Diane Arbus: Social Security

A remarkable archive of never-before-seen photographs and correspondence by Diane Arbus that sheds new light on the working process of a singular American artist.

In the spring of 1969, Diane Arbus spent a week in St. Petersburg, Florida, photographing Americans receiving Social Security benefits. The assignment, commissioned by the Social Security Administration, resulted in an extraordinary but little-known body of work: 1,152 negatives, 178 contact sheets, and four exhibition prints. Unlike Arbus’s celebrated portraits, images that have provoked both admiration and controversy for their unflinching look at American life, these photographs of retirees have remained unseen, and the entire archive has been held at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Diane Arbus: Social Security brings this hidden collection to light for the first time. Presenting Arbus’s images alongside excerpts taken from her travel notes, sitter releases, and correspondence, the book offers an unprecedented view of her working process and her interactions with the people she photographed, underscoring that each subject was an individual—like us all—experiencing life’s joys and tragedies.