"When you grow up your mother says, 'Wear rubbers or you'll catch cold.' When you become an adult you discover that you have the right not to wear rubbers and to see if you catch cold or not. It's something like that." -- Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus (, March 14, 1923 – July 26, 1971) was an American photographer and writer noted for black-and-white square photographs of "deviant and marginal people (dwarfs, giants, transvestites, nudists, circus performers) or else of people whose normality seems ugly or surreal." A friend said that Arbus said that she was "afraid... that she would be known simply as 'the photographer of freaks'"; however, that term has been used repeatedly to describe her.

In 1972, a year after she committed suicide, Arbus became the first American photographer to have photographs displayed at the Venice Biennale. Millions of people viewed traveling exhibitions of her work in 1972-1979. In 2003-2006, Arbus and her work were the subjects of another major traveling exhibition, Diane Arbus Revelations. In 2006, the motion picture Fur, starring Nicole Kidman as Arbus, presented a fictional version of her life story.

Although some of Arbus's photographs have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars at auction, Arbus's work has provoked controversy; for example, Norman Mailer was quoted in 1971 as saying "Giving a camera to Diane Arbus is like putting a live grenade in the hands of a child."

Quotes more less

Personal Life more less

Photographic Career more less

Death more less

Notable Photographs more less

Arbus's most well-known individual photographs include:

Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C. 1962 ... Colin Wood, with the left strap of his jumper awkwardly hanging off his shoulder, tensely holds his long, thin arms by his side. Clenching a toy grenade in his right hand and holding his left hand in a claw-like gesture, his facial expression is maniacal. A print of this photograph was sold in 2005 at auction for $408,000.
Teenage Couple on Hudson Street, N.Y.C., 1963 ... Wearing long coats and "worldlywise expressions," two adolescents appear older than their ages.
Triplets in Their Bedroom, N.J. 1963 ... Three girls, similar but different, sit at the head of a bed.
A Young Brooklyn Family Going for a Sunday Outing, N.Y.C. 1966 ... The mother holds a baby and the father holds a small boy's hand as the boy has a "wild" facial expression.
A Young Man in Curlers at Home on West 20th Street, N.Y.C. 1966 ... A close-up shows the man's pock-marked face with plucked eyebrows, and his hand with long fingernails holds a cigarette. Early reactions to the photograph were strong; for example, someone spit on it in 1967 at the Museum of Modern Art. A print was sold for $198,400 at a 2004 auction.
Boy With a Straw Hat Waiting to March in a Pro-War Parade, N.Y.C. 1967 ... With an American flag at his side, he wears a bow tie, a pin in the shape of a bow tie with an American flag motif, and two round button badges: "Bomb Hanoi" and "God Bless America / Support Our Boys in Viet Nam." The image may cause the viewer to feel both different from the boy and sympathetic toward him. An art consulting firm purchased a print for $228,000 at a 2005 auction.
Identical Twins, Roselle, N.J. 1967 ... Young twin sisters Cathleen and Colleen Wade stand side by side in dark dresses. The twin on the right slightly smiles and twin on the left slightly frowns. This photograph is echoed in Stanley Kubrick's film The Shining, which features twins in an identical pose as ghosts. A print was sold at auction for $478,400 in 2004.
A Family on Their Lawn One Sunday in Westchester, N.Y. 1968 ... A woman and a man sunbathe while a boy bends over a small plastic wading pool behind them. A print was sold at auction in 2008 for $553,000.
A Naked Man Being a Woman, N.Y.C. 1968 ... The subject has been described as in a "Venus-on-the-half-shell pose" or as "a Madonna turned in contrapposto... with his penis hidden between his legs". The parted curtain behind the man adds to the theatrical quality of the photograph.
A Very Young Baby, N.Y.C. 1968 ... A photograph for Harper's Bazaar depicts Gloria Vanderbilt's then-infant son, future CNN anchorman Anderson Cooper.
A Jewish Giant at Home with His Parents in The Bronx, N.Y. 1970 ... Eddie Carmel, the "Jewish Giant", stands in his family's apartment with his much shorter mother and father. Arbus reportedly said to a friend about this picture: "You know how every mother has nightmares when she's pregnant that her baby will be born a monster?... I think I got that in the mother's face...." The photograph motivated Carmel's cousin to narrate a 1999 audio documentary about him. A print was sold at auction for $421,000 in 2007.

In addition, Arbus's Box of Ten Photographs was a portfolio of selected 1963-1970 photographs in a clear Plexiglas box/frame that was designed by Marvin Israel and that was to have been issued in a limited edition of 50. During her lifetime, however, Arbus completed only about 11 boxes and sold only 4 boxes (2 to Richard Avedon, 1 to Jasper Johns, and 1 to Bea Feitler). One copy printed by Neil Selkirk after Arbus's death sold for $553,600 in 2005, which was an auction record for Arbus.

Notable Magazine Articles more less

Legacy more less

After Arbus's death, her daughter Doon managed Arbus's estate. She forbade examination of Arbus's correspondence and often denied permission for exhibition or reproduction of Arbus's photographs. The editors of an academic journal published a two-page complaint in 1993 about the estate's control over Arbus's images and its attempt to censor part of an article about Arbus. As of 2000, the estate would not release Arbus's 1957-1965 images of transvestites. A 2005 article called the estate's allowing the British press to reproduce only 15 photographs an attempt to "control criticism and debate." The estate was also criticized in 2008 for minimizing Arbus's early commercial work.

In mid-1972 Arbus was the first American photographer to have photographs displayed at the Venice Biennale; her 10 photographs were described as "the overwhelming sensation of the American Pavilion" and "an extraordinary achievement".

The Museum of Modern Art held a retrospective of Arbus's work in late 1972 that subsequently traveled around the United States and Canada through 1975; it was estimated that over 7 million people saw the exhibition. A different retrospective traveled around the world in 1973-1979.

Doon Arbus and Marvin Israel edited and designed a 1972 book Diane Arbus (or Diane Arbus: an Aperture Monograph) accompanying the Museum of Modern Art's exhibition. It contained 80 of Arbus's photographs, as well as texts from classes that Arbus gave in 1971, from Arbus's writings, and from Arbus's interviews. The text in the book includes some of Arbus's most widely-cited quotations such as:

Page 1: "My favorite thing is to go where I've never been."
Pages 1—2: "Our whole guise is like giving a sign to the world to think of us in a certain way but there's a point between what you want people to know about you and what you can't help people knowing about you. And that has to do with what I've always called the gap between intention and effect."
Page 3: "Freaks was a thing I photographed a lot. ... Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats."
Page 15: "I do feel I have some slight corner on something about the quality of things. I mean it's very subtle and a little embarrassing to me, but I really believe there are things which nobody would see unless I photographed them."

In 2001-2004 the 1972 book was selected as one of the most important photobooks in history. Over 300,000 copies of the book had been sold by 2004, which is unusual since "independent" photobooks are normally produced in editions of less than 5,000.

A half-hour documentary film about Arbus's life and work known as Masters of Photography: Diane Arbus or Going Where I've Never Been: the Photography of Diane Arbus was produced in 1972 and released on video in 1989.

Patricia Bosworth wrote an unauthorized biography of Arbus that was published in 1984. Although it is said to be "the main source" for understanding Arbus, Bosworth reportedly "received no help from Arbus's daughters, or from their father, or from two of her closest and most prescient friends, Avedon and... Marvin Israel." The book was also criticized for insufficiently considering Arbus's personal writings, for speculating about missing information, and for focusing on "sex, depression and famous people" instead of Arbus's art.

In 2003-2006, Arbus and her work were the subject of a another major traveling exhibition, Diane Arbus Revelations, that was organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Accompanied by a book of the same name, the exhibition included artifacts such as correspondence, books, and cameras as well as 180 photographs by Arbus. Because Arbus's estate approved the exhibition and book, the chronology in the book is "effectively the first authorized biography of the photographer".

In 2006, the fictional film an Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus was released, starring Nicole Kidman as Arbus; it used Patricia Bosworth's book Diane Arbus: A Biography as a source of inspiration. The Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased 20 of Arbus's photographs (valued at millions of dollars) and received Arbus's archives as a gift from her estate in 2007.

Reactions of Critics and Others more less

Susan Sontag wrote an essay in 1973 entitled "Freak Show" that was critical of Arbus's work; it was reprinted in her 1977 book On Photography as "America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly." Among other criticisms, Sontag opposed the lack of beauty in Arbus's work and its failure to make the viewer feel compassionate about Arbus's subjects. Sontag's essay itself has been criticized as "an exercise in aesthetic insensibility" and "exemplary for its shallowness". A 2008 essay characterized Sontag and Arbus as "Siamese twins of photographic art" because they both struggled with photography as art versus documentation (e.g., the relationship of photographer and subject). A 2009 article pointed out that Arbus had photographed Sontag and her son in 1965, thereby causing one to "wonder if Sontag felt this was an unfair portrait."

Other critics' opinions of Arbus's photographs vary widely, for example:

Max Kozloff wrote in 1967 that Arbus's photographs have "an extraordinary ethical conviction" because they were taken with the subjects' consent and thereby challenge the viewer.
Robert Hughes praised Arbus in 1972 as having "altered our experience of the face."
Hilton Kramer opined in 1972 that Arbus "altered the terms of the art she practiced" and "completely wins us over."
Judith Goldman in 1974 was of the opinion that Arbus's photographs betrayed their subjects by portraying them as full of despair.
David Pagel in 1992 found Arbus's pictures of women with intellectual disability "remarkable" and "intriguing."
Jed Perl felt that Arbus was "master of the highfalutin creep-out" and that her photographs were "an emotional tease" in a 2003 critique.
Barbara O'Brien in a 2004 review of the exhibition "Diane Arbus: Family Albums" found her and August Sander's work "filled with life and energy."
Peter Schjeldahl, while claiming in 2005 that "no other photographer has been more controversial," also felt that her work was "revolutionary."
Brian Sewell dismissed Arbus's work in 2005 as unremarkable and as having gained prominence partly because of her suicide, but as "worth a second glance."
Ken Johnson, reviewing a show of Arbus's lesser-known works in 2005, likened Arbus's story-telling ability to that of writer Flannery O'Connor.
Leo Rubinfien in 2005 compared Arbus to Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett in exploring absurdity and fatalism.
Stephanie Zacharek wrote in 2006 "...when I look at her pictures, I see not a gift for capturing whatever life is there, but a desire to confirm her own suspicions about humanity's dullness, stupidity and ugliness."
Wayne Koestenbaum asked in 2007 whether Arbus's photographs humiliate the subjects or the viewers.

Arbus's subjects and their relatives also have differing views:

The father of the twins pictured in "Identical Twins, Roselle, N.J. 1967" felt that the photograph "was the worst likeness" of the girls he had ever seen.
Anderson Cooper considers Arbus's photograph of him as an infant "great."
Writer Germaine Greer, who was the subject of an Arbus photograph in 1971, criticized it as an "undeniably bad picture" and Arbus's work in general as unoriginal and focusing on "mere human imperfection and self-delusion."
A taxi driver in New York who was the subject of the photograph "Boy With a Straw Hat..." reportedly said to Arbus about the photograph, without knowing her identity, "Picture of me! What a thrill! Wish I knew who the photographer was. Like to thank him."

One study published in 1985 examined the opinions of 18 women viewing 8 Arbus photographs. The subjects tended to agree with statements based on Arbus's own words such as "These photographs show the gap between intention and effect" and tended to disagree with statements based on critics' views of Arbus such as "These photographs show the world only as a meaningless place of ugliness, horror and misery."

Notable Solo Exhibitions more less

1972 Diane Arbus Portfolio: 10 Photos. Venice Biennale.
1972-1975 Diane Arbus (125 photographs, curated by John Szarkowski). Museum of Modern Art, New York; Baltimore; Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Detroit Institute of Arts; Witte Memorial Museum, San Antonio, Texas; New Orleans Museum of Art; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, California; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston); Florida Center for the Arts, University of South Florida, Tampa; and Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign.
1973-79 Diane Arbus: Retrospective (118 photographs, curated by Doon Arbus and Marvin Israel). Seibu Museum, Tokyo; Hayward Gallery, London; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, England; Scottish Arts Council, Edinburgh, Scotland; Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands; Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; Lenbachhaus Städtische Galerie, Munich, Germany; Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal, Germany; Frankfurter Kunstverein; 14 galleries and museums in Australia; and 7 galleries and museums in New Zealand.
1984-1987 Diane Arbus: Magazine Work 1960-1971. Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis; University of Kentucky Art Museum, Lexington; University Art Museum, California State University, Long Beach; Neuberger Museum, State University of New York at Purchase; Wellesley College Museum, Massachusetts; and Philadelphia Museum of Art.
1986 Seattle Art Museum.
1991 Diane Arbus. Ydessa Hendeles Art Foundation, Toronto.
2003-2006 Diane Arbus: Revelations. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Fondacion La Caixa, Barcelona; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
2004-2005 Diane Arbus: Family Albums. Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, South Hadley, Massachusetts; Grey Art Gallery, New York; Portland Museum of Art, Maine; Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas; and Portland Art Museum, Oregon.
2008-2009 Diane Arbus, a Printed Retrospective, 1960-1971. Kadist Art Foundation, Paris; and Centre Régional de la Photographie Nord Pas-de-Calais, Douchy-les-Mines, France.
2009-2010 Artist Rooms: Diane Arbus. National Museum Cardiff, Wales; and Dean Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Further Reading more less

Books

Arbus, Diane. Diane Arbus. Millerton, NY: Aperture, 1972. ISBN 0912334401. (Reprinted by Aperture in 1997 as "25th anniversary edition," ISBN 0893816949.)
Arbus, Diane, Thomas W. Southall, Doon Arbus, and Marvin Israel. Diane Arbus Magazine Work. Millerton, NY: Aperture, 1984. ISBN 0893812331. (Reprinted by Bloomsbury in 1992, ISBN 0747513090.)
Bosworth, Patricia. Diane Arbus: a Biography. New York: Knopf, 1984. ISBN 0394504046. (Reprinted by Heinemann in 1985, ISBN 0434081507. Reprinted by W.W. Norton in 1995, ISBN 0393312070. Reprinted by W.W. Norton in 2005 with a new afterword, ISBN 0393326616. Reprinted by Vintage in 2005 with a new foreword, ISBN 0099470365.)
Roegiers, Patrick. Diane Arbus, ou, le Rêve du Naufrage. Paris: Chêne, 1985. ISBN 2851083740.
Arbus, Diane, Doon Arbus, and Yolanda Cuomo. Diane Arbus: Untitled. New York: Aperture, 1995. ISBN 089381623X.
Lee, Anthony W., and John Pultz. Diane Arbus: Family Albums. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003. ISBN 0300101465.
Diane Arbus: Revelations. New York: Random House, 2003. ISBN 0375506209.
Arbus, Doon, and Diane Arbus. Diane Arbus: the Libraries. San Francisco: Fraenkel Gallery, 2004. ISBN 1881337197.
Tellgren, Anna. Arbus, Model, Strömholm. Göttingen, Germany: Steidl, 2005. ISBN 3865211437.
Gibson, Gregory. Hubert's Freaks: the Rare-Book Dealer, the Times Square Talker, and the Lost Photos of Diane Arbus. Orlando: Harcourt, 2008. ISBN 9780151012336.

Book chapters

Sicherman, Barbara, and Carol Hurd Green. Notable American Women: the Modern Period: a Biographical Dictionary. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1980. ISBN 0674627334.
Rose, Phyllis, editor. Writing of Women: Essays in a Renaissance. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1985. ISBN 0819551317.
Lord, Catherine. "What Becomes a Legend Most: the Short, Sad Career of Diane Arbus." In: The Contest of Meaning: Critical Histories of Photography edited by Richard Bolton. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989. ISBN 0262022885.
Bunnell, Peter C. Degrees of Guidance: Essays on Twentieth-Century American Photography. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. ISBN 0521327512.
Shloss, Carol. "Off the (W)rack : Fashion and Pain in the Work of Diane Arbus." In: On Fashion edited by Shari Benstock and Suzanne Ferriss. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994. ISBN 0813520320.
Ashby, Ruth, and Deborah Gore Ohrn. Herstory: Women who Changed the World. New York: Viking, 1995. ISBN 0670854344.
Felder, Deborah G. The 100 Most Influential Women of All Time: a Ranking Past and Present. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing Group, 1996. ISBN 0806517263.
"Diane Arbus and the Demon Lover." In: Kavaler-Adler, Susan. The Creative Mystique: from Red Shoes Frenzy to Love and Creativity. New York: Routledge, 1996. Pages 167-172. ISBN 0415914124.
Gaze, Delia, editor. Dictionary of Women Artists. London and Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997. ISBN 1884964214.
Stepan, Peter. Icons of Photography: the 20th Century. New York: Prestel, 1999. ISBN 3791320017.
Coleman, A.D. "Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, and Garry Winogrand at Century's End." In: The Social Scene: the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation Photography Collection at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, edited by Max Kozloff. Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2000. ISBN 0914357743.
Naef, Weston J. Photographers of Genius at the Getty. Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2004. ISBN 0892367482.
Bunnell, Peter C. Inside the Photograph: Writings on Twentieth-Century Photography. New York: Aperture Foundation, 2006. ISBN 1597110213.
Davies, David. "Susan Sontag, Diane Arbus and the Ethical Dimensions of Photography." In: Art and Ethical Criticism edited by Garry Hagberg. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. ISBN 9781405134835.

Journal articles

Kozloff, Max. "The Uncanny Portrait: Sander, Arbus, Samaras." Artforum, volume 11, number 10, pages 58—66, June 1973.
Jeffrey, Ian. "Diane Arbus and the American Grotesque." Photographic Journal, volume 114, number 5, pages 224—29, May 1974.
Rice, Shelley. "Essential Differences: A Comparison of the Portraits of Lisette Model and Diane Arbus." Artforum, volume 18, number 9, pages 66—71, May 1980.
Bedient, Calvin. "The Hostile Camera: Diane Arbus." Art in America, volume 73, number 1, pages 11—12, January 1985.
Hulick, Diana Emery. "Diane Arbus’s Women and Transvestites: Separate Selves." History of Photography, volume 16, number 1, pages 34—39, Spring 1992.
Warburton, Nigel. "Diane Arbus and Erving Goffman: the Presentation of Self." History of Photography, volume 16, number 4, pages 401—404, Winter 1992.
Jeffrey, Ian. "Diane Arbus and the Past: when She Was Good." History of Photography, volume 19, number 2, pages 95—99, Summer 1995.
Hulick, Diana Emery. "Diane Arbus's Expressive Methods." History of Photography, volume 19, number 2, pages 107-116, Summer 1995.
McPherson, Heather. "Diane Arbus’s Grotesque ‘Human Comedy.’" History of Photography, volume 19, number 2, pages 117—120, Summer 1995.
Alexander, M. Darsie. "Diane Arbus: a Theatre of Ambiguity." History of Photography, volume 19, number 2, pages 120-123, Summer 1995.
Budick, Ariella. "Diane Arbus: Gender and Politics." History of Photography, volume 19, number 2, pages 123-126, Summer 1995.
Budick, Ariella. "Factory Seconds: Diane Arbus and the Imperfections in Mass Culture." Art Criticism, volume 12, number 2, pages 50—70, 1997.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Diane Arbus", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0

Total Books: 10

Chronological List
Alphabetical List
Available Only List

2011 - Diane Arbus Untitled (Hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9781597111904
ISBN-10: 1597111902
Genre: Arts & Photography

2005 - Diane Arbus an Aperture Monograph (Hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9780912334400
ISBN-10: 0912334401
Genre: Arts & Photography

2003 - Diane Arbus Revelations (Hardcover) → Hardcover
ISBN-13: 9780375506208
ISBN-10: 0375506209
Genres: Arts & Photography, Biographies & Memoirs

Diane Arbus Revelations (Hardcover) → Hardcover
ISBN-13: 9780224071833
ISBN-10: 0224071831
Genre: Arts & Photography

Untitled (Hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9780500541982
ISBN-10: 0500541981
Genre: Arts & Photography

Diane Arbus Magazine Work (Paperback)
ISBN-13: 9780747513094
ISBN-10: 0747513090
Genre: Arts & Photography

Currently 4.5/5 Stars.

Revelations (Paperback)
ISBN-13: 9780812972207
ISBN-10: 0812972201
Genre: Arts & Photography

Magazine Work (Hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9780893811525
ISBN-10: 0893811521
Genre: Arts & Photography

Diane Arbus (Paperback) → Paperback
ISBN-13: 9780900406843
ISBN-10: 0900406844

Diane Arbus (Paperback) → Paperback
ISBN-13: 9788476640418
ISBN-10: 8476640412

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