A Family On Their Lawn One Sunday in Westchester, New York

Diane ArbusWW-1968-120073

1968·Gelatin silver print·38.4 × 38.2 cm (15 1/8 × 15 1/16 in.)

<p>Throughout her career, photographer Diane Arbus demonstrated a gift for capturing the unusual and<br>eccentric in a compelling, thoughtful manner. This now–iconic photograph was originally included in a photo–essay, “Two American Families,” published in the London Sunday Times Magazine. In a letter to her editor, Arbus described encountering the woman pictured here in a bookstore: “I said I wanted to photograph her with husband and children so she suggested I wait till warm weather so I can do it around the pool! . . . They are a fascinating family. I think all families are creepy in a way.” Part of the caption for the image, based on Arbus’s corresponence, reads, “The parents seem to be dreaming the child and the child seems to be inventing them.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1968
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions: 38.4 × 38.2 cm (15 1/8 × 15 1/16 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Diane Arbus

Artist

Diane Arbus

Photography

Diane Arbus was an American photographer. She photographed a wide range of subjects including strippers, carnival performers, nudists, people with dwarfism, children, mothers, couples, elderly people, and middle-class families. She photographed her subjects in familiar settings: their homes, on the street, in the workplace, in the park. "She is noted for expanding notions of acceptable subject matter and violates canons of the appropriate distance between photographer and subject. By befriending, not objectifying her subjects, she was able to capture in her work a rare psychological intensity."

New York, NY, USA

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