The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C.

Art Object

Faking It Symposium: Welcome and Introduction

The symposium "Truth, Lies, and Photographs" was presented in conjunction with the exhibition Faking It: Manipulated Photography before Photoshop, on view October 11, 2012, through January 27, 2013. In this introduction, Mia Fineman, Assistant Curator in the Department of Photographs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, provides a brief overview of the history of manipulated photography, and gives contemporary examples of images created using Photoshop.

Part One of Seven

Recorded November 2, 2012

The exhibition is made possible by Adobe.
This program is made possible by Joyce Frank Menschel.

Video/Audio (1)

James Nares: Street
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Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C.

Diane Arbus (American, 1923–1971)

Date:: 1962
Medium:: Gelatin silver print
Dimensions:: Image: 39.5 x 38.3 cm (15 9/16 x 15 1/16 in.) Sheet: 50.8 x 40.6 cm (20 x 16 in.)
Classification:: Photographs
Credit Line:: Purchase, Jennifer and Joseph Duke Gift, 2001
Accession Number:: 2001.474

This artwork is not on display

Description

An iconic image that embodies the awkward tension between childhood tomfoolery and primal violence, this has become one of the most celebrated photographs in the history of the medium. America's historic transition from the complacent isolationism of the 1950s to the sociopolitical turmoil that would emerge in the late 1960s and 1970s seems to seethe beneath the surface of this image, underscoring Arbus' prescience and intuitive understanding of her time.
Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Inscription: Stamped, verso TL: "ALL RIGHTS RESERVED // This image may not be reproduced in any // way whatsoever without written permission // from The Estate of Diane Arbus"; stamped, verso TC: "Copyright © 19_____" with "72" handwritten in ink above the line; stamped, verso TR: "a diane arbus print" with "#1341-10-11U-1620" inscribed in ink in Doon Arbus's hand // "doon arbus administrator" with Doon Arbus's signature in ink; inscribed in pencil, verso BL: "9509.065"; MoMA registration number inscribed in pencil, verso BR: "72.496" and "50 [circled]"
Provenance

Estate of Diane Arbus; [Robert Miller Gallery, New York]
See also
Who
Diane Arbus (130)
What
Photographs (32,550)

Gelatin silver prints (8,690)
Where
North and Central America (81,404)

United States (78,109)
When
A.D. 1900-present (77,516)
In the Museum
Photographs (29,384)
Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
The New Documentary Tradition in Photography

The United States and Canada, 1900 A.D.–present
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Faking It Symposium: Welcome and Introduction

Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C.

Diane Arbus (American, 1923–1971)

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Faking It Symposium: Welcome and Introduction

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Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C.

Diane Arbus (American, 1923–1971)

Met Media

Met Kids

Met Store