Retired man and his wife at home in a nudist camp one morning, N.J.
Arbus’s interest in the tension between revelation and concealment comes into starkest focus in the portraits she made at Sunshine Park, a family nudist camp in New Jersey. While nudism might be considered the ultimate form of exposure, it often required a different kind of cover-up. As the artist remarked in an unpublished article written for Esquire magazine in 1966: "For many of these people, their presence here is the darkest secret of their lives, unsuspected by relatives, friends, and employers in the outside world, the disclosure of which might bring disgrace."
Artwork Details
- Title: Retired man and his wife at home in a nudist camp one morning, N.J.
- Artist: Diane Arbus (American, New York 1923–1971 New York)
- Date: 1963
- Medium: Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions: Image: 39.9 × 37.9 cm (15 11/16 × 14 15/16 in.)
- Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Purchase, Joyce Frank Menschel, and Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee Gifts; Louis V. Bell, Harris Brisbane Dick, Fletcher, and Rogers Funds and Joseph Pulitzer Bequest; and Marlene Nathan Meyerson Family Foundation, Twentieth-Century Photography Fund, Diana Barrett and Robert Vila, Elizabeth S. and Robert J. Fisher, Charlotte and Bill Ford, Lita Annenberg Hazen Charitable Trust and Hazen Polsky Foundation Inc., Jennifer and Joseph Duke, Jennifer and Philip Maritz, Saundra B. Lane, The Jerry and Emily Spiegel Family Foundation and Pamela and Arthur Sanders, Anonymous, and The Judith Rothschild Foundation Gifts, 2007
- Object Number: 2007.506
- Rights and Reproduction: © The Estate of Diane Arbus
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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Diane Arbus
1961
Diane Arbus
1971
Diane Arbus
1959
Diane Arbus
Stewart Stern
ca. August–September 1968
Diane Arbus
ca. 1965
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