Diane Arbus: In the Beginning opened July 12 at the Met Breuer. Drawing from the Diane Arbus Archive, acquired by the Metropolitan Museum in 2007 from the artist’s daughters, Doon and Amy Arbus, the exhibition focuses on the years 1956 through 1962 and includes mostly images that have never before been exhibited or published. The show will arrive along with the publication of Diane Arbus: Portrait of a Photographer (Ecco), an unauthorized biography by Arthur Lubow, that delves deeply into the connections between Arbus’s work and her life, in interviews with friends, many who have never before spoken about her publicly before.

“The camera is cruel, so I try to be as good as I can to make things even.” –Diane Arbus

Comments here are from The Met’s curator Jeff L. Rosenheim,

“Arbus was particularly sensitive to children. They’re in the process of changing their identities as they grow. She’s at the curb — the curb itself is that liminal stage.”

“We’re in the isolationist ’50s, and here’s a glamorous woman on Fifth Avenue, wearing gloves, with her pocketbook, but with this anxiety on her face.”

“We’re at a street festival, and there’s a theatrical aspect. People are performing for her. They’re having fun.”

“There’s something ambiguous in the woman’s gesture. She could be waving or calling for help.”

“She was often looking in from outside. The street was the pathway to the private world.”

“This is the transition year, when she changed to square format. The receptionist is in a kind of diorama, not one made by the woman but by the culture.”

“This is a shot inside a theater, of a movie called ‘Horrors of the Black Museum.’ The woman is using binoculars and when she focuses, daggers come out and blind her.“

“She’s interested in how we choose our others, how we choose to behave in public.”

(Photos, Diane Arbus/The Estate of Diane Arbus; via The New York Times)