Chicago-based novelist and writer.

Nelson Algren (originally Nelson Ahlgren Abraham) was born in 1909 in Detroit, MI. His family moved to Chicago when he was three years old. He grew up in the city and went on to study journalism at the University of Illinois. He published his first story, “So Help Me,” in 1933 to enthusiastic critical reception. This first two novels, Somebody in Boots (1935) and Never Come Morning (1942), soon followed. His literary career was interrupted by World War II, during which Algren served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps.

Upon his return to Chicago, Algren rose to the height of his popularity with The Neon Wilderness (1947), which was honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and The Man with the Golden Arm (1949). The latter received the inaugural National Book Award for fiction. He followed these successes with A Walk on the Wild Side (1956), and in 1951 he published the long prose poem Chicago, City on the Make. Limited by anti-communist sentiment and literary censorship, Algren turned away from novel writing in the mid-1950s. While he continued composing short stories and works of nonfiction, his writing career dipped into relative obscurity. Some of his later writings include a collection of travel essays titled Who Lost an American? (1963) and Notes from a Sea Diary: Hemingway All the Way (1965).

In 1974, Algren moved to the East Coast, spending time in Paterson, NJ before settling in Sag Harbor on Long Island. Before his death, his writings garnered a second wave of attention, and he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1981. He died of a heart attack three months later. The Devil’s Stocking, Algren’s final novel, was published posthumously in 1983.

Chicago-based documentary and commercial photographer.

Stephen Deutch was born in 1908 in Pest, Hungary. He immigrated to Chicago in 1936 and worked as a commercial photographer from 1936 to 1983. He worked for Coronet magazine, and also Ebony and Jet, all based in Chicago. He befriended Nelson Algren in 1960, when he was on assignment to photograph him. Deutch also produced sculptures and artistic photographs, and had one-man gallery shows at the Chicago Public Library, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Chicago Cultural Center.

Deutch also photographed daily life in Chicago, and according to friend Studs Terkel, he "captures the whole scene... He sees it, feels it, and snaps it." Deutch died in 1997 at the age of 88.