Photographic Memory : Adams v. Arbus

Article by Patrick Simons

The iconic photographs of Ansel Adams have become synonymous with the preservation of the American West. Adam’s photography, along with his exceptional writing skills, made an invaluable contribution to the expansion of the National Park System. If Adam’s photography served to elevate the collective consciousness, the work of Diane Arbus delivered a cold slap in the face. Arbus had no majestic landscapes. Arbus sought out the strange, the unconventional and the down right weird. In her own words, Arbus photographed freaks.

Although Adams was older than Arbus by twenty-one years; he survived her by thirteen years thus, making them contemporaries of a sort. They had a number of things in common including, being born into upper class families. Adams’ grandfather founded a successful timber business. Arbus’ grandfather founded a successful New York City fur store. In neither case did family money make it down to them. They were both totally devoted to their craft. They each produced their best work in black and white. They both became major forces, not just in photographic circles, but on the American art scene as a whole.

Adams was born in San Francisco in 1902. One of the more notable childhood events involved his being thrown into a wall by an aftershock of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, and receiving a broken nose in the process. His doctor recommended the nose be reset when Adams reached maturity, but this was never to happen, and he went through life with his nose distinctly bent. Adams was a highly intelligent, lively, inquisitive, but unruly child. His inability to concentrate resulted in his dismissal from a number of private schools. His father, recognizing his son’s inherent gifts, removed young Ansel from school at the age of twelve and assumed personal responsibility for the boy’s education. Charles Adams, his aunt Mary Adams, and private tutors provided the bulk of Ansel Adams education. A less perceptive father might have very well set him on a very different path in life.

Diane Arbus, born Diane Nemerov in 1923, grew up in a large apartment on Central Park West in New York City. Her father managed the fur store founded by her maternal grandfather, expanding it into a successful Fifth Avenue department store. David Nemerov was often away on business and Diane’s mother, Gertrude, suffered recurring bouts of depression. These factors, combined with the family’s wealth, added to her sense of being insulated from the larger world. Diane showed early promise as a painter yet, after being praised for her work, put down her brushes never to paint again. Diane Nemerov did not consider anything that was easy, to be worth doing. At the age of thirteen she met Allan Arbus, an employee in the advertising department of her father’s store. From that moment the life of Diane Nemerov was focused on marrying Allen Arbus. Diane resisted her parent’s pleas that she pursue higher education and, with their reluctant consent, married Allan Arbus when she turned eighteen.

At the age of twelve, Ansel Adams began to teach himself to read music and play the piano. He became so adept, his father saw to it that he receive the best tutoring available. His photographic memory and ferocious drive seemed to have set him on a musical course. However, a family vacation to Yosemite National Park in 1916 was to have a profound impact on the young Adams’ choice of career. His father had given him a Kodak Brownie box camera for the trip and it proved to be a life changing event. Adams returned to Yosemite the following year with a better camera and a tripod. He joined the Sierra Club at the age of seventeen and would remain a member for the rest of his life, serving as a board member for thirty-seven years. Adams began learning the dark room skills that would make him world famous by working part time for a San Francisco photo finisher. Teaming with a retired geologist, named Frank Holman, Adams spent summers hiking in the high Sierras. These extended hikes with Homan helped Adams develop the strength and stamina that would prove so valuable in the great work to come.

With the outbreak of World War II, Allan Arbus entered the U.S. Army Signal Corp and trained as a photographer. The Arbuses utilized these skills to found a highly successful fashion photography business after the war Diane’s father was as a major client. Throughout the early 1950’s Allan and Diane Arbus did work for all the leading fashion publications of the day. This continued until 1956 when Diane decided she could no longer do fashion photography. She was supported in this decision by her husband. Their marriage would outlive their business relationship by just three years. By this time Diane was taking photography classes at The New School, and had begun her collaboration with Lisette Model. Model played an important role in helping Arbus overcome her insecurities and find her own artistic vision.

The foundation had thus been laid for two remarkable artists to pursue their respective visions. Adams was to divide his time between traveling the American west and New York City, where Alfred Stieglitz displayed Adams’ photographs in his gallery. Stieglitz, the reigning master of American photography, gave Adams’s work invaluable exposure. Additionally, through Stieglitz Adams made the acquaintance of many prominent figures in the American art community, including Stieglitz’s wife, Georgia O’Keeffe. His exuberant personality, and ability as a pianist, won Adams many friends. Arbus, meanwhile, with the urging of Lisette Model, began seeking out her own subject matter. Arbus was drawn to society’s oddest people. Arbus said, “Most people go through life dreading they’ll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma, and they’ve already passed their test in life. They’re aristocrats.” Norman Mailer was quoted as saying, ‘Giving a camera to Diane Arbus is like giving a hand grenade to a baby.”

Throughout their respective careers, both Adams and Arbus did commercial work to make ends meet. Adams accepted commissions form The Sierra Club and the National Park Service among others and, in addition, wrote extensively for several photographic publications. Arbus produced many commercial portraits for Harpers Bazaar, Esquire and other magazines, and by the mid 1960’s her work had begun taking on the distinctive look that would mark her as an artist. They both viewed commercial work as a distraction from their true artistic vision. Adams was known to complain that his contractual obligations left him little time for anything else.

That Ansel Adams created magnificent images is undeniable, but it was the incredible difficulty involved in getting them, that sets his work apart. A full day of hiking, with his heavy, large format camera, might yield no more than five photographs. Taking the pictures was only the beginning. Adams developed his own negatives and made his own prints, often printing images over and over to get the desired result. Not until late in his career did Adams delegate the printing of his images to an assistant and, even then, he personally signed off on each copy. Diane Arbus had her own set of difficulties. Arbus visited sleazy hotels, carnivals, asylums and nudist camps. In addition to the riveting images she created, Diane Arbus had an amazing ability to win the trust of her subjects, often maintaining contact with them for years. I cannot imagine either artist doing what the other accomplished. Can anyone imagine Ansel Adams in a nudist camp? Diane Arbus died by her own hand in 1971 at the age of forty-eight. Ansel Adams died in 1984 at the age of eighty-two. As so often happens, their works have soared in value following their passing. They have each come in for the predictable criticism. Arbus was accused of ‘voyeurism’, and using shock simply for the sake of shock. Adams was accused of having a lack of imagination. Personally, I view this criticism of Adams as being in the same vein as art critics who criticize people who can actually draw. If the images of Diane Arbus were merely voyeuristic and shocking they would have, long since, faded into obscurity. However, nearly forty years after her passing, the images of Diane Arbus continue to captivate. If Adams created works of self evident truth, the central message I take away from the work of Diane Arbus is; ‘This too is reality’.

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