14 March 1923 – 26 July 1971, was an American photographer and photojournalist of Russian-Jewish descent. Born Diane Nemerov in New York City, she grew up in a wealthy family that owned the Russeks department store on Fifth Avenue. She received early artistic training and began her career in fashion photography in the 1940s in collaboration with her husband Allan Arbus, producing work for magazines and commercial clients.

By the late 1950s she shifted her focus to independent work, developing a photographic practice centered on people and communities at the margins of society. Her portraits of performers, nudists, twins, transgender people, and other subjects explored questions of normality, identity, and social perception, and introduced a heightened psychological dimension to artistic photography.

During the 1960s she worked extensively for magazines while pursuing long-term personal projects. Her photographs were included in the landmark 1967 exhibition New Documents at the Museum of Modern Art, and her work was supported by Guggenheim Fellowships in 1963 and 1966. She often photographed her subjects in familiar environments, fostering direct encounters that emphasized individuality and presence.

Her posthumous reputation grew rapidly. In 1972 she became the first American photographer to be exhibited at the Venice Biennale, and the traveling retrospective organized the same year introduced her work to a wide international audience. The monograph Diane Arbus: An Aperture Monograph (1972) became one of the best-selling photography books and remains continuously in print.

Reference
Biography text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), German edition. Retrieved February 12, 2026.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Arbus