Diane Arbus

A detailed Summary of Diane Arbus

Diane Nemerov was born in 1923 in New York City. Her father owned a fashionable Fifth Avenue department store called Russeks. His wife, Gertrude Russeks', family founded it and it is now defunct. The family lived in an apartment on Central Park West as they were comfortably wealthy. They were a very prosperous family which lead to Diane's sheltered childhood. She was educated at the Fieldstone and Ethical Culture schools which were very progressive institutes. This meant an overly protective, overly organized childhood during which she broke the monotony and boredom by being naughty. She defied the security provided by her family and school by doing the don't-do's.

Diane's paternal grandfather, Meyer Nemerov left his native Russia after defying his parents' wishes and marrying his sweetheart and not the girl his orthodox Jewish family had picked for him. When Diane was 13 years old she met Allan Arbus, during high school she carried on a secret affair with him against her parent's wishes. They were married less than a month after her eighteenth birthday. He was nineteen. It was Allan Arbus, who introduced Diane to photography. During World War II, he was trained at the Signal Corps photography school at Fort Monmouth,

New Jersey. Each night when he returned home, he would teach Diane what he had learned in a makeshift darkroom set up in their bathroom. After the war and sampling other careers, they both worked in the fashion industry as photographers. Their first account was for Diane's father's store. They went on to become a successful photographic team for almost 20 years. They had two daughters together, Doon and Amy.

After a while Diane began to question why ugliness, deviations and flaws should be unacceptable. For her, existence was amoral or even trans-moral. In later years she was interested less in what was forbidden or terrible but what was specifically different. She began to photograph people on the street to show " the gap between intention and effect..a point between what you want people to know about you and what you can't help people knowing about you." She felt that people were not satisfied with the exterior they are given so they created a whole new set of peculiarities in the effort to project a different image. For example she photographed men dressed as women and vice versa.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Diane Arbus, Allan Arbus, Monmouth Jersey, Ethical Culture, Doon Amy, Diane Allan, Meyer Nemerov, Park West, Modern Art, Gertrude Russeks', allan arbus, diane arbus,

Approximate Word count = 1055
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History

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