An Emergency in Slow Motion: The Inner Life of Diane Arbus

Description

The woman behind the camera that changed art forever. Diane Arbus took her own life at forty-eight, leaving photographs that altered how we see. In this penetrating 2011 study, psychologist-biographer William Todd Schultz goes beyond the legend to reveal the creative and personal struggles of photography’s most enigmatic figure.

In the spirit of Janet Malcolm’s classic on Sylvia Plath, Schultz combines new revelations with breathtaking psychological insight — exploring how Arbus’s inner life, her demons, desires, and defiance, shaped the haunting images that made her famous. This is not just biography but a portrait of creativity itself: where it comes from, what it costs, why some artists see what the rest of us cannot bear to look at — and what that vision costs them.

Essential for photography lovers, art students, and anyone fascinated by the bond between genius and suffering — a must-read psychological portrait of an American original.

Diane Arbus took her own life at forty-eight — and the photographs she left behind changed art forever. But who was the woman behind the camera? In An Emergency in Slow Motion: The Inner Life of Diane Arbus (Bloomsbury, 2011), psychologist and biographer William Todd Schultz goes beyond the legend to reveal the creative and personal struggles of one of photography’s most enigmatic figures.

In the spirit of Janet Malcolm’s classic examination of Sylvia Plath, The Silent Woman, Schultz combines new revelations with breathtaking psychological insight, exploring how Arbus’s inner life — her demons, her desires, her defiance — shaped the haunting images that made her famous. This is not just a biography but a portrait of creativity itself: where it comes from, what it costs, and why some artists see what the rest of us cannot bear to look at.

Essential reading for photography lovers, art students, and anyone fascinated by the connection between genius and suffering, An Emergency in Slow Motion is a must-read psychological portrait of an American original.