Diane Arbus was born Diane Nemerov 1923 to a well-off family in New York City, where her father David Nemerov worked as the merchandising director of Russek’s, the Fifth Avenue department founded by his father-in-law. Despite Arbus’ complex relationship with her privileged childhood and what she later described as her ‘humiliating’ family fortune (pg. 124), her family encouraged her artistic studies in her childhood and adolescence, and despite little formal training in photography, Arbus found herself studying beside the likes of Berenice Abbott and Alexey Brodovitch.
In 1941, at the age of 18, Diane married one of her father’s employees, Allan Arbus, and his photoshoot of Diane on a vacation led to her father employing the couple as fashion photographers for the advertising division of Russek’s. The couple would continue their partnership as commercial photographers for the next fifteen years, and although they would continue to produce their own work individually, Diane would not start numbering her negatives and corresponding contact sheets until their partnership came to an end in 1956.
Arbus’ first major solo project came in the form of a photographic essay on New York for Esquire magazine in 1959. Arbus photographed New Yorkers from all walks of life, discovering and exploring many different subcultures within the city, from Opera-goers and bodybuilders, to debutantes and circus performers. This project laid the foundation of Arbus’ career, one which was dedicated to capturing and recording the lives of those existing on the margins of society.
“I work from awkwardness. By that I mean I don’t like to arrange things. If I stand in front of something, instead of arranging it, I arrange myself.” – Diane Arbus
Dedicated to an truthful portrayal of her subject, Arbus often formed long-relationships with the people and communities she photographed. Her unique methods set her apart from other documentary photographers of the period, because “her pictures depend on the subject’s active participation… She would talk with them, visiting their homes or return to photograph them after many years.” (Sandra Phillips, Diane Arbus: Revelations, New York, 2003, p. 50)
Arbus’ interest in couples took shape in 1964-65, when she undertook two commercial projects for Harper’s Bazaar. The first, “Affinities”, were portraits of famous creative partners, such as dancers Erik Bruhn and Rudolf Nureyev, while the second, “On Marriage”, captured notable married couples.
Outside of her commercial projects, Arbus recalls spending the large part of the summer capturing the characters and the complex social hierarchies within the community of Washington Square Park.
Young couple on a bench in Washington Square Park, N.Y.C., 1965 is consistent with others from the series both in subject matter and style. At some point in 1965, Arbus began printing her images with thick irregular borders that would become a staple of her work for the remainder of her career.
Diane Arbus’s body of work continues to have a profound impact on the artistic and photographic communities, and her legacy has continued long after her death in 1971. John Szarkowski’s initial retrospective of her work at The Museum of Modern Art in 1972, as well as the ensuing retrospectives at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Jeu de Paume, Paris have established her work as an essential part of the photographic cannon.
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