[Robert Tompkins: Full-Length Mugshot from the Chicago Police Department]

Unknown

1944 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

The Chicago Police Department likely made these discarded file photographs when arrested suspects entered the precinct for booking. Each is accompanied by a typewritten caption recording the subjects’ names, vital statistics, and, in some cases, the crimes for which they were arrested (carrying concealed weapons, assault and robbery at gunpoint). With their subjects lined up theatrically against a dark velvet curtain, the images vividly evoke an era and milieu familiar to fans of film noir and hard-boiled detective fiction of the 1930s and 1940s.

Artist

Unknown

Date

1944

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Twentieth-Century Photography Fund, 2014