documentary traditions, came to be described as
the snapshot aesthetic. These pictures of the so-
called ‘‘social landscape’’ were often captured
quickly using portable 35-mm cameras, often on
the street. They appeared to be casually composed
(if at all), incorporating movement and happen-
stance. Critics and historians of photography such
as Nathan Lyons and John Szarkowski attempted
to describe this fresh development that brought
greater, self-conscious creativity to the objective
and socially conscious picture.
A formative exhibition that introduced the
notion of social landscape photography wasNew
Documents: Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, Garry
Winogrand(1967), organized by Szarkowski at the
Museum of Modern Art in New York. Head of the
museum’s photography department from 1962 to
1991, Szarkowski’s wide-ranging and ground-
breaking exhibitions helped place photography
within the company of painting and sculpture in
the art museum and beyond.New Documentsher-
alded a nascent age in a photography that empha-
sized the pathos and conflicts of modern life
presented without editorializing or sentimentaliz-
ing but with a critical, observant eye. Szarkowski
saw in these three artists a shift in the documentary
approach, traced through Walker Evans, which
incorporated deeply personal ends. He wrote in
the Museum’s wall panel, ‘‘Their aim has been
not to reform life, but to know it. Their work
betrays a sympathy—almost an affection—for the
imperfections and frailties of society (Szarkowski
quoted inDiane Arbus Revelations2003, 51).
Arbus’s affinity for imperfection and frailty is
today legendary, making her role in this sea-change
historically relevant. Yet her oeuvre is also distinct
and virtually unique in her generation for its
emphasis on portraiture in its classical sense.
Unlike the loose and cropped compositions of her
peers, who often captured fleeting images and
moments, Arbus’s photographs relied upon an
established relationship of some sort between the
sitter and the photographer. In other words,
Arbus’s process intimately involved the subject,
who was usually posed, and always remained cog-
nizant of the photographer’s presence. While the
pictures may appear candid, they were more often
than not painstakingly composed with an emphasis
on visual narrative and description. Her talents lie
in her uncanny ability to communicate something
distinct, private, and mutable about her subjects’
personalities, fantasies, or experiences, what she
called ‘‘the gap between intention and effect’’
(Arbus 1972, 1–2). Drawn to the power of myth
and self-invention, Arbus’s titles reflected this
interest in telling a story about her subjects:A
family on their lawn one Sunday in Westchester, N.
Y.(1968),Man at a parade on Fifth Avenue, N.Y.C.
(1969),A Jewish giant at home with his parents in
the Bronx, N.Y.(1970), andChild with a toy hand
grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C.(1962). This nar-
rative approach is related to the context in which
the images were first seen—primarily in the pages
of popular magazines where they appeared as
photo essays.
Diane Nemerov Arbus’s photographic career
began as a commercial one in which she partnered
with her husband Allan Arbus. The couple ran a
successful commercial studio in New York City,
and their work appeared regularly inGlamourand
other magazines. Diane generally devised the con-
cepts and designed and styled the shots, while Allan
worked behind the camera; she learned from him
how to develop film and print negatives in the
makeshift darkroom that was the couple’s bath-
room. She simultaneously took her own pictures,
using a 35-mm Nikon to photograph people, often
those characters she met on the street. The Arbuses
worked together from about 1941 to 1956 when
Diane quit the business to pursue her own photo-
graphy fulltime; she pursued editorial assignments
in order to pay for more creative, personal work.
In 1959 she earned her first commissioned photo
essay, ostensibly about the vagaries of urban life in
New York City forEsquiremagazine. TitledThe
Vertical Journey: Six Movements of a Moment
Within the Heart of the City, the portfolio included
portraits as disparate as a side-show performer
known as The Jungle Creep, who appeared in
Hubert’s Museum of eccentrics in Times Square
to an honorary regent in the Washington Heights
chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolu-
tion. She went on to publish more than 250 pictures
in Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, the Sunday Times
Magazineof London, and elsewhere. Other photo
essays includedThe Auguries of Innocence(Har-
per’s Bazaar, December 1963),The Soothsayers—
What’s New: The Witch Predicts(Glamour, Janu-
ary and October 1964), and People Who Think
They Look like Other People (Nova, October
1969). Arbus generally wrote extensive text cap-
tions for the essays’ images. She approached her
personal work in much the same manner.
Although Arbus’s most famous subjects were
outsiders such as transvestites, strippers, carnival
performers, nudists, dwarves, and other assorted
‘‘freaks,’’ she was equally drawn to the prosaic in
subjects as ordinary as children, mothers, couples,
old people, and the like. She photographed her
subjects in familiar settings: their homes, on theARBUS, DIANE