Description: Untitled is the third volume of Diane Arbus's work and the only one devoted exclusively to a single project. The photographs were taken at residences for the mentally retarded between 1969 and 1971, in the last years of Arbus's life. Although she considered doing a book on the subject, the vast majority of these pictures remained unpublished prior to this volume. These photographs achieve a lyricism, an emotional purity that sets them apart from all her other accomplishments. "Finally what I've been searching for," she wrote at the time. The product of her consistently unflinching regard for reality as she found it, the images in this book have less in common with the documentary than with the mythic. Untitled may well be Arbus's most transcendent, most romantic vision. It is a celebration of the singularity and connectedness of each and every one of us. For Diane Arbus, this is what making pictures was all about.
Brief description:
RICHARD AVEDON (b. 1923) was the editor, with his classmate James Baldwin, of "The Magpie, the literary magazine at De Witt Clinton High School in the Bronx. In 1942 he joined the photography department of the U.S. merchant marine. He was a staff photographer at I>Harper's Bazaar (1951-1965) and "Vogue (1966-1988), and he collaborated with James Baldwin on "Nothing Personal (1964), a book about the civil rights movement. In 1992 he became the first staff photographer at "The New Yorker.
DOON ARBUS (b. 1945) is the author of "Alice in Wonderland: The Forming of a Company, the Making of a Play, and has written for a number of magazines, including "Rolling Stone and "The Nation. Her thirty-year collaboration with Richard Avedon began with the project that has become this book. She is completing her "Unfinished Novel.