 |
Diane Arbus Biography |
focusdep.com |
 |
||
| ~back to authors profile on focusdep~ | |||||
|
Diane Arbus (born Diane Nemerov) (March 14, 1923 – July 26, 1971) was an United States photographer, noted for her portraits of people on the fringes of society. (Her first name is pronounced "Dee-ann.")
Arbus was born in New York City into a wealthy Jewish family, in which she was overshadowed by her older brother, the poet Howard Nemerov. She attended The Fieldston School. She fell in love with future-actor Allan Arbus at age 14, and married him soon after turning 18, despite her parents' objections. When Allan started training as a photographer for the United States Army, he taught Diane his lessons. As a husband-wife team, the Arbuses became successful in the fashion world, with Allan as photographer and Diane as stylist. As Diane began to take her own photographs, she took formal lessons with Lisette Model at The New School in New York. Together the Arbuses had two daughters, photographer Amy Arbus and writer and art director Doon Arbus, but, by 1959, they had separated. Photography career After separating from her husband, Arbus studied with Alexey Brodovitch and Richard Avedon. Beginning in 1960, Arbus worked extensively as a Photojournalism, her photos appearing in Esquire (magazine), The New York Times Magazine, Harper's Bazaar and The Sunday Times (UK) magazines, among others. Arbus' early work was created using 35mm cameras, but by the 1960s Arbus adopted the Rolleiflex Medium format (film) twin-lens reflex camera. This format provided a square Aspect ratio (image), higher image resolution, and a waist-level viewfinder that allowed Arbus to connect with her subjects in ways that a standard eye-level viewfinder did not. Arbus also experimented with the use of flashes in daylight, allowing her to highlight and separate her subjects from the background. In 1963, Arbus received a Guggenheim Fellowship grant, allowing her to focus on her art. Arbus received a second Guggenheim grant in 1966. The Museum of Modern Art, in 1967, staged Arbus' first museum show as the New Documents show which included the work of Garry Winogrand and Lee Friedlander. Arbus also taught photography at the Parsons School of Design in New York and Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. In July 1971, Arbus ended her own life in Greenwich Village, at the age of 48 by ingesting a large quantity of barbiturates and then cutting open her wrists. Rumors held that she photographed her suicide, but no photos were discovered by the police. Aperture (magazine) was crucial in reviving Arbus' artistic reputation. MoMA curator John Szarkowski prepared to stage a retrospective in 1972, but the accompanying Diane Arbus catalogue proposal was turned down by all major publishing houses. Aperture's Michael E. Hoffman accepted the challenge, producing one of the most influential photography books. The Aperture monograph has since been reprinted 12 times, selling more than 100,000 copies. The MoMA retrospective traveled throughout North America attracting more than 7 million viewers. Also in 1972, Arbus became the first American photographer to be represented at the Venice Biennale. Arbus' photograph, Identical Twins is seventh on the list of the list of most expensive photographs having sold in 2004 for $478,400. Arbus is remembered today for her photographs depicting outsiders, such as Cross-dressings, dwarfism, gigantism, prostitutes, and ordinary citizens in poses and settings conveying a disturbing uncanniness. Some critics claim that Arbus' voyeurism approach demeaned her subjects. In 2005 Germaine Greer made this claim on BBC Culture Show, based around a major London retrospective of Arbus's works. Admirers of Arbus's work (such as Todd Solondz) were also interviewed by the BBC and passionately defended her work. Famous photographs Arbus quotes "Most people go through life dreading they'll have a Psychological traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats." "A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know." "What I'm trying to describe is that it's impossible to get out of your skin into somebody else's.... That somebody else's tragedy is not the same as your own." "I never have taken a picture I've intended. They're always better or worse." "My favourite thing is to go where I have never gone." In Popular Culture 
Courtesy of: http://www.wikipedia.org/ |
|||||
|
|
Random Biographies |
focusdep.com |
|
|
|
||||
