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Screaming woman with blood on her hands

Diane Arbus American
1961
Not on view
In the late 1950s Arbus created a little-known body of work in and around the movie houses of Times Square. Around this time, she also photographed such amusement parks as Coney Island and Disneyland, temples of illusion that offered a kind of ready-made American mythology. In these mass entertainments, Arbus first discerned elements of the fantastic and grotesque that she would later unearth throughout American society in her celebrated portraits of sideshow performers, nudists, and transvestites. This darkly funny picture also prefigures the work of artists of the 1980s who examined the strategies and effects of media imagery.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Screaming woman with blood on her hands
  • Artist: Diane Arbus (American, New York 1923–1971 New York)
  • Date: 1961
  • Medium: Gelatin silver print
  • Dimensions: Image: 7 1/16 × 10 1/2 in. (18 × 26.6 cm)
    Sheet: 7 1/16 × 10 1/2 in. (18 × 26.6 cm)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Purchase, The Buhl Foundation Inc. Gift, 1996
  • Object Number: 1996.299
  • Rights and Reproduction: © The Estate of Diane Arbus
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

More Artwork

More Artwork
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Woman with bangs, N.Y.C., Diane Arbus American, Gelatin silver print
Woman with bangs, N.Y.C.
Diane Arbus
1961
Couple in their living room hugging, Diane Arbus American, Gelatin silver print
Couple in their living room hugging
Diane Arbus
1971
Blonde female impersonator framed in a mirror beneath a light bulb, N.Y.C., Diane Arbus American, Gelatin silver print
Blonde female impersonator framed in a mirror beneath a light bulb, N.Y.C.
Diane Arbus
1959
[Diane Arbus Typewritten Letter to Stewart Stern]
Diane Arbus
Stewart Stern
ca. August–September 1968
[Diane Arbus Self-Portrait in an Automated Photobooth]
Diane Arbus
ca. 1965

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