state fair, and at a weather station. In 2002, The University of Illinois Press published Shay's photographic essays, Animals and, in 2003, Couples.

Shay's comedy titled A Clock for Nikita was produced and ran at the Stagelight Theater in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, from April 7 to May 3, 1964. His 2000 autobiography is titled Album for an Age: Unconventional Words and Pictures from the 20th Century. In 2002, the American Theater Company in Chicago staged Shay's autobiographical play, Where Have You Gone, Jimmy Stewart?, directed by Mike Nussbaum.[8]

In 2007, Shay had his first major retrospective of his black and white photographs which ran for six months at the

Algren of Chicago's "underclass."[10]

In 2010, Chicago's Thomas Master's Gallery featured Shay's first show of exclusively his color photography "Art Shay: True Colors."[11][12] In 2012, Shay was inducted into the National Racquetball Hall of Fame.[13]

Since the opening in 1976 of

Chicagoist.[14]

On February 2, 2015, Seven Stories Press published Shay's final book, My Florence, a picture book chronicling his late wife Florence's life in 20th-century Chicago.[15]

Shay died in April 2018, at the age of 96, in Deerfield, Illinois, from heart failure.[16]

Bibliography

  • My Florence (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2015).

References

  1. ^ "One-On-One: Art Shay". Archived from the original on 2006-08-13.
  2. ^ National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
  3. ^ "Search Collection Results: "Art Shay"". The Art Institute of Chicago.
  4. ^ "Simone de Beauvoir nue par Art Shay | le Journal de la Photographie". Archived from the original on 2012-10-18. Retrieved 2012-10-15.
  5. ^ "Simone de Beauvoir in Chicago by Art Shay presented by Stephen Daiter Gallery". Archived from the original on 2011-09-12. Retrieved 2011-03-24.
  6. ^ "About Algren". Retrieved 1 December 2016.
  7. ^ Montrose Pictures/Nelson Algren Documentary - Nelson Algren
  8. ^ "Season 18". American Theater Company. Archived from the original on 2 December 2016. Retrieved 1 December 2016.
  9. ^ "Ask Art". Chicago History Museum. Archived from the original on 2015-09-30. Retrieved 2015-09-29.
  10. ^ Art Shay: Chicago Accent | Exhibitions | MCA Chicago Archived September 27, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ "Photojournalist Art Shay". WTTW. Chicago Tonight.
  12. ^ "Art Review — Art Shay's True Colors by Jeffery McNary — neotericart". neotericart.com. Archived from the original on 26 May 2011. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
  13. ^ USA Racquetball Hall of Fame Archived March 12, 2014, at archive.today- 2012 Inductees
  14. ^ From the Vault of Art Shay: Chicagoist
  15. ^ "My Florence: A 70-Year Love Story". Seven Stories Press.
  16. ^ Playboy illustrator Art Paul, 93, and photographer Art Shay, 96, have died — both giants of 20th century Chicago

External links

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