Interesting fact I found while recently in NYC. Small time book dealer from Philadelphia purchased a collection of old photos in 2003 in Brooklyn. Some of them were depictions of obese women in Tutu’s and dancers with pythons stuff the american writer Greil Marcus calls “Old Weird America”.
Turns out many were Arbus’s she used to frequent Hubert’s Dime Freak Show in the 1960’s. It was located in Times Square but has since disappeared. Bob Dylan and Tom Wolfe also used see the odd (ha) show.
Check out this book recently published by Gregory Gibson
Hubert’s Freaks: The Rare Book Dealer, The Times Square Talker and the Lost Photos of Diane Arbus.
Its a good read about freaks, curators, underground history and Arbus.
A Southeby’s Action sold one of here works in 2004 for just under half a million.
Susan Sontag in On Photography wrote ” the most striking aspect of Arbus’s work is that she seems to have enrolled in one of art photography’s most vigorous enterprises – concentrating on victims, on the unfortunate – but with compassionate, purpose that such a project is expected to serve.”
