Diane Arbus

American, 1923-1971

BiographyBorn in New York, NY, Diane Arbus turned to fine art photography after working as a commercial fashion photographer for twenty years. A student of Berenice Abbott, Alexey Brodovitch, and later Lisette Model, her first published photographs appeared in Esquire in 1960. In 1963 and 1966 she was awarded John Simon Guggenheim Fellowships and was one of three photographers whose work was the focus of New Documents, John Szarkowski’s landmark exhibition that introduced new approaches to documentary photography at The Museum of Modern Art in 1967.

Awarded the Guggenheim Fellowships in 1963 and 1966, Arbus was the first photographer chosen to represent the United States at the 1972 Venice Biennale. One year after her death, the first major retrospective of Arbus’ photography was held at MoMA (1972). Subsequently, major travelling retrospectives of her work have been organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2003-2006) and the Jeu de Paume, Paris (2011-2013). Her work can be found in the collections of numerous institutions worldwide including Art Institute of Chicago; Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tate Gallery, London; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

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