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Anthony Hernandez:

Los Angeles #3, 1971

Untitled, Saigon, 1972

Rodeo Drive #14, 1984

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Joe Deal, December 1994, Looking south from the museum, from "Between Nature and Culture: Photographs of the Getty Center" (from full PDF here)

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Wols (Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze)

Ohne Titel (Photogramm) 5/5 , 1938.

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Rinko Kawauchi, from Halo

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Herbert List, Mount Lycabettus (Lykabettos), 1937

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Damien Hirst completed a decade long project to photograph every pharmacy in the Greater London area, both exterior facade and the chemist/pharmacist behind counter (1,856 chemists). The resulting book project, published by Steidl, is multi-volume (10), limited edition (750) and expensive (the catalog announced it at 2,500 euros, but the price increased, you can pre-order from Barnes and Noble for 4,400 USD). This is a photography blog, but I’m told Hirst has related art projects on the subject of pharmacies and pharmaceuticals.

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Tod Papageorge, Diane Arbus in Central Park, 1967

This photo of Arbus was used for the cover of Arthur Lubow's biography (recommended). It also clearly shows the Mighty Light flash unit that she used. One of these is available on eBay, but it's unclear what kind of battery or bulbs it uses, the manual doesn't seem to be online.

Arbus' Mighty Light is in the collection of the Met, though like her other camera gear, there's no photos online to show condition. The provenance on the flash is interesting: Larry Fink, New York, until ca. 1968; lent to Diane Arbus, New York, from ca. 1968 until her death in 1971 [presumed to be in Arbus's possession at the time of her death and retained by the estate; unclear when returned to Fink]; Larry Fink, New York, from ca. 1975–2013. Arbus' use of daylight flash is an important aspect of her craft, yet there’s not a lot of information about the specifics of how she used this particular model. And one less source with Fink's death in 2023.

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RIP Nick Hedges - Liverpool, Photo by Nick Hedges, 1971

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Diane Arbus sources and books 

Spent a few hours at the Los Angeles version of "cataclysm" ( also in NYC in 2022, both based on the 1972 MOMA exhibit) and naturally went back down the Arbus rabbit hole. If you are in New York this summer, a must-see is the "Constellation" exhibit, until August 17, for which this will also be useful background information. 

Sources

The Met  The museum acquired the Arbus archive from the estate in 2007. Their collection page has 303 photographs. Quality of scans and jpegs on the site are extremely poor, some of these even look like they are shot through glass. Crops sometimes obscure the borders Arbus / Selkirk made while printing. There's not even a "introduction to Diane Arbus collection" or biography page. They have objects like her Rolleiflex. In 2016 they mounted an exhibition of early work.

MOMA   84 works online, photographs are full-size of the print paper, good quality and match toning.

Exhibition page for 1972 "Diane Arbus." Includes installation shots and a checklist PDF. Exhibit was the most popular single artist show up to that point and traveled widely, millions of people attended.

Exhibition page for 1967 "New Documents" (including 32 Arbus photographs, according to the PDF checklist). One of the most influential photography exhibits of the second half of the 20th century, remarkably didn’t have a catalog until 2017.

Zwirner Gallery  Zwirner and Fraenkel jointly represent the estate. Zwirner site includes handful of large, high quality photographs that closely match the prints when viewed on a 27" Apple display. Various exhibition pages include related videos.

Fraenkel Gallery Artist page and Arbus CV PDF, current to 2025

Christie's The top auction results for an Arbus is a photograph of the twins that sold for $1.2M and a box of 10 photographs for $1M.

1972 Documentary 29 minutes. Features interviews with daughter Doon, Lisette Model, John Szarkowski. Arbus’ lecture notes are read over a slideshow.

Books

The Zwirner “cataclysm” exhibit had a reading table with a handful of currently available Arbus books. I paged through the various books minutes after looking at the actual prints to compare reproduction quality. Arbus cared deeply about resolution and detail in her prints, part of why she went from making 35mm negatives to 6x6cm (and then at the end of her life to 6x7), so it's unfortunate there aren't more volumes focused on reproduction. (If anyone at Zwirner books comes across this post, here's the pitch: "cataclysm," but printed in the same size and resolution as "Box of Ten Photographs")

Aperture monograph, 1972 One of the most popular photobooks of all time, it was created at the same time as the 1972 exhibit (using Selkirk’s prints) and is the de facto catalog for the exhibit. It has 80 photographs versus 115 in the MOMA exhibit. After seeing the actual prints, the size of the photos and reproduction quality are underwhelming.

Magazine Work, 1984  Compilation of portraits made for magazine assignments, some have captions and longer text written by Arbus. Some scans of the magazine features for context. (archive.org scan, requires login)

Untitled, 1995 Third Aperture publication, focused on a single project, portraits and group portraits made at a New Jersey mental institution and residence. Edited by Doon Arbus. Perhaps the most discussed part of the Arbus' oeuvre, the edit and design of this book certainly influenced the trajectory of discourse. (archive.org scan)

Box of Ten Photographs, 2018 A facsimile of the only Arbus-edited work. This is the closest experience to the actual prints, large 11x14 book with great quality printing. The photos resemble the smaller 9-something-inch prints Arbus was making before moving to 14-inch. Features Arbus’ handwritten captions on transparent vellum-like paper. Book-flip through video.

Revelations, 2003 Exhibition catalog for a massive traveling retrospective organized by SFMOMA that relied heavily on biographical sources, diaries, letters, her datebook. (archive.org scan)

In the Beginning, 2016 Large hardcover catalog for Met exhibition looking at work from 1956-62, from using 35mm to her earliest use of 6x6. The 35mm work is street with an edge, in the vein of William Klein, Helen Levitt and Robert Frank. Reproduction of grainy, motion blurred, pushed film is close to the prints. There's an interesting chapter called "Notes from the Archives," where specialist Karan Rinaldo explains the process of precisely dating a handful of the photos with other sources. Must have been a large print run, because used copies are going for $13.

Chronology, 2011 Primarily text, diary, letters, offers exactly what the title promises. Somewhat overlaps with the "Revelations" catalog, but with less photography.

Documents, 2022 A compilation of criticism featuring reproduction of the actual magazine and newspaper layouts, with a scrapbook design vibe. Video trailer by Zwirner.

Family Albums, 2003 Exhibit catalog around the theme of the family album, related to portrait sessions in the home or group portraits. (archive.org scan)

Jeu de Paume exhibit (catalog en français), 2012 (archive.org scan)

Biographies

These are all available as ebooks (including library / Libby)

"Portrait of a Photographer" 2016 Arthur Lubow (exhaustive and widely considered definitive)

"A Biography" 1984 Patricia Bosworth

"An Emergency in Slow Motion" 2011 William Todd Schultz

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RIP the great Rosalind Fox Solomon, go to the Center for Creative Photography Arizona to see a large selection of her archive.

Rosalind Fox Solomon, Portraits in the Time of AIDS, 1988

Solomon’s portraits during the plague are harrowing, empathetic, confusing, of the moment and timeless. The exhibit is in New York at Bruce Silverstein until August 2.

One of our greatest living photographers; Solomon’s body of work is evidence that intelligent documentary portraits, without conceptual novelties, will always remain one of photography’s primary modes. A wide collection of Solomon’s work is hosted at the Center for Creative Photography site.

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Diane Arbus, contact sheet with Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C, 1962

Interestingly, a search doesn't turn this up on Tumblr. When the "Revelations" exhibit opened at the SFMOMA in 2003, this contact sheet was on display and the San Francisco Chronicle ran a profile of the boy in the photo. For more background, there's a wiki entry and the contact sheet in the "Revelations" book (archive.org with login).

For Arbus detractors this is evidence that she's showing a subject in an unflattering split-second with a demonic expression. I'm in the opposite camp - the contact sheet shows Arbus working with a subject and then plucking the most interesting photograph. Arbus isn't assembling a "freak show" (Sontag), but instead allowing people to show their freak.

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Verso side of Diane Arbus photographs sold at Christies:

Identical twins, (Cathleen and Colleen), Roselle, New Jersey, 1966 ($1,197,000, 14 May 2024)

Identical twins, (Cathleen and Colleen), Roselle, New Jersey, 1966 ($630,000, 27 Feb 2025)

Mr. Peanut in Times Square, N.Y. C., 1956 ($75,600)

Young couple on a bench in Washington Square Park, N.Y.C., 1965 ($13,860)

Triplets in their bedroom, NJ, 1963 ($40,320)

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"I was twelve when Diane Arbus photographed me for Town and Country magazine in 1962. I liked her, but she really took her time over the shoot, about three hours! I felt really cornered and desperate by the end . However in the portrait she managed to capture some of the unease and ambivalence I had been feeling about growing up in a gilded cage." - Penelope Tree's instagram

Penelope Tree in her Living Room, New York City, Photo by Diane Arbus, 1962

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Diane Arbus, Marcel Duchamp and his wife, Alexina Sattler, at home, N.Y.C. 1965

Neil Selkirk, Don DeLillo, n.d.

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LaToya Ruby Frazier, Momme Silhouettes, 2010

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The Crowded Vacancy: Three Los Angeles Photographers

A review of the 1971 exhibit in Artforum.  Photos by Mausoleum Books, which notes 700 copies of the book were printed.

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Masahisa Fukase

- From Window

1973