American photographer Diane Arbus was a pioneer of documentary photography, having over the course of her career created intimate and raw images capturing the full spectrum of everyday culture in postwar America. Her artworks are notable for their candor and honesty, often featuring intimately posed subjects inside their routine surroundings or private spaces. She was particularly interested in groups living on the fringes of society, including drag performers and carnival entertainers. Describing her photographs, Arbus once wrote, “They are proof that something was there and no longer is. Like a stain. And the stillness of them is boggling. You can turn away but when you come back they’ll still be there looking at you.”¹

–Ben Rybczynski, from the Glenstone Field Guide

¹ Diane Arbus Revelations, p. 226. Originally part of a letter to Davis Pratt, Fogg Museum, Cambridge, March 15, 1971, in response to a request for a brief statement about photographs.