Highland Park experienced record flooding in 2006, ruining 3000 of Florence’s books and impelling her to move. She characteristically accepted her loss, saying, “The only reason they were in the basement was I couldn’t sell them upstairs.” This gung ho spirit colored her entire personality.
Maker
Shay, Arthur
American, 1922-2018
Date2006; printed 2014
MediumInkjet print
Dimensionspaper: 20 in x 16 in
Credit LineGift of the artist
Object number2014:264
About the ArtistOne of Chicago’s most prolific photographers, Art Shay published more than 30,000 photographs during his career, which spanned more than half a century and covered such subjects as John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential campaign, the fights of Muhammad Ali, Hugh Hefner’s infamous bedroom office, the last man alive to have seen Abraham Lincoln’s corpse, Chicago police clubbing demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, and a swan snubbing a pig as they swim. Some of his favorite photographs, however, are those of Chicago writer Nelson Algren, author of The Man with the Golden Arm and winner of the first National Book Award. Shay and Algren met in 1949 when Shay pitched a story on “the prose poet of the Chicago slums” to his editors at Life magazine. The two men became close friends and spent time roaming near the West Side, encountering addicts, hookers, alcoholics, bums, cops, and hustlers, among many other street characters. The gritty photo essay was never published, but photographs from the series are currently held in many private and public collections. Both passionate about and critical of Chicago, Shay wrote a novel, Never Come Morning, depicting the seedy underbelly of crime and poverty in the city, which was banned by the Chicago Public Library System. After Algren’s death in 1981, Shay published Nelson Algren’s Chicago, a collection of his photographs from the men’s years together as well as accompanying texts. Art Shay worked first as a reporter and then as a photographer for numerous publications including Life, Fortune, The New York Times, and Sports Illustrated. His photograph of Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev on an Iowa farm won Life Magazine’s “Picture of the Year” in 1959. Shay also published several books on photography and sports, including Nelson Algren’s Chicago (1988), Album for an Age (2000), and Animals (2002). His play, Where Have You Gone, Jimmy Stewart was produced by Chicago’s American Theater Company (ATC) in 2002.
![The head of Florence’s Antiquarian Bookseller’s Association was her old friend, the renowned Lincoln scholar, Dan Weinberg. Four weeks before Florence died, Weinberg called to gingerly ask if Florence was well enough to be filmed for their organization’s archive. “Of course,” Florence said, and cheerily had her beloved care-giver Kalina Borissova dress her, put on her make-up and help her into my car for her last trip to Titles, Inc. [...]](/internal/media/dispatcher/4587/thumbnail)
![Florence was rock star Billy Corgan’s guide to published poetry. He bought many poetry books from her and was often lost in deep, probably creative, thought, hanging around Titles’ poetry shelves. Then, gradually availing himself of Florence’s renowned good advice gene, Billy began to regard her as his substitute Jewish mother. Here Florence surprised Billy with a birthday cake at one of our Sunday bagel and lox breakfasts. [...]](/internal/media/dispatcher/4576/thumbnail)
