DIANE ARBUS
Pictures | Info
Click on one of the photos below for the full version
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The photos are (left to right):
Their Numbers Were Drawn Out of A Hat | Sword Swallower | Boy with Toy Grenades | Jewish Giant With His Parents in the Bronx
Diane Arbus was known for her distinctive talent in photography. - She started off as a photographer in the fashion industry but her own work looked much deeper into human nature.
- The subject matter of her photographs are exclusively people in their natural environment. Most of it is taken around New York where she grew up.
- She enjoyed photographing people who were quite obvious different or unique in some way, such as in "Mexican Midget Relaxing in his Hotel Room in New York" (if anyone can email me this pic i would really appreciate it), and many other photos she took of transvestites and people with disabilities.
- She also took photos of old people, children and families, like in "Young Brooklyn Family".
- Another recurring theme in her work were nudes, but not the Neo-classical kind. More like those at nudist camps, the old and saggy in their living rooms and their trailers.
- All of her photos were taken with a slight atmosphere of candid naïvétè, yet she managed to make it look like the perfect, balanced shot. Her choice of subject matter is to expose true human nature, when it is isn't masked by lighting, costumes or sets. Her photos did not look comfortable but at the same time nothing is out of place.
- Sadly, Diane Arbus did not feel her work was as good as people said it was. After being ill with hepatitis for a long time and being fatigued from her work, she took her own life in 1971 at the age of 48, by taking a large amount of drugs and then slitting her wrists.
- Strangely enough, just before she did so, she was helping another artist friend complete his sculpture of a person lying on a bed with wrists slashed. It seems that the people around her did not realise the depth of her depression.
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