Diane Arbus
-Diane Arbus
Diane Arbus was born Diane Nemerov on March 14, 1923. Her parents were the owners of Russeks Fifth Avenue department store. She came from a family of creatives. Her brother, Howard Nemerov, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, and her sister, Renée Sparkia, was an artist. After retiring from Russek’s, her father, David Nemerov, launched a second, successful career as a painter.
Her family was wealthy, but Arbus rejected that life and married young to leave that lifestyle that she considered “humiliating.” She married Allan Arbus in 1941 when she was 18, and they were a successful fashion photography team, and they contributed to Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. She also modeled. They had two children together, Doon and Amy, and they divorced in 1959.
Arbus also had a relationship with the art director and painter Marvin Israel. The affair continued until her death. Israel also stayed married during the entirety of the affair.
During the height of her fame, in 1971, she committed suicide while living at Westbeth Artists Community in New York City. She ingested barbiturates and cut her wrists with a razor. She may have always struggled with depression, or it may be that when she contracted hepatitis and became ill, she fell into a depression.
She wore her camera everywhere. It was her shield.
-Patricia Bosworth, an acquaintance and the author of Diane Arbus
Diane Arbus is best known for her stark, documentary style of photography. She shot almost exclusively in square format. Many of her subjects are in sharp focus, with their gaze looking directly into the camera. “I began to get terribly hyped on clarity,” she said of her portraits that she took with a Rolliflex 2 1/4 format camera, which allowed her to create sharper images with brilliant detail.
She photographed people who are considered social deviates. She called them her “freaks,” and though that is a term that most would consider offensive, she used it as a term of endearment.
Her photographs show many different types of people, but they are captured in a way that we can see parts of ourselves in her subjects. In photos like “Boy with Toy Grenade,” she captures fear and anxiety. Although she didn’t document candid moments, her models aren’t captured at their best. They aren’t smiling or showing the best possible version of themselves. In “Young Man at Home in Curlers,” it’s obvious that the model knows he is being photographed, but he we get a glimpse behind the senses as if we are part of his life.
To find her subjects, she visited seedy hotels, parks, morgues and other interesting locations. She photographed asylum inmates, midgets, nudists, drug-addicts and transvestites.
Arbus looked for a crazy beauty in some of the darkest places
-F.D. Walker, Shooter Files author
Her portraits seem to ask questions about identity. One of her most famous photos is "Identical Twins," and although they are identical, the individual personalities are apparent. Her photographs are intimate because she established a strong personal relationship with her subjects. Once she got permission to photograph a subject, she would spend days shooting them over and over again.
The impact of a picture such as "A Naked Man Being a Woman, N.Y.C." (1968) depends in part on our amazement that Arbus won the confidence of a transvestite and made her way into what must have been physically and psychologically very solitary space.
-Kenneth Baker, San Francisco Chronicle
Her last photographs are an untitled series taken at residences for people who were developmentally disabled. These photos and the ones of her “freaks” differ completely. While the transvestites and circus people have a strong sense of self, the people in these photographs didn't stand out in society at the time. They were tucked away in a home where they were unseen by the general public. In essence, their identity was lost. To further punctuate their hidden identity, she took many of these photographs when she visited on Halloween when all the residents were wearing masks.
Arbus’ work has been exhibited at museums and galleries worldwide and is still on display today. Currently, her photographs are in exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Galerie Thomas Zander in Germany, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, and many more. Her work continues to influence photographers today and is recreated in other mediums as well. However, the importance of her work goes beyond being art. Historically, her photographs have great importance. She documented places and people in society during her time that may have been otherwise overlooked. The body of work that Arbus created has a significance that cannot be overlooked.
I really believe there are things which nobody would see
unless I photographed them.
-Diane Arbus
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| Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, 1967 |
Works Cited
Baker, Kenneth. “Diane Arbus' Artistry, One Year at a Time.” SFGATE, San Francisco Chronicle, 30 Nov. 2013, https://www.sfgate.com/art/article/Diane-Arbus-artistry-one-year-at-a-time-5022616.php#photo-5522831.
Diane Arbus | 265 Exhibitions and Events | Mutualart. https://www.mutualart.com/Artist/Diane-Arbus/B1453736A89A7265/Exhibitions.
“Diane Arbus.” Artnet.com, http://www.artnet.com/artists/diane-arbus/4.
International Photography and Hall of Fame and Museum. “Diane Arbus.” International Photography Hall of Fame, 13 Aug. 2018, https://iphf.org/inductees/diane-arbus/.
Johnston, Mike. “Ten Iconic Photographs: No. 8.” The Online Photographer, https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2019/06/ten-iconic-photographs-no-8.html.
Lewis, Jo Ann. “Diane Arbus' Disturbing World.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 15 Aug. 1984, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1984/08/15/diane-arbus-disturbing-world/1ab05aca-82bf-43b8-ada1-7b3dbc57df23/.
Magazine, Smithsonian. “A Fresh Look at Diane Arbus.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 1 May 2004, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/a-fresh-look-at-diane-arbus-99861134/.
Sutton, Benjamin. “The Evolution of Diane Arbus in 35mm.” Hyperallergic, 18 Apr. 2017, https://hyperallergic.com/373109/the-evolution-of-diane-arbus-in-35mm/.
Walker, F.d. “Master Profiles: Diane Arbus.” Shooter Files by F.d. Walker, 3 Feb. 2016, http://shooterfiles.com/2015/05/master-profiles-diane-arbus/.
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