Diane Arbus

As if I needed another reason to visit the Met...

A Big Gift for the Met: The Arbus Archives

I'm a huge fan of modern art and photography. Diane Arbus is one of my favorite American photographers. She is best known for her portraits of people living on the fringes of society: social outcasts, freaks, prostitutes, dwarves, and ordinary citizens in poses and settings that are uncanny and somewhat off. In choosing subjects that the rest of the world would choose to ignore, she uncovered the familiar in what people consider abnormal, the strangeness in what people consider normal. The purity of her style and the intimate relationships she fostered with her subject matters for her art proved her to be an original force in photography. As with many great modern artists, she was a tortured soul, taking her own life at the age of 48.

One of my favorite photos of hers of all time, Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, 1967, (above) is at the MoMA currently. According to Wikipedia, it is #10 on the list of most expensive photographs. Her entire body of work is worth a look. It will be interesting to see what the Met does with their newly acquired gift.