Diane Arbus (1923-1971)was one of the most famous and active photographers of her time, with work spanning from the 1950s up until her death in 1971. Arbus shot in black and white film, and took pictures of people who were considered social outcasts, such as transgender people, circus performers, and nudists.
Arbus is widely know for her influence on Sally Mann’s photography, among other artists, and her younger daughter, Amy is an accomplished photographer like her mother. A year after her death, she was the first artist to be featured in the Venice Biennale.
While critics often tried to focus on her suicide, her images projected a sense of surrealism like no other that still hold true today. A 2004 Smithsonian Magazine describes her work as the following:
“Today Arbus, who once said her pictures sought to capture “the space between who someone is and who they think they are,” has become one of America’s best-known photographers and one of its most controversial. But her achievements as an artist have been somewhat overshadowed by her suicide and by the disturbing strangeness that wells up out of her pictures. Famous as a “photographer of freaks,” she has been regarded as something of a freak herself.”
20 of Arbus’ photographs are permanently on display today at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
To me, she remains one of the great and adventurous heroines of photography, lightyears beyond her time. A feminist in action.
See the article here written by Holland Cotter about the newly unearthed collection of images never seen before!