Diane Arbus — photographer with roots in the Russian Empire
Diane Arbus was born Diane Nemerov in New York City on 14 March 1923, the middle child of David Nemerov and Gertrude Russek Nemerov. Her connection to the Russian Empire runs through her father's family: David Nemerov was the son of a Russian Jewish immigrant. Published sources do not name that grandfather or the town he came from.
Her mother's father, Frank Russek, a Polish-Jewish immigrant, had co-founded Russeks, a fur store that, with David Nemerov's help, grew into a women's clothing store on Fifth Avenue. David rose from window dresser to merchandising director and finally chairman, and after retiring took up painting. The family's wealth insulated the children from the Depression; they grew up in large apartments on Central Park West and Park Avenue, largely in the care of maids and governesses. Her elder brother, Howard Nemerov, became a poet and was twice Poet Laureate of the United States, and her younger sister, Renee, a sculptor and designer.
At thirteen she met Allan Arbus, who worked in the store's advertising department and was the nephew of David Nemerov's predecessor as president of Russeks, and they married when she was eighteen. In the early 1940s her father hired the couple to photograph for the store's advertisements, and in 1946 they opened a commercial studio, Diane & Allan Arbus, with Allan at the camera and Diane as art director and stylist, working for fashion magazines. She later left the partnership to pursue her own photography.
She photographed people at the margins of American life and in its ordinary rituals. Pictures such as Identical Twins, A young man in curlers and A Jewish giant at home with his parents became among the best-known photographs of the period. In 1967 John Szarkowski included her in the exhibition New Documents at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She became friends with Richard Avedon, whose family had also run a Fifth Avenue store.
She died in New York in 1971, aged forty-eight. A monograph, Diane Arbus, was published by Aperture in 1972, and her daughters Doon and Amy Arbus continued, respectively, in writing and photography.
Tracing the roots — Russian Empire (paternal grandfather; town not documented)
Born Diane Nemerov in New York in 1923. Her father, David Nemerov, chairman of the Fifth Avenue store Russeks, was the son of a Russian Jewish immigrant; the grandfather's name and town are not recorded. Her mother's father, Frank Russek, who co-founded the store, was a Polish-Jewish immigrant.
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Russian Empire (paternal grandfather; town not documented). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.
A career defined by ambition
"A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know."