Diane Arbus — photographer with roots in the Russian Empire
Diane Arbus was an American photographer who radically expanded the subject matter of fine art photography — shooting carnival performers, nudists, twins, and people at society's margins with empathy and technical rigour. Her work, published posthumously in 1972, became one of the most influential photography books ever made.
Tracing the roots — Russia (Jewish)
Born Diane Nemerov in New York in 1923 to a wealthy Russian-Jewish immigrant family (the Nemerovs had come from Russia), Arbus grew up privileged but restless. Her life's work was a deliberate turning away from that world to document its others — the freaks, the marginals, the ordinary people the comfortable preferred not to see.
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Russia (Jewish). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.
A career defined by ambition
"A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know."