Diane Arbus by Allan Arbus
Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Diane Arbus, one of the most popular art photographers in history.
Her 1972 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art is to this day the most popular such exhibition ever at that museum. Her monograph is one of the medium's all-time best sellers. Since it appeared in 1972 it has never been out of print.
(The picture above was taken in 1949 as a film test by her husband Allan Arbus, who later played the part of Dr. Sidney Freedman on the 1970s television show "M*A*S*H.")
There are many books about her, including biographies by Patricia Bosworth (1984) and Arthur Lubow (2016).
Diane Arbus (by the way, the name is pronounced "dee-ANN") died by suicide on July 26, 1971, at the age of 48.
Mike
(Thanks to Anton Wilhelm Stolzing)
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Featured Comments from:
Kenneth Tanaka: "Diane Arbus's work leaves few on the fence; you're either strangely attracted to it or you find it repulsive and exploitative. And that, plus a rich and brief personal history, is precisely what's helped to keep her work in the public eye for so long. Arbus's 1972 retrospective show at MoMA was indeed extremely popular. (Although I think that Steichen's 'Family of Man' might have been the most popular show, at least worldwide, with over 9 million visitors. [Diane's was the most popular single-artist retrospective.—Ed.]) But many of those who I know attended recall it as more of an attraction to the bizarre rather than to the art, per se. Last fall (2022) David Zwirner and Jeffrey Fraenkel, two of the most influential art/photo dealers in the world and representatives of Arbus's works, staged a re-creation of Arbus's 1972 MoMA retrospective. Quite a rare recreation of a photo show."
Diane Arbus, one of our greatest artist.
Posted by: Omer | Wednesday, 15 March 2023 at 10:07 AM
I wonder if I'm the only person that saw the so-called biopic on Arbus, called "Fur"?
Back in the Blockbuster days I saw it on the shelf and gave it a try. They addressed her mental problems with a visual thing that took me out of the story... a little too "art-y".
I knew her work, knew about her actor husband, but that visual trope (inspiring the title) was unnecessary.
Posted by: Albert Smith | Wednesday, 15 March 2023 at 10:45 AM
I think you could perform a pretty solid test of philosophical, æsthetic & artistic preferences simply by asking which photographers you admire, whose work you enjoy, or whose work is nails-on-a-chalkboard for you. Diane Arbus falls solidly into the nails-on-a-chalkboard bucket for me, and not in a good way.
1) Diane Arbus? Gary Winogrand? Ralph Eugene Meatyard? Robert Frank?
2) W. Eugene Smith? Danny Lyon?
3) Edward Weston? Minor White? Ansel Adams? John Sexton?
4) Don McCullin? James Nachtwey?
5) Michael Kenna? Pentti Sammallahti?
6) Helmut Newton? Richard Avedon?
Folks can pick their own yardsticks. I just noticed that mine is very heavy on dead white guys. I really need to work on that. But it strikes me as a quick and dirty way to get a handle on people's taste.
Posted by: Geoff Wittig | Wednesday, 15 March 2023 at 12:29 PM
Goeff, Why do you "have to work on that"?
The images speak. You choose them no matter who the photographer is.
Posted by: Daniel | Thursday, 16 March 2023 at 08:00 AM
I’m reading the Bosworth biography right now. I cannot say whether it’s good so far, but I am enjoying it.
Posted by: Pierre Saget | Thursday, 16 March 2023 at 09:05 AM
Why do we always, well almost aways, celebrate the death of someone and not their birth?
Posted by: John Krill | Thursday, 16 March 2023 at 09:16 PM