Cruel and Tender: The Real in the Twentieth-Century Photograph. 5 June - 7 September 2003

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Diane Arbus
American, 1923-71

Having originally worked as a fashion-photographer, in the late 1950s Arbus began to make more personal work, taking pictures of ‘things which nobody would see unless I photographed them’. She became known for her portraits of people whose appearance or lifestyle placed them at the fringe of conventional society.

 
Thomas Ruff
August Sander
Bernd and
Hilla Becher

Thomas Struth
Fazal Sheikh
Michael Schmidt
Robert Frank
Stephen Shore
Walker Evans
Nicholas Nixon
William Eggleston
  Philip-Lorca diCorcia
Robert Adams
Albert Renger-Patzsch
Lee Friedlander
Lewis Baltz
Paul Graham
Garry Winogrand
Andreas Gursky
Boris Mikhailov
Diane Arbus
Rineke Dijkstra
Martin Parr

In Arbus’ photographs, transvestites, giants and dwarves are presented sympathetically and with dignity, while supposedly ‘normal’ American citizens often appear eccentric or strange. She often used a flash, even in daylight, giving her images a theatrical quality, and placed her subjects in the centre of the frame, in a way that suggests their compliance and participation in the portrait.

 
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