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Diane Arbus — Lady bartender at home with a souvenir dog, New Orleans
Diane Arbus

Lady bartender at home with a souvenir dog, New Orleans

A solitary woman stands in the intimate space of her home, her proud yet weathered expression anchored by the peculiar presence of a novelty souvenir dog at her side. Arbus captures the quiet tension between the woman's public identity as a bartender and the private world she inhabits, rendered in the stark, unflinching tonal contrasts characteristic of the artist's gelatin silver process. The image, printed posthumously by Neil Selkirk, preserves Arbus's signature ability to find profound dignity and strangeness in the overlooked corners of American life.

Medium
Gelatin silver print, printed later by Neil Selkirk.

🔨 Auction Lot

Photographs

April 3, 2013

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About this work

Diane Arbus, Lady bartender at home with a souvenir dog, New Orleans

A solitary woman stands in the intimate space of her home, her proud yet weathered expression anchored by the peculiar presence of a novelty souvenir dog at her side. Arbus captures the quiet tension between the woman's public identity as a bartender and the private world she inhabits, rendered in the stark, unflinching tonal contrasts characteristic of the artist's gelatin silver process. The image, printed posthumously by Neil Selkirk, preserves Arbus's signature ability to find profound dignity and strangeness in the overlooked corners of American life.

Medium
Gelatin silver print, printed later by Neil Selkirk.
Seen at
Phillips, New York, London, Hong Kong

Related themes

Photography, Quirky, 20th Century, Documentary, American, Gelatin Silver Print, Portrait, Figurative, Black and White, Contemporary

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