As you may have noticed, like most Life Magazine photo journalists I often used my family as models. Starting with their mom, they were all beautiful. One of my good clients was the national Blue Cross association. I did perhaps a dozen health booklets and several ads for them. For one of my illustrations of ambulance care- I used Florence who cheerfully, if uncomfortably, registered pain in a seemingly speeding ambulance (moving several feet in my driveway!)
Maker
Shay, Arthur
American, 1922-2018
Daten.d.; printed 2014
MediumInkjet print
Dimensionspaper: 20 in x 16 in
Credit LineGift of the artist
Object number2014:270
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.
![Florence often accompanied me when I was photographing at Northbrook Court Mall. She would scoot from shop to shop while waiting for us to have dinner, or I fussed with my hidden camera. One evening, I saw my beloved wife and model doing what she had steadfastly refused to do all her life, trying on a wig. Years later, here is Florence in her nursing home-surprising me for our Passover dinner [...]](/internal/media/dispatcher/4582/thumbnail)
![A month before she died I took her to Glenwood Hospital in Glenview for her conference with yet another team of oncologists. Florence understood the futility of the visit in which a picture of her ovarian cancer, having spread to her cerebellum, was clearly visible. [...]](/internal/media/dispatcher/4585/thumbnail)
Shay, Arthur
2012; printed 2014
![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)
![Florence hid her pain from us, but she liked her oncologist Dr. Adi Gidron and described the precise location of all her pains to him. He called her “the best patient I ever had,” and became a sad friend to both of us, having exhausted all the medical treatments Florence was capable of surviving. We had a false flash of hope after she began responding positively to chemo therapy, but it didn’t last. She had 4th stage cancer, the very worst. [...]](/internal/media/dispatcher/4580/thumbnail)
![In Florence’s last months, when she could no longer go out to the Botanic Garden for dinner, our dear friends Josh and Signe Murphy and their daughters India and June came over with all the necessary provender and utensils, and cooked complete meals for us three or four times. When Florence died I solved some of the problem of what to do with her clothes by giving a bunch to 15 year old India. India adored Florence - and was thrilled to inherit her favorite skirt and sport jacket. [...]](/internal/media/dispatcher/4591/thumbnail)
Muha, Marie