Diane Arbus

While she was thirteen, she got acquainted to Allan Arbus who was nineteen years old and fell in love with him. Allan was working in the advertisement department of her family store.

Though her parents initially objected to the affair, Diane continued to meet Allan secretly. In 1941, Allan and Diane were married with the help of a rabbi and the marriage was accepted by the elders.

The couple was blessed with two daughters named Doon and Amy who were interested in fashion photography. Later Doon became famous as a writer and Amy as a fashion photographer.

Diane Arbus was born as Diane Nemerov in New York City in a rich Jewish family. Her father David Nemerov and her mother Gertrude owned a departmental store named “Russek's".

She was the second of the three children of the Nemerovs. Her elder brother Howard Nemerov later became the United States Poet Laureate and her younger sister Renee became an eminent designer and sculptor.

Both Diane and her siblings were educated at Ethical Culture School and the Fieldston School in Manhattan. Since her family was rich, they were unaffected by the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Her husband Allan was her first teacher to teach photography. In 1946, she started her career as a photographer and worked in the advertisement section of her father’s store along with her husband.

Later along with her husband, she started her own commercial photography business and started undertaking assignments for clothing fashions. Diane took care of the costume and makeup of the model whereas Allan photographed.

Their unconventional style of photography attracted the people and they gained name and fame as fashion photographers. They got assignments from renowned fashion magazines like "Harper's Bazaar" and "Vogue."

Diane was not happy with her secondary role and she wanted to learn professional photography. In 1957, she left her husband’s business and enrolled in the workshop of Alexey Brodovitch.

In 1958, she started taking photographic classes from Lisette Model’s New School, where she learnt professional photography. The influence of Model can be felt in her later creations.

Her photograph “Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park” captivated the viewers. When a copy of the photograph was auctioned in 2005, it was sold for $408,000.

Her photograph, “Identical Twins” was chosen as the cover image of the photography book “Diane Arbus,” published in 1972. The book made a record sale as one of the best-selling photography books.