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| Source: en.wikipedia.org |
Diane Arbus (1923-1971), born on this day in 1923, is probably one of America's best-known photographers and one of its more controversial. Her images, that seem to reflect our deepest fears and most private wishes, are unforgettable: a “Jewish giant” looming over his bespectacled parents, an elderly couple sitting naked in a nudist-camp cabin, or a grimacing boy clutching a toy hand grenade.
But her achievements as an artist have been somewhat overshadowed by her death, by her own hand, at the age of 48 in 1971. Many think there is a disturbing strangeness that wells up out of her pictures and she has been regarded as something of a freak. The truth is, she remains an enigma, and scholars are looking into her letters and private papers to bring her sharply into focus. An example is an article in The Telegraph from a few years ago that collected her views on work, her subjects and life. I am including only the last part here, with extracts from two of her letters, alongside some of her most famous photographs.
On life
I suppose freedom is a bit eerie. It’s what I want but something in me tries to pretend I can’t. And there is so much work to working that there are moments, moments, where I stop and look around and it seems too arduous to go on. It isn’t of course. But that is why people have jobs and pay checks... it helps keep you from unanswerable questions.
(Letter to her friend Carlotta Marshall, circa November 1969)
I used to think consciousness itself was a virtue, so I tried to keep it all in my head at the same time; past, future etc. Tried even to feel the bad when I felt good and vice versa as if any unawareness was a Marie-Antoinette sort of sin. It’s like throwing ballast overboard to only do what there is to do NOW. A kind of confidence that later will bring its own now… It makes Sunday more Sunday and even Monday is better…
(Letter to ex husband [M*A*S*H actor] Allan Arbus, 1971)
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| Child With a Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park (Source: victorianvisualculture.com) |
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| Eddie Carmel and parents (Source: wikimedia.org) |
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| Child crying (Source: www.artnet.com) |
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