Diane Arbus: A Biography | 
 enlarge | Creator: Patricia Bosworth
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 167572
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0393326616
Dewey Decimal Number: 770.924
EAN: 9780393326611
ASIN: 0393326616
Publication Date: February 28, 2005
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Amazon.com
Opportunities for sensationalism abound in a book about Arbus, who already had a history of severe depressions and a crumbling marriage by the time she began to take the controversial, technically innovative pictures of dwarfs, nudists and drag queens that won her a reputation as "a photographer of freaks." Bosworth balances the lurid details -- rumors that Arbus had sex with her subjects, that she photographed her own suicide in 1971 -- with a nuanced appraisal of an artist whose images captured the uneasy mood of the 1960s by expressing her personal obsessions.
Product Description
The inspiration for the new major motion picture Fur starring Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey Jr.
"Haunted, disturbing….Bosworth has brought us tantalizingly close to her subject." So said Christopher Lehman-Haupt in the New York Times about this biography of the photographer. Diane Arbus exerts a fascination rooted in both her art and her life. Her startling photographic images of dwarves, twins, transvestites, and freaks seemed from the first to redefine both the normal and the abnormal in our lives. Now Steven Shainberg, the highly praised director of Secretary, has directed a film that draws on Arbus's life, work, and obsessions. Nicole Kidman stars as Arbus and Robert Downey Jr. plays her lover. Premiering at Cannes in May 2006, it will draw lavish attention and discussion when it opens in the fall.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
 Compelling April 3, 2008
Not only could I not put this book down, it made me miss Diane Arbus terribly once I had finished it and so sad that she must have despaired at the end. Not an easy feat for a book, so I would highly recommend it to anyone who is moved/intrigued/awed/interested by her photography.
 I learned some things about Arbus, but didn't walk away feeling I had a lot of insight. February 11, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I can't say I really liked this book. In the early stages of the biography I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Diane's childhood, but the author does too much fawning over Diane and repeatedly talks about how gifted she was. Yes, I think we all appreciate that fact, now let's move on and get to the core of who she was. ...Except I don't necessarily feel that this book ever truly did that. There were some interesting insights, but I constantly felt far too removed from the real Diane. Each piece of information I felt I could really sink my teeth into was buried between pages and pages of repetitive or useless (to me, anyway) information.
Throughout the book I felt Bosworth also spent too much time detailing a large number of Diane's friends and acquaintances. Family, close friends and mentors are certainly key in any biography, but the deeper I got into the book, the more I found myself skimming over chunks of text, searching for what (if much of anything) these relationships MEANT to her life rather than tedious details about a person she only met a couple of times.
I was also disappointed in the lack of reflection on Arbus's death at the end of the book. I had expected many more thoughts on that, or maybe even a bit of discussion on her legacy, and how her work is now received. Instead, the book ends with her death.
In short: If you want to know more about Arbus, read the book, but be prepared to skim.
Who Is Diane Arbus, Anyway? October 23, 2007
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
I found this book on my shelf. Someone may have recommended it to me but I forgot who. I thought, "Oh, another book about some unknown person who is probably a very boring person and this book will be boring, I'm sure." Several times during the hearing (on tape) of this book I thought, "Well, that's enough about this Diane Arbus person." But, the book is so well written and finally I descerned that the subject of the book, Diane Arbus, is so "worth reading" that I did finish the book. And, it was "worth the time". I mean, here's this "little unknown lady" making "immortal" all these "unknown" people who now are "known" and "will be known forever" thanks to her! I wish I had met Diane Arbus and had MY picture taken by her! After you read this perhaps order "Monograph" or "Magazine Photos" to see "what the fuss is all about". You won't be disappointed! Recommended! boland7214@aol
Diane Arbus: A Biography September 28, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
After watching the movie "Fur" which is a fictionalized biography, I wanted to know more about this artist. The book is fascinating, but sometimes dreary as the author relates the severe depression that pervades many of the artists who were associated with Diane Arbus, as well as Diane herself. Full of famous names and families of $$ in the NY and New England.
Silence, cunning, and exile July 20, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Diane Arbus as a photographer is linked to Walker Evans and Robert Frank. She believed a photograph is a secret about a secret. David Nemerov, her father, was a creative spirit, an enterprising retailer. He expanded the family-owned Russek fur business. He knew fashion was theater, ephemeral. Both Diane and her brother Howard were gifted. A friend felt that Diane and others grew up in an emotional desert of shame, not affirmation, as they received training to become accomplished in the various cultured disciplines. Diane came to believe her circumstances were irrational. She complained that throughout her upbringing of Ethical Culture schools and summer camps she had never felt adversity. Diane met and fell in love with Allan Arbus when she was fourteen. At Fieldston School in Elbert Lenrow's Great Books class, Diane wrote essays on Flaubert and Sophocles, preoccupied with ambiguity, with contradictions. Diane told her friends she was not going to apply to college, she was going to marry Allan Arbus. Her talent set her apart from others; it frightened her.
During World War II Howard joined the Canadian Air Force and Allan the Army Signal Corps. When Allan was sent to photography school at Fort Monmouth, Diane moved to Red Bank. Daughter Doon was born in 1945. For a time Diane studied with Berenice Abbott. Allan and Diane worked closely together as a husband and wife fashion photography team. They were creative and perfectionists. In 1951 Allan, Diane, and Doon went to Europe. The sights were a revelation to Diane. All of her experiences were sensory. Another child, Amy, was born in 1954. Allan and Diane were successful, they were 'comers', but they hated the fast-paced trendy world of commercial photography. Howard Nemerov felt the couple was living an unreal but glittering life. NYC was a mecca for photographers. Diane's younger sister Renee was a sculptor. Her husband was a magazine writer. All of the Nemerovs had depressive illnesses, but Diane's were deeper and longer-lasting.
It was felt fashion photography, the artifice and the monotony, contributed to Diane's depression, and so she stopped. Allan continued the business. Diane took a course at the New School with Lisette Model. Under Model she began documenting fearsome persons and places. She went to Coney Island. Diane drifted into downtown Bohemia. She developed a friendship with many artists including Mary Frank. Allan and Diane moved their studio to Washington Place. The couple became estranged. Diane and the two girls moved to Charles Street. Silence, cunning, and exile were emblematic of Diane's work according to Emile de Antonio, using a Joycean formulation. During the summer of 1959 Diane photographed circuses. At sideshows she felt shame and awe.
Diane acquired a mentor, Marvin Israel, who believed she was an original talent who needed to be pushed. Her snap-shot style and subject matter were perfect for ESQUIRE. On assignment, photography for Diane became contemporary anthropology. When Marvin Israel went to HARPER'S BAZAAR, Diane had another outlet for her work. Walker Evans was impressed with Diane's work. Diane was awarded a Guggenheim to explore American rites and customs. When Howard published JOURNAL OF THE FICTIVE LIFE, Diane realized that she and Howard had the same family memories and the same lexicon.
In the mid sixties Diane seemed to be at every spectacle, every parade in NYC. She taught at Parsons in 1965. Her students said she was a terrific teacher. Her photographs appeared in the 'New Documents' show at the Museum of Modern Art, 1967. Later her use of a square format with direct flash was copied widely. Friends tried to tell her not to take the neagative comments to heart, that all original work was irritating at first, (Gertrude Stein). Diane revered the photography of August Sander, Weegee, and Lewis Hine. In 1969 Allan and Diane were divorced. Their studio was closed. Allan moved to Hollywood. In 1970 Diane moved to Westbeth. She taught a photography class at Westbeth to raise money to purchase a Pentax camera. In the end Diane felt her work was being noticed for the wrong reasons. Friends ignored Diane's allusions to suicide.
Patricia Bosworth has done a smashingly successful job of capturing the essence of the life and work of this photography pioneer. Readers of the book feel compelled to follow-up every name and every work mentioned.
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