Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus American photographer of Russian descent, born Diane Nemerov in New York City on March 14 1923, died (suicide) July 1971.

Biography

Arbus came from a wealthy family, in which she was overshadowed by her older brother. At age fourteen she fell in love with Allen Arbus, and as soon as she became 18 she married him despite objections from her parents. A few years later Allen started to work as a photographer for the US Army, at night teaching Diane what he learned by day. The couple had two children before they separated in 1959. She became a Guggenheim fellow in the sixties and taught photography at colleges in New York and Amherst, MA, before ending her own life in 1971.

Photography

Arbus favoured the TLR medium format cameras that gave square pictures. After working as a fashion photographer she devoted her later years to photographing freaks, outcasts and "ordinary citizens" in poses and settings that convey a disturbing sense that something is seriously wrong. Her voyeuristic approach does not, however, demean her subjects as it might easily have done. In most of her portraits the subjects are on their own turf, seemingly comfortable; instead, it is the viewer who is made to feel uncomfortable by the subject's acceptance of their "freakishness".

Arbus' most famous picture is Identical Twins (1967), a picture of young twin sisters standing side by side in corduroy dresses. One is slightly smiling and the other is slightly frowning.

Another well-known photograph by Arbus, entitled Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, New York City (1962) depicts a scrawny little boy in a jumper with the left strap awkwardly hanging off his shoulder. His long, thin, arms are held tensly by his side, with a toy grenade in his right hand and his left hand in a claw-like gesture. His face could be described as maniacal. Arbus captured this expression by having the boy stand there while she kept moving around him, claiming she tried to find the right angle. After a while, the boy became impatient with her and told her to "take the picture already!", creating the expression that seems to convey that the boy has violence in mind, gripping the grenade tightly in his hand.

Quotes

• "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."