Lot Essay
One of Weegee's most notorious images, Their First Murder combines all the elements that make his work so intriguing - it shows anguish, surprise, confusion, spur of the moment human reaction. One cannot look at this image without questioning the circumstances. This image appeared in PM magazine on October 9, 1941, the day after Weegee captured this scene. Weegee was a special contributing photographer to the magazine that was started in 1940, and worked for them for nearly four and a half years, during which time the magazine reproduced several of his more significant pictures. The caption the magazine ran with the image is as follows: "Pupils were leaving P.S. 143, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, at 3:15 yesterday when Peter Mancuso, 22, described by police as a small-time gambler, pulled up in a 1931 Ford at a traffic light a block from the school. Up to the car stepped a waiting gunman, who fired twice and escaped through the throng of children. Mancuso, shot through the head and heart, struggled to the running board and collapsed dead on the pavement. The older woman is Mancuso's aunt, who lives in the neighborhood, and the boy, tugging at the hair of the girl in front of him, is her son, hurrying her away." (PM, October 9, 1941, c.f. Weegee's World, p. 258).
A print of this image was included in the exhibition "Art in Progress", at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1944. Vintage prints of this image are considered rare.
A print of this image was included in the exhibition "Art in Progress", at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1944. Vintage prints of this image are considered rare.