DIANE ARBUS

Early Years

Diane Arbus was born in New York City in 1923 into a wealthy family who owned a department store. She married photographer Allan Arbus when she was only 18, working with him on fashion editorial in Vogue, Glamour and Seventeen magazines. While Allan wanted to be an actor (he went on to play Sidney Freedman in _M_A_S*H_), Diane wanted to learn about photography and New York City’s art scene. She studied photography at the New School for Social Research under Berenice Abbott, and then with Lisette Model. In 1967, Arbus’ work was featured in the groundbreaking_ New Documents exhibition at MoMA. A couple of years later, wanting to move from commercial photography to the art world, she started making a portfolio, A Box of Ten Photographs_—a huge breakthrough came when ArtForum published_ Boy with a straw hat wating to march in a pro-war parade_ (1967) on its cover (the first photo to appear on the cover of the art publication) and other images from that portfolio in its May 1971 issue. However, in July 1971, Arbus died by suicide.

Diane Arbus: Artworks

“A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know,” Diane Arbus wrote in ArtForum in 1971. Through her photographic practice, she forged personal, honest connections with her subjects, giving her portraits a rare authenticity. In 1962, she began using medium-format cameras which she held at her waist, looking down into the viewfinder so she had a direct line of sight to her subjects. Often, the people in her images—pedestrians, families, drag performers, naturists, children, couples—stared directly at the camera. Arbus did not crop her images—instead she printed the entire negative, therefore not making any editorial judgement about her subject matter.

• Jack Dracula was a tattooist and circus performer, whom Arbus shot for a story in Harper’s Bazaar about people with unusual lifestyles. Jack Dracula at a bar, New London, Connecticut (1961) shows the heavily tattooed Dracula sitting at a table, a drink and an ashtray in front of him.
• In Two boys smoking in Central Park, NYC (1963), Arbus encounters two young men, possibly in their early teens, standing in the trees smoking. The lads look straight at her, and she perfectly captures the combination of their boyish faces with their apparent desire to look “cool”.
• Perhaps Arbus’ best-known image is Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey (1966), two young girls in identical black dresses with large white collars and cuffs, staring straight into the camera. It’s a great example of how Arbus was able to blend the ordinary with an uneasy undercurrent.

Diane Arbus: Select Exhibitions

Select Solo Exhibitions

• Constellation, Park Avenue Armory, New York City (2026)
• Diane Arbus: A Box of Ten Photographs, City Gallery Wellington (2023)
• Cataclysm: The 1972 Diane Arbus Retrospective Revisited, David Zwirner, New York City (2022)
• Diane Arbus: In the Park, Lévy Gorvy, New York City (2017)
• Diane Arbus: American Portraits, National Gallery of Australia (2016) (and touring)
• Diane Arbus: Affinities, Timothy Taylor Gallery, London (2012)
• Artist Rooms: Diane Arbus, National Museum, Cardiff (2009) (and touring)
• Something Was There: Early Work by Diane Arbus, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco (2007)
• Diane Arbus: Revelations, SFMOMA, San Francisco (2003) (and touring)
• Diane Arbus, Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels (2000)
• The Movies: Photographs from 1956 to 1958, Robert Miller Gallery, New York City (1995)
• Diane Arbus, Hiram Butler Gallery, Houston (1988)
• Diane Arbus: Vintage Unpublished Photographs, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco (1980)
• Diane Arbus: Retrospective, Seibu Museum, Tokyo (1973) (and touring)
• Diane Arbus: Photographs, Lunn Gallery, Washington DC (1973)
• Diane Arbus Portfolio: 10 Photos, Venice Biennale (1972)
• Diane Arbus, MoMA, New York City (1972) (and touring)

Select Group Exhibitions

• _Women Photographers 1900_1975: A Legacy of Light_, National Gallery of Victoria (2026)
• The 1970s Lens: Reimagining Documentary Photography, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC (2025)
• Chronorama: Photographic Treasures of the 20th Century, Palazzo Grassi—Pinault Collection, Venice (2023)
• What Will the Neighbours Say? Photography from the Collection, Groningen Museum (2020)
• Another Way of Telling: Women Photographers from the Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art (2017)
• Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861—2008, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford (2015) (and touring)
• Portraits of America: Diane Arbus|Cady Noland, Gagosian, New York City (2014)
• Disquieting Images, Triennale di Milano (2010)
• Picturing New York: Photographs from the Museum of Modern Art, Las Casa Encendida, Madrid (2009) (and touring)
• New York, NY, Fifty-One Fine Art Photography, Antwerp (2007)
• Pictures from Within, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City (2003)
• Realities, Ydessa Hendeles Art Foundation, Toronto (1998)
• Gesture and Nuance: The Photographic Portrait, Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco (1993)
• The Art of Photography 1839—1989, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (1989) (and touring)
• Floods of Light, The Photographers’ Gallery, London (1983)
• Mirrors and Windows: American Photography since 1960, MoMA, New York City (1978) (and touring)
• Venice Biennale (1972)
• New Documents, MoMA, New York City (with Lee Friedlander and Garry Winogrand) (1967)

Further Reading

• Artist profile page at Fraenkel Gallery
• Artist profile page at MoMA
• Artist profile page at David Zwirner
• Review of Arbus’ 2025 Park Avenue Armory exhibition in The New York Times
• Video by Neil Selkirk (2018)
• Article in AnOther magazine (2025)

Diane Arbus FAQs

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