Chicago's Nelson Algren

Art Shay was born in the Bronx, New York on March 31, 1922. He joined the Army Air Forces in 1943 and became a lead navigator during World War II under the command of the actor Jimmy Stewart. Shay flew more than 30 bomber missions and survived a deadly air battle in September 1944 in Kassel, Germany. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Croix de Guerre. In June 1944, he photographed a midair collision between two B-24 planes and sold the images to Look for $100.

In 1947, he became a writer for Life magazine. He wrote more than 100 articles over the next four years before becoming a freelance photographer in 1951. His photographs have appeared in Life, Time, Look, Sports Illustrated and Fortune magazines. In 2017, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Lucie Foundation.

He wrote more than 60 books including Album for an Age: Unconventional Words and Pictures from the Twentieth Century, My Florence: A 70-Year Love Story, and nonfiction children's books written under the name Arthur Shay. He wrote five plays including A Clock for Nikita and Where Have You Gone, Jimmy Stewart? He died of heart failure on April 28, 2018 at the age of 96.

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