ARBUS, Diane

(b. 14 March 1923 in New York City; d. 26 July 1971 in New York City), photographer known for her spare and often startling portraiture who came into her own as an artist during the 1960s.

Born Diane Nemerov, Arbus was the daughter of David Irwin Nemerov and Gertrude "Buddy" Russek. She was raised in privilege in New York City, where her family owned and operated a well-known furrier and department-store chain. Her siblings included an older brother, Howard, who became a lauded poet, and a younger sister, Reneé, who become a noted sculptor.

Both parents were distant to their children, and a nanny tended both Arbus and her siblings during their childhood. Arbus was shy, and closest to her brother. She was educated at the Ethical Culture and Fieldston schools, where she developed an interest in art, first sketching, then studying oil painting and collage. She was also a voracious reader, as she would be her entire life. Her favorite books included Alice in Wonderland, gothic novels such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, as well as mythological tales.

She met Allan Franklin Arbus while they both worked at her family's store, and they reportedly instantly fell in love. Despite her parents' interventions and objections, they married on 10 April 1941, shortly after Arbus reached her eighteenth birthday. They eventually had two daughters, Doon and Amy. With the advent of World War II, Allan Arbus enlisted in the Signal Corps and was assigned to photography school. He shared what he was learning with his wife, before being shipped to Burma in 1944.

After Allan returned to the United States in the late 1940s, the couple decided to start a fashion photography studio. Although they shared duties, Diane was stylist for the sessions. The studio eventually expanded into advertising photography, with clients such as Maxwell House Coffee and General Electric.

Although successful, Arbus wished to further explore photography as art. She was given her independence to pursue art photography in about 1957, since Allan wanted to study acting. The Arbus's studio continued operations, and they agreed to remain partners. Her most influential teacher was Lisette Model, a photographer who challenged and encouraged her to explore so-called "freaks" as subjects for her portraits. Among her other mentors were Marvin Israel, Richard Avedon, and Walker Evans.

During the 1960s, the world of art experienced a movement away from fixed tradition. Certainly none of Arbus's subject matter could be considered conventional. She plunged headlong into exploring the seamy side of life, and acknowledged her direct photographs of street people, dwarves, and transvestites as trophies or documents of her adventures. Arbus is often quoted as having said, "A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know." From 1962 through 1967, she photographed nudes at naturist camps throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania in hopes of publishing a book, but it was never released. Late in her career, she photographed residents in a home for the developmentally disabled. This book was released after her death.

The years between 1962 and 1964 are acknowledged to have been Arbus's most productive. She was awarded Guggenheim fellowships in 1963 and 1966 and continued to receive assignments from magazines such as Esquire, New York, Nova, and the Sunday Times (London) Magazine. It was on these assignments that Arbus photographed leaders of the decade, including F. Lee Bailey, Coretta Scott King, and Abbie Hoffman. With these more conventional subjects, she was said to have behaved "like the first paparazzi." The writer Norman Mailer once said "giving a camera to Diane Arbus is like putting a live grenade in the hands of a child." Throughout her adult life, Arbus had problems with depression. This was exacerbated by ongoing problems with hepatitis, which began in 1966. Also during this period Arbus was asked to participate in the Museum of Modern Art "New Documents" show, for which three of her photos were selected in 1965. Concerned about the photographs initially selected, she balked at inclusion in the exhibit. Ultimately the museum agreed to display more recent work with which she was satisfied. The 1967 exhibit included thirty pieces, and was recognized as the high point in her career.

In 1969 the Diane and Allan Arbus Studios closed, and the couple, although separated for years, formally divorced. Allan remarried and moved to California, where he continued to pursue an acting career. (His most popular role was that of Dr. Sidney Freedman in the television program M*A*S*H. )

Arbus taught and lectured at schools throughout the 1960s, including Cooper Union and Rhode Island School of Design. Her final residence was an artists' community known as Westbeth, where she had moved in January 1970. She committed suicide in her own apartment.

Arbus's photographs never failed to get a reaction. One reviewer likened the conflicting sensations to those experienced when passing an accident: the curious person is both compelled to look and revulsed at the same time. Her subject matter was often viewed as perverse because the subjects in her most confrontational photographs were people on society's fringes, but Arbus seemed to relish confrontation with anything approaching conformity or societal normalcy. Because she sought to capture people at their most intimate or revealing moments, Arbus was alternately praised for investing her subjects with dignity, and reviled for exploiting them. In retrospect, she has been hailed for her ability to capture psychologically telling images.

Arbus was productive in her short career. Much of her work was not shown or released until after her death, perhaps in large part because she rarely seemed sufficiently satisfied with her work, but also because her contribution to modern photography was not sufficiently appreciated until then. Her work was shown posthumously at various museums throughout the world. One of the first such retrospectives was mounted by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the exhibit eventually toured throughout the United States. Arbus was also the first American photographer to be selected for the Venice Biennale exhibit. Works by Arbus are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, and the George Eastman House, Rochester, New York.

Biographical sources on Arbus include Patricia Bosworth, Diane Arbus: A Biography (1984). For autobiographical material see Diane Arbus, Diane Arbus (1972); and Diane Arbus, Magazine Work, Doon Arbus and Marvin Israel, eds. (1984); and Diane Arbus, Untitled, edited and designed by Doon Arbus and Yolanda Cuomo (1995). An article on Arbus is Hal Hinson, "Arbus in Wonderland," The Atlantic Monthly 254 (Nov. 1984): 129–130.

Linda Dailey Paulson