A woman passing on the street, N.Y.C. 1971

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Diane Arbus made portraits of people living in and around New York City, developing a recognizably blunt style in which she closely scrutinized her subjects while maintaining a personal distance. Although best known for photographing those on the margins of society (nudists, muscle men, circus sideshow performers, and the mentally infirm), she also photographed adolescents on the streets, middle-class families, and the social elite. Through picturing such a wide range of people, Arbus rendered the seemingly strange common and familiar.