Reading about something else I came across Diane Arbus' name and her intriguing photos. Continuing to search on net I found a fascinating story. As I'm not a biographer and I didn't read any of her biographies I can't comment much, but I can make a briefly resume, waiting to find and read "Diane Arbus: A biography" by Patricia Bosworth.
Diane was born in 1923 to a wealthy Jewish family in New York. Her father, David Nemerov was the son of a Russian emigrant. His wife, Gertrude, was the daughter of the owners of Russek's Fur Store. David, with imagination and perseverance, transformed his parents-in-law business in a very flourish one, located on Fifth Avenue (and specialized in fur). He had a good intuition knowing as nobody else which way the next season trend will follow for women's clothes.
Diane, the youngest child of the couple, was brought up by an absent, busy and loving father and by an absent, loving and depressed mother. In these circumstances at 13 she met Allan Arbus, an employee at advertising department of her parents store. Soon she fell in love with him and after she turned 18, they married despite her parents opposition. But Allan was the one who gave her the first camera and shared with her his acknowledgement about photography accumulated due to the training as a photographer for the US Army. In time they became appreciated fashion photographers and they shared the fame .
They had 2 daughters together, Amy Arbus who's a photographer and Doon Arbus, a writer and art director.
They separated in 1959, but remained friends. His laboratory assistants used to develop her photos till he remarried in 1969 and moved to California pursuing his actor career. He played in many movies, one of them was MASH, he played in as the psychiatrist Dr. Sidney Freedman. She died in 1971 when under a bout of depression she took many barbiturates and cut her wrists. A movie about her life was released in 2006 with Nicole Kidman as Diane Arbus, but it's not an accurate biography, more a fictionalized story.
Her art shows a strange world populated by midgets, transvestites, twins, asylum inmates, people on the streets, etc. It's not the traditional way to represent people in a photograph, trying to caught them in the right light and the right position for their advantage. Instead of this, she put under light the deepest hidden secrets of their life and their real character. She spent a lot of time with her subjects, talking, accompanying them at their homes or at their offices, trying to find the right moment when they forget about the camera and the purpose of her visit. The portraits she took are very expressive, the subjects always look directly into the camera, as they want to prove who they are, totally in the light as they are completely fascinated by the flash, almost starring to the photographer.
Her photographic career started in fact when she studied under Lisette Model who encouraged her to develop a documentary style. She was awarded Guggenheim Fellowships twice, in 1963 and 1964. In 1967 her work was exhibited at Museum of Modern Art. After her separation from Allan she studied with Alexey Brodovitch and Richard Avedon and beginning with 1960 she worked more as a photojournalist for Esquire, The New York Times, Harper Bazaar, etc. Her ex-husband said recently: "I always felt that it was our separation that made her a photographer. I couldn't have stood for her going to the places she did. She'd go to bars on the Bowery and to people's houses. I would have been horrified."
After her death, "Aperture" magazine produced an influential book containing her work, reprinted 12 times and sold in 100.000 copies.
One of her pictures "Identical Twins" is tenth on the list of most expensive photographs, having sold in 2004 for $478,400.
She said about her intriguing subjects:"Most of the people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. They were born with their trauma. They're already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats."
Some of her pictures can be seen at:
http://www.masters-of-fine-art-photography.com/02/artphotogallery/photographers/diane_arbus_03.html.
Sources:
http://photography-now.net/ and
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/.