A preview of the exhibition diane arbus: in the beginning, on view at The Met Breuer from July 12 through November 27, 2016.
I’m looking forward to seeing this new exhibit of early work from photographer Diane Arbus being shown at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Arts new extention space in the old Whitney Museum building. The show at the MET Breuer highlights the archives of the METs collection of Arbus photographs printed by Arbus herself.
“Diane Arbus: In the Beginning,” which opens July 12 at the Met Breuer, will give the first real glimpse of one of the greatest artists of the 20th century in chrysalis. Drawing from the Diane Arbus Archive, acquired by the Metropolitan Museum in 2007 from the artist’s daughters, Doon and Amy Arbus, the exhibition focuses on the years 1956 through 1962 and includes mostly images that have never before been exhibited or published, a huge body of work predating the pictures that have defined Arbus’s career. The show will arrive just after the publication of “Diane Arbus: Portrait of a Photographer” (Ecco), a highly anticipated and unauthorized biography by Arthur Lubow, a contributor to The New York Times, that delves deeply into the connections between Arbus’s work and her sometimes troubled life, in interviews with many friends who have never before spoken publicly about her.
In 1972, a year after she took her own life, Arbus became the first American photographer to have photographs displayed at the Venice Biennale. Millions viewed traveling exhibitions of her work in 1972–1979. The book accompanying the exhibition, Diane Arbus: An Aperture Monograph, edited by Doon Arbus and Marvin Israel and first published in 1972 is the best selling photography monograph ever, still being reprinted today.Between 2003 and 2006, Arbus and her work were the subjects of another major traveling exhibition, Diane Arbus Revelations. In 2006, the motion picture Fur, starring Nicole Kidman as Arbus, presented a fictional version of her life story.