Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle significant and historical events. It is typically covered in professional photojournalism, or real life reportage, but it may also be an amateur, artistic, or academic pursuit. The photographer attempts to produce truthful, objective, and usually candid photography of a particular subject, most often pictures of people.

History[link]

The term documentary applied to photography antedates the mode or genre itself. Photographs meant to accurately describe otherwise unknown, hidden, forbidden, or difficult-to-access places or circumstances date to the earliest daguerreotype and calotype "surveys" of the ruins of the Near East, Egypt, and the American wilderness areas. Nineteenth century archaeologist John Beasly Greene, for example, traveled to Nubia in the early 1850s to photograph the major ruins of the region;^[1] One early documentation project was the French Missions Heliographiques organized by the official Commission des Monuments historiques to develop an archive of France's rapidly-disappearing architectural and human heritage; the project included such photographic luminaries as Henri Le Secq, Edouard Denis Baldus, and Gustave Le Gray.

In the United States, photographs tracing the progress of the American Civil War by photographers for at least three consortia of photographic publisher-distributors, most notably Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner, resulted in a major archive of photographs ranging from dry records of battle sites to harrowing images of the dead by Timothy O'Sullivan and evocative images by George N. Barnard. A huge body of photography of the vast regions of the Great West was produced by official government photographers for the Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories (a predecessor of the USGS), during the period 1868–1878, including most notably the photographers Timothy O'Sullivan and William Henry Jackson.^[2]

Both the Civil War and USGS photographic works point up an important feature of documentary photography: the production of an archive of historical significance, and the distribution to a wide audience through publication. The US Government published Survey photographs in the annual Reports, as well as portfolios designed to encourage continued funding of scientific surveys.

The development of new reproduction methods for photography provided impetus for the next era of documentary photography, in the late 1880s and 1890s, and reaching into the early decades of the 20th century. This period decisively shifted documentary from antiquarian and landscape subjects to that of the city and its crises.^[3] The refining of photogravure methods, and then the introduction of halftone reproduction around 1890 made low cost mass-reproduction in newspapers, magazines and books possible. The figure most directly associated with the birth of this new form of documentary is the journalist and urban social reformer Jacob Riis. Riis was a New York police-beat reporter who had been converted to urban social reform ideas by his contact with medical and public-health officials, some of whom were amateur photographers. Riis used these acquaintances at first to gather photographs, but eventually took up the camera himself. His books, most notably How the Other Half Lives of 1890 and The Children of the Slums of 1892, used those photographs, but increasingly he also employed visual materials from a wide variety of sources, including police "mug shots" and photojournalistic images.

Riis's documentary photography was passionately devoted to changing the inhumane conditions under which the poor lived in the rapidly-expanding urban-industrial centers. His work succeeded in embedding photography in urban reform movements, notably the Social Gospel and Progressive movements. His most famous successor was the photographer Lewis Wickes Hine, whose systematic surveys of conditions of child-labor in particular, made for the National Child Labor Commission and published in sociological journals like The Survey, are generally credited with strongly influencing the development of child-labor laws in New York and the United States more generally.

In the 1930s, the Great Depression brought a new wave of documentary, both of rural and urban conditions. The Farm Security Administration, a common term for the Historical Division, supervised by Roy Stryker, funded legendary photographic documentarians, including Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, John Vachon, and Marion Post Wolcott among others. This generation of documentary photographers is generally credited for codifying the documentary code of accuracy mixed with impassioned advocacy, with the goal of arousing public commitment to social change.^[4]

During the wartime and postwar eras, documentary photography increasingly became subsumed under the rubric of photojournalism. Swiss-American photographer Robert Frank is generally credited with developing a counterstrain of more personal, evocative, and complex documentary, exemplified by his work in the 1950s, published in the United States in his 1959 book, The Americans. In the early 1960s, his influence on photographers like Garry Winogrand and Lee Friedlander resulted in an important exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), which brought those two photographers together with their colleague Diane Arbus under the title, New Documents. MoMA curator John Szarkowski proposed in that exhibition that a new generation, committed not to social change but to formal and iconographical investigation of the social experience of modernity, had replaced the older forms of social documentary photography.

In the 1970s and 1980s, a spirited attack on traditional documentary was mounted by historians, critics, and photographers. One of the most notable was the photographer-critic Allan Sekula, whose ideas and the accompanying bodies of pictures he produced, influenced a generation of "new new documentary" photographers, whose work was philosophically more rigorous, often more stridently leftist in its politics. Sekula emerged as a champion of these photographers, in critical writing and editorial work. Notable among this generation are the photographers Fred Lonidier, whose 'Health and Safety Game" of 1976 became a model of post-documentary, and Martha Rosler, whose "The Bowery in Two Inadequate Descriptive Systems" of 1974-75 served as a milestone in the critique of classical humanistic documentary as the work of privileged elites imposing their visions and values on the dis-empowered.

Manuel Rivera-Ortiz: Tobacco Harvesting, Valle de Viñales, Cuba 2002

More recently, South African documentary photographer Pieter Hugo engaged in documenting art traditions with a focus on African communities.^[5] Antonin Kratochvil photographed a wide variety of subjects, including Mongolia's street children for the Museum of Natural History.^[6] Manuel Rivera-Ortiz, affected by his own experience of growing up poor in rural Puerto Rico, documented the lives of people in developing countries such as Cuba, or India, showing the dignity of the Dalit ("Untouchable") caste, or the Aymara living in the arid altiplano of Bolivia.^{[7][8][9][10]}

Documentary photography vs. photojournalism[link]

Documentary photography generally relates to longer term projects with a more complex story line, while photojournalism concerns more breaking news stories. The two approaches often overlap.^[11]

Acceptance by the art world[link]

Since the late 1970s, documentary photography has increasingly been accorded a place in art galleries alongside fine art photography. Luc Delahaye, Manuel Rivera-Ortiz and the members of VII Photo Agency are among many who regularly exhibit in galleries and museums.^[12]

Notable documentary photographers[link]

Migrant Mother, a famous photo by Dorothea Lange, taken during the Great Depression.

See also[link]

• Conservation photography
• Social documentary photography

References[link]

General[link]

• "A New History of Photography" Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft/Michel Frizot 1998
• "DOWN THE LINE; LIGHT RAIL'S FIRST DAY; Getting off on the right track"; Star Tribune, June 27, 2004.

Helena Christensen
Christensen at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival
Born	(1968-12-25) December 25, 1968 (age 43) Copenhagen, Denmark
Height	5 ft 10 in (1.78 m) [1]
Hair color	Brunette
Eye color	Blue/Green
Measurements	(US) 35-24-35 ; (EU) 89-61-88[1]
Dress size	(US) 4 ; (EU) 34[1]
Manager	Marilyn Model Agency

Helena Christensen (born December 25, 1968) is a Danish fashion model, (former) Victoria's Secret Angel, beauty queen, and photographer. She has also served as creative director for Nylon magazine, designed clothing, and supported funding for breast cancer organizations and other charities.

Early life[link]

Christensen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her father is Danish, and her mother is Peruvian.^[2][3]

Miss Denmark[link]

Christensen won the Miss Denmark crown in 1986^[4][5] and represented Denmark in Miss Universe 1986.^[6] She left her home soon afterwards to pursue modeling in Paris.^[7]

Modeling career[link]

Christensen appeared on many magazine covers (including Vogue, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, W) and in fashion campaigns (including Revlon, Chanel, Versace, Lanvin, Prada, Sonia Rykiel, Hermes, Valentino, Karl Lagerfeld) during the 1990s. One noted campaign featured her in a 20 by 40 feet (6 by 12 m) billboard in Times Square, bare, "except for a strategically placed banana leaf."^[8] She was in the Victoria's Secret catalog and in their television commercials as one of the signature Angels, along with Tyra Banks, Karen Mulder, Daniela Pestova, and Stephanie Seymour. She also became a spokesmodel for Revlon cosmetics.^{[citation needed]}

In 1991, she starred in the music video for Chris Isaak's song "Wicked Game."^[9] The video was later featured on MTV's "Sexiest Video of All-Time", voted #4 on VH1's "50 Sexiest Video Moments", and voted #13 on VH1's "100 Greatest Videos".

Christensen continues modelling; recently she graced the covers of Spanish Vogue, British Harper’s Bazaar and ELLE, and American Vs. Magazine. She was also featured in the advertising campaigns of Ermanno Screvino, Reebok, Caractere and Triumph. Christensen is signed to Unsigned Management in London, Marylin in Paris, D Management in Milan and 1/One Management in New York City.^[9]

At a 2007 Sustainable/Green Home opening party

Business[link]

Christensen was creative director of Nylon magazine at its 1999 founding by publisher Marvin Scott Jarrett.^{[10][11][12][13]} She launched her own clothing line, Christensen & Sigersen, with life-long friend Leif Sigersen. The pair previously ran Butik, a shop in New York's West Village.^[14][15] Christensen has sold some of her vintage clothes line in her mother's store, the Yo-Yo Second Hand Shop, in Christianshavn, Copenhagen, Denmark.^[16][17] Christensen famously once said, when asked if normal girls would feel comfortable in her new clothing line, "I don't care. I have no clue. I don't think about anyone but me." The quote is printed on the back of Denis Leary's 2008 book, Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid.^[18]

Christensen is a photographer whose work has appeared in Nylon,^[11] Marie Claire, and ELLE.^[9] Her exhibition "A Quiet Story", curated by Jim Cook, premiered in at the Locus Gallery in Rotterdam, 2006,^[19] and HotelArena in Amsterdam, 2007.^[20] Her exhibition "Far From, Close" appeared at Dactyl Foundation in 2008/09, to benefit International Center of Photography educational programs and Chernobyl Children's Project International.^[21][22]

Breast cancer fundraising[link]

Christensen launched the second Fashion Targets Breast Cancer campaign which involves the sale of exclusive designer t-shirts to raise millions for Ireland's Action Breast Cancer (Irish Cancer Society) and Europa Donna Ireland to help younger women with breast cancer.^[23][24]

Personal life[link]

Christensen lived with INXS frontman Michael Hutchence on and off in France and Denmark for a period of five years in the early 1990s.^[25] She was married to actor Norman Reedus for five years, together they have a son named Mingus Lucien Reedus (born October 13, 1999).^[26] Reedus and Christensen split in 2003.^[27][28] While maintaining careers in photography and clothing design, Christensen says of her son, "He's all that matters," she says. "He's my best friend."^[29]

Christensen was heading to actor Heath Ledger's New York apartment on the day that he died, calling Ledger, only to get his voicemail.^[30]

Christensen has an apartment in Copenhagen and lives in Manhattan, where she drives "the only type of car I've ever had", a Morris Minor.^[31][32] She reported in 2007 that she would be giving up her place in Monaco.^[33]

Christensen has claimed on several occasions to be a cheese addict.^[33][34][35]

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Helena Christensen

External links[link]

• Helena Christensen at the Internet Movie Database
• Helena Christensen at the Fashion Model Directory
• Helena Christensen Profile HELLO! Magazine
• Awareness Raising: "What's Your Excuse?" Food Bank For New York City Past Campaigns public service announcement
• Christensen's acceptance speech at the 2008 Can-Do Awards Dinner. Food Bank For New York City.

Mary Ellen Mark (born March 20, 1940) is an American photographer known for her photojournalism, portraiture, and advertising photography. She has had 16 collections of her work published and has been exhibited at galleries and museums worldwide. She has received numerous accolades, including three Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards and three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Biography[link]

Early life and career[link]

Mary Ellen Mark was born in suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,^[1] and began photographing with a Box Brownie camera at age nine. She attended Cheltenham High School,^[1] where she was head cheerleader and exhibited a knack for painting and drawing. She received a BFA degree in painting and art history from the University of Pennsylvania in 1962, and a Masters Degree in photojournalism from that university's Annenberg School for Communication in 1964.^[2] The following year, Mark received a Fulbright Scholarship to photograph in Turkey for a year.^[2] While there, she also traveled to photograph England, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Spain.^[3]

In 1966^[1] or 1967,^[3] she moved to New York City, where over the next several years she photographed Vietnam War demonstrations, the women's liberation movement, transvestite culture, and Times Square, developing a sensibility, according to one writer, "away from mainstream society and toward its more interesting, often troubled fringes".^[3] As Mark explained in 1987, "I'm just interested in people on the edges. I feel an affinity for people who haven't had the best breaks in society. What I want to do more than anything is acknowledge their existence".^[4]

Her shooting style ranges from a 2 ¼ inch format, 35 mm, and 4x5 inch view camera. She also uses a Leica 4 for most photographs and Nikons for long-range shooting. Mark loves shooting with a Hasselblad for square format and she shoots primarily in black-and-white, using classic Kodak Tri-X film. .^[5]

Photography career[link]

Mark became a unit photographer on movie sets, shooting production stills for films including Arthur Penn's Alice's Restaurant (1969), Mike Nichols' Catch-22 (1970), Carnal Knowledge (1971) and Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979) among her earliest. For Look magazine, she photographed Federico Fellini shooting his film Satyricon (1969).^[3] Mark has since photographed on the sets of more than 100 movies, up through at least director Baz Lurhmann's Australia (2008).^[6] Mark is well known for establishing strong relationships with her subjects, as she has spoken about after her experiences in the Home for the Dying in Calcutta, and her project "Street Kids" for LIFE Magazine, which developed into the movie Streetwise.^[7]

Mark has contributed to publications including the magazines Life, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair. As of 2009, she has published 16 books including Passport (Lustrum Press, 1974), Ward 81 (Simon & Schuster, 1979), Falkland Road (Knopf, 1981), Mother Teresa's Mission of Charity in Calcutta (Friends of Photography, 1985), Streetwise (second printing, Aperture, 1992), Mary Ellen Mark: 25 Years (Bulfinch, 1991), Indian Circus (Chronicle Books, 1993, and Takarajimasha, 1993), Portraits (Motta Fotografica, 1995 and Smithsonian, 1997), A Cry for Help (Simon & Schuster, 1996), Mary Ellen Mark: American Odyssey (Aperture, 1999), Mary Ellen Mark 55 (Phaidon Press, 2001), Photo Poche: Mary Ellen Mark (Nathan, 2002), Twins (Aperture, 2003), Mary Ellen Mark: Exposure (Phaidon Press, 2005), Extraordinary Child (National Museum of Iceland, 2007), and Seen Behind the Scene (Phaidon Press, 2008).

Mark's photographs have been exhibited worldwide.^[2]

Mark has served as a guest juror for photography call for entries at The Center for Fine Art Photography. ^[8]

Style[link]

Her photography has addressed such social issues as homelessness, loneliness, drug addiction, and prostitution. She works primarily in black and white. She has described her approach to her subjects: "I’ve always felt that children and teenagers are not “children,” they’re small people. I look at them as little people and I either like them or I don’t like them. I also have an obsession with mental illness. And strange people who are outside the borders of society." Mark has also said, "I’d rather pull up things from another culture that are universal, that we can all relate to….There are prostitutes all over the world. I try to show their way of life…”^[9]

Family[link]

Mark is married to film director Martin Bell. As of 2011, the couple reside in New York City, New York.

Awards and honors[link]

Mark's numerous awards and honors include the following:^[2]

• 1980 First Prize, Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, "Mother Teresa", Life
• 1980 Page One Award for Excellence in Journalism, The Newspaper Guild of New York, "Children of Desire", The New York Times Magazine
• 1981 First Prize, Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, "Mother Teresa in Calcutta", Life Magazine
• 1982 Leica Medal of Excellence, Falkland Road
• 1984 First Prize, Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, "Camp Good Times", Life
• 1986 The Phillipe Halsman Award for Photojournalism, American Society of Magazine Photographers
• 1987 Photographer of the Year Award, The Friends of Photography
• 1988 World Press Photo Award, for Outstanding Body of Work Throughout the Years
• 1988 George Polk Award, Photojournalism
• 1988 Distinguished Photographer's Award, Women in Photography*
• 1989 The World Hunger Media Awards, Best Photojournalism, "Children of Poverty", Life
• 1990 Pictures of the Year Award for Magazine Portrait/Personality, "The Face of Rural Poverty", Fortune Magazine
• 1992 Society of Newspaper Design, Award of Excellence, Magazine Cover and Photojournalism Feature, The New York Times Magazine
• 1993 Front Page Award, The Newswomen’s Club of New York, "Cree Indians" for Conde Nast Traveler, November 10, 1993
• 1994 The Professional Photographer of the Year Award, Photographic Manufacturers and Distributors Association
• 1995 Pictures of the Year, 1st Place Magazine Division, "Napping" Freelance/Life
• 1996 Pictures of the Year, 1st Place Magazine Division, for issue reporting "Damm Family"; 3rd place in Magazine division for picture essay
• 1996 Master Series Award, School of Visual Arts
• 1997 Infinity Award, International Center of Photography
• 1998 The Art Directors Club Silver Award, "El Circo"
• 1998 The Society of Publication Designers, Gold Medal Award for Design Entire Issue, "Battle of the Generations", Fast Company
• 1999 Leadership Award, International Photographic Council
• 1999 Photographic Administrators Incorporated, Award for Excellence in Photojournalism
• 2001 Cornell Capa Award, International Center of Photography
• 2003 Lucie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Documentary Photography^[10]
• 2004 World Press Photo Awards, First Prize in the Arts (Twins series)
• 2006 Visionary Woman Award, Moore College of Art & Design

Grants and fellowships:^[2]

• 1965-66 Fulbright Scholarship to photograph in Turkey
• 1975 U.S.I.A. Grant to lecture and exhibit in Yugoslavia
• 1977 National Endowment for the Arts
• 1977 New York State Council for the Arts: CAPS Grant
• 1978 Commissioned Artist with the Bell System Photography Project
• 1979-80 National Endowment for the Arts
• 1990 National Endowment for the Arts
• 1994 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship
• 1997 Erna and Victor Hasselblad Foundation Grant to continue to make pictures for the American book & exhibition project

References[link]

External links[link]

• Mary Ellen Mark's website
• Scotsman newspaper interview, June 2005
• Audio interview, The Digital Journalist, March 1999
• Video interview, Charlie Rose, January 31, 2000
• Art HERStory: Mary Ellen Mark

Diane Arbus ( /diːˈæn ˈɑrbəs/; March 14, 1923 – July 26, 1971) was an American photographer and writer noted for black-and-white square photographs of "deviant and marginal people (dwarfs, giants, transgender people, nudists, circus performers) or of people whose normality seems ugly or surreal."^[2][3][4] A friend said that Arbus said that she was "afraid . . . that she would be known simply as 'the photographer of freaks'"; however, that phrase has been used repeatedly to describe her.^[5][6][7][8]

In 1972, a year after she committed suicide, Arbus became the first American photographer to have photographs displayed at the Venice Biennale.^[9] Millions of people viewed traveling exhibitions of her work in 1972–1979.^[3][10] Between 2003 and 2006, Arbus and her work were the subjects of another major traveling exhibition, Diane Arbus Revelations.^[11] In 2006, the motion picture Fur, starring Nicole Kidman as Arbus, presented a fictional version of her life story.^[12]

Although some of Arbus's photographs have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars at auction, Arbus's work has provoked controversy; for example, Norman Mailer was quoted in 1971 as saying "Giving a camera to Diane Arbus is like putting a live grenade in the hands of a child."^[10][13]

Personal life[link]

Arbus was born as Diane Nemerov to David Nemerov and Gertrude Russek Nemerov.^[7][14] The Nemerovs were a Jewish couple who lived in New York City and owned Russek's, a famous Fifth Avenue department store.^[14][15] Because of the family's wealth, Diane was insulated from the effects of the Great Depression while growing up in the 1930s.^[14] Arbus's father became a painter after retiring from Russek's; her younger sister would become a sculptor and designer; and her older brother, Howard Nemerov, would later become United States Poet Laureate, and the father of the Americanist art historian Alexander Nemerov.^[7]

Diane Nemerov attended the Fieldston School for Ethical Culture, a prep school.^[11] In 1941, at the age of eighteen, she married her childhood sweetheart Allan Arbus.^[7] Their first daughter Doon (who would later become a writer), was born in 1945 and their second daughter Amy (who would later become a photographer), was born in 1954.^[7]

Diane and Allan Arbus separated in 1958, and they were divorced in 1969.^[16]

Photographic career[link]

The Arbuses were both interested in photography. In 1941, they visited the gallery of Alfred Stieglitz, where Diane learned about photographers such as Mathew Brady, Timothy O'Sullivan, Paul Strand, Bill Brandt, and Eugène Atget.^[1]:129[16] In the early 1940s, Diane's father employed them to take photographs for the department store's advertisements.^[6] Allan was a photographer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps in World War Two.^[16]

In 1946, after the war, the Arbuses began a commercial photography business called "Diane & Allan Arbus," with Diane as art director and Allan as the photographer.^[6] They contributed to Glamour, Seventeen, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and other magazines even though "they both hated the fashion world."^[10][17] Despite over 200 pages of their fashion editorial in Glamour, and over 80 pages in Vogue, the Arbuses' fashion photography has been described as of "middling quality."^[18] Edward Steichen's noted 1955 photographic exhibit, The Family of Man, did include a photograph by the Arbuses of a father and son reading a newspaper.^[7]

In 1956, Diane Arbus quit the commercial photography business.^[6] Although earlier she had studied photography with Berenice Abbott, her studies with Lisette Model, beginning in 1956, led to Arbus's most well-known methods and style.^[6] She began photographing on assignment for magazines such as Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, and The Sunday Times Magazine in 1959.^[7] Around 1962, Arbus switched from a 35mm Nikon camera which produced grainy rectangular images to a twin-lens reflex Rolleiflex camera which produced more detailed square images.^[4][7][19]

In 1963, Arbus was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for a project on "American rites, manners, and customs"; the fellowship was renewed in 1966.^[20][9] In 1964, Arbus began using a twin-lens reflex Mamiya camera with flash in addition to the Rolleiflex.^[4] Her methods included establishing a strong personal relationship with her subjects and re-photographing some of them over many years.^[7][10]

During the 1960s, she taught photography at the Parsons School of Design and the Cooper Union in New York City, and the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island.^[14][21] The first major exhibition of her photographs occurred at the Museum of Modern Art in a 1967 show called "New Documents," curated by John Szarkowski. The show also featured the work of Garry Winogrand and Lee Friedlander.^[11] Some of her artistic work was done on assignment.^[11] Although she continued to photograph on assignment (e.g., in 1968 she shot documentary photographs of poor sharecroppers in rural South Carolina for Esquire magazine), in general her magazine assignments decreased as her fame as an artist increased.^[22][7] Szarkowski hired Arbus in 1970 to research an exhibition on photojournalism called "From the Picture Press"; it included many photographs by Weegee whose work Arbus admired.^[14][16][23]

Using softer light than in her previous photography, she took a series of photographs in her later years of people with intellectual disability showing a range of emotions.^[11][24] At first, Arbus considered these photographs to be "lyric and tender and pretty," but by June, 1971, she told Lisette Model that she hated them.^[4]

Associating with other contemporary photographers such as Robert Frank and Saul Leiter, Arbus helped form what Jane Livingston has termed The New York School of photographers during the 1940s and 1950s. Among other photographers and artists she befriended during her career, she was close to photographer Richard Avedon; he was approximately the same age, his family had also run a Fifth Avenue department store, and many of his photographs were also characterized as detailed frontal poses.^[4][10][25] Another good friend was Marvin Israel, an artist, graphic designer, and art director whom Arbus met in 1959.^[1]:144[25]

Death[link]

Arbus experienced "depressive episodes" during her life similar to those experienced by her mother, and the episodes may have been made worse by symptoms of hepatitis.^[7] Arbus wrote in 1968, "I go up and down a lot," and her ex-husband noted that she had "violent changes of mood."^[6] On July 26, 1971, while living at Westbeth Artists Community in New York City, Arbus took her own life by ingesting barbiturates and slashing her wrists with a razor.^[6] Marvin Israel found her body in the bathtub two days later; she was forty-eight years old.^[6][7]

Notable photographs[link]

Arbus's most well-known individual photographs include:

• Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C. 1962 — Colin Wood,^[26] with the left strap of his jumper awkwardly hanging off his shoulder, tensely holds his long, thin arms by his side. Clenching a toy grenade in his right hand and holding his left hand in a claw-like gesture, his facial expression is maniacal. A print of this photograph was sold in 2005 at auction for $408,000.^[27]
• Teenage Couple on Hudson Street, N.Y.C., 1963 — Wearing long coats and "worldlywise expressions", two adolescents appear older than their ages.^[28]
• Triplets in Their Bedroom, N.J. 1963 — Three girls sit at the head of a bed.^[28][29]
• A Young Brooklyn Family Going for a Sunday Outing, N.Y.C. 1966 — Richard and Marylin Dauria, who actually lived in the Bronx. Marylin holds their baby daughter, and Richard holds the hand of their young son, who is mentally-retarded.^[19][30]
• A Young Man in Curlers at Home on West 20th Street, N.Y.C. 1966 — A close-up shows the man's pock-marked face with plucked eyebrows, and his hand with long fingernails holds a cigarette. Early reactions to the photograph were strong; for example, someone spit on it in 1967 at the Museum of Modern Art.^[11] A print was sold for $198,400 at a 2004 auction.^[31]
• Boy With a Straw Hat Waiting to March in a Pro-War Parade, N.Y.C. 1967 — With an American flag at his side, he wears a bow tie, a pin in the shape of a bow tie with an American flag motif, and two round button badges: "Bomb Hanoi" and "God Bless America / Support Our Boys in Viet Nam." The image may cause the viewer to feel both different from the boy and sympathetic toward him.^[29] An art consulting firm purchased a print for $228,000 at a 2005 auction.^[32]
• Identical Twins, Roselle, N.J. 1967 — Young twin sisters Cathleen and Colleen Wade^[26] stand side by side in dark dresses. The twin on the right slightly smiles and twin on the left slightly frowns.^[28] This photograph is echoed in Stanley Kubrick's film The Shining, which features twins in an identical pose as ghosts.^[26] A print was sold at auction for $478,400 in 2004.^[31]
• A Family on Their Lawn One Sunday in Westchester, N.Y. 1968 — A woman and a man sunbathe while a boy bends over a small plastic wading pool behind them. A print was sold at auction in 2008 for $553,000.^[33]
• A Naked Man Being a Woman, N.Y.C. 1968 — The subject has been described as in a "Venus-on-the-half-shell pose"^[6] or as "a Madonna turned in contrapposto... with his penis hidden between his legs".^[29] The parted curtain behind the man adds to the theatrical quality of the photograph.^[4]
• A Very Young Baby, N.Y.C. 1968 — A photograph for Harper's Bazaar depicts Gloria Vanderbilt's then-infant son, future CNN anchorman Anderson Cooper.^[26]
• A Jewish Giant at Home with His Parents in The Bronx, N.Y. 1970 — Eddie Carmel, the "Jewish Giant", stands in his family's apartment with his much shorter mother and father. Arbus reportedly said to a friend about this picture: "You know how every mother has nightmares when she's pregnant that her baby will be born a monster?... I think I got that in the mother's face...."^[34] The photograph motivated Carmel's cousin to narrate a 1999 audio documentary about him.^[35] A print was sold at auction for $421,000 in 2007.^[36]

In addition, Arbus's Box of Ten Photographs was a portfolio of selected 1963–1970 photographs in a clear Plexiglas box/frame that was designed by Marvin Israel and that was to have been issued in a limited edition of 50.^[25][37] During her lifetime, however, Arbus completed only about 11 boxes and sold only 4 boxes (2 to Richard Avedon, 1 to Jasper Johns, and 1 to Bea Feitler).^{[1]:220[7][27]} One copy printed by Neil Selkirk after Arbus's death sold for $553,600 in 2005, which was an auction record for Arbus.^[27]

Notable magazine articles[link]

• "The Vertical Journey: Six Movements of a Moment Within the Heart of the City", Esquire, July 1960. This was the first magazine article that Arbus produced without Allan Arbus.^[18]
• "The Full Circle", Harper's Bazaar, November 1961. This included 4,000 words of text and photographs of five people such as "Jack Dracula, the Marked Man."^[10]
• "Mae West: Emotion in Motion", Show, January 1965. Although Arbus's writing showed "great style and lucidity",^[14] West's lawyer wrote a letter to the publisher claiming that Arbus's photographs were "unflattering" to West.^[17]
• "La Dolce Viva," by Barbara L. Goldsmith, New York, April 29, 1968. The article included a large photograph by Arbus of actress and model Viva reclining on a sofa; her breasts are bare, and her eyes are rolled upwards as though she had taken psychoactive drugs.^[38] As a result of the photograph, Vogue magazine canceled its modeling contracts with Viva.^[17]
• "Five Photographs by Diane Arbus." Artforum, volume 9, pages 64–69, May 1971. This article contains a famous quotation by Arbus: "A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.^[11][19][39]

Legacy[link]

After Arbus's death, her daughter Doon managed Arbus's estate.^[6] She forbade examination of Arbus's correspondence and often denied permission for exhibition or reproduction of Arbus's photographs.^[6] The editors of an academic journal published a two-page complaint in 1993 about the estate's control over Arbus's images and its attempt to censor part of an article about Arbus.^[13] As of 2000, the estate would not release Arbus's 1957 to 1965 images of transgender people.^[40] A 2005 article called the estate's allowing the British press to reproduce only fifteen photographs an attempt to "control criticism and debate."^[41] The estate was also criticized in 2008 for minimizing Arbus's early commercial work.^[18]

In mid–1972, Arbus was the first American photographer to have photographs displayed at the Venice Biennale; her ten photographs were described as "the overwhelming sensation of the American Pavilion" and "an extraordinary achievement."^[9][42]

The Museum of Modern Art held a retrospective of Arbus's work in late 1972 that subsequently traveled around the United States and Canada through 1975; it was estimated that over seven million people saw the exhibition.^[3][10] A different retrospective traveled around the world between 1973 and 1979.^[3]

Doon Arbus and Marvin Israel edited and designed a 1972 book Diane Arbus (or Diane Arbus: an Aperture Monograph) accompanying the Museum of Modern Art's exhibition.^[43] It contained eighty of Arbus's photographs, as well as texts from classes that Arbus gave in 1971, some of Arbus's writings, and some of Arbus's interviews.^[43][44] The text in the book includes some of Arbus's most widely cited quotations such as:

• Page 1: "My favorite thing is to go where I've never been."^[43][7][45]
• Pages 1–2: "Our whole guise is like giving a sign to the world to think of us in a certain way but there's a point between what you want people to know about you and what you can't help people knowing about you. And that has to do with what I've always called the gap between intention and effect."^[4][11][46]
• Page 3: "Freaks was a thing I photographed a lot . . . . Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats."^{[4][15][29][47]}
• Page 15: "I do feel I have some slight corner on something about the quality of things. I mean it's very subtle and a little embarrassing to me, but I really believe there are things which nobody would see unless I photographed them."^{[4][13][19][48]}