This is one of the most significant photographic images in the history of fine art photography,” she added, noting that the image is colored by the spirit of the 1960s and the escalation of the Vietnam War.

Arbus's curiosity made her search for an unseen world, as she said of her upbringing, "the outside world was so far from us," and this led her to develop a kinship to the underrepresented, the misunderstood, and the strange. These thoughts transfixed her and preoccupied her mind for the rest of her career. She openly called her subjects on the fringes of society, "freaks", which in her eyes, was not derogatory. She said that, "(freaks) don't have to go through life dreading what may happen, it's already happened. They've passed their test. They're aristocrats." These individuals were stigmatized in their public life, but through photography, become the source of wonder and fascination for an audience to gaze infinitely.

Anthony Bannon, “The Biography Diane Arbus Always Deserved,” The Buffalo News, June 26, 2016, https://buffalonews.com/lifestyles/the-biography-diane-arbus-always-des….

According to The Washington Post, Colin does not specifically remember Arbus taking the photo, but that he was likely "imitating a face I'd seen in war movies, which I loved watching at the time." Later, as a teenager, he was angry at Arbus for "making fun of a skinny kid with a sailor suit", though he enjoys the photograph now. Follaco, Gala. A Sense of the City: Modes of Urban Representation in the Works of Nagai Kafū (1879-1959). Leiden: Brill, 2017. Around 1968, it became evident to Arbus that she would need other sources of income beyond photographic journalism to sustain herself. Her magazine publications dwindled as her work appeared less imaginative. To earn more money, she reluctantly began teaching college photography courses at Parsons and at Cooper Union and later gave a master class at her home in Westbeth. At this same time, she also grew restless of her camera materials and often wrote about losing her fondness of flash photography that once amazed her. The photograph Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C. 1962, by Diane Arbus, shows a boy, with the left strap of his shorts hanging off his shoulder, tensely holding his long, stringy, thin arms by his side. Clenched in his right hand is a toy replica hand grenade (an Mk 2 "Pineapple"), his left hand is held in a claw-like gesture, and his facial expression is maniacal. American photographer Diane Arbus was born on March 14, 1923. Known for her images of individuals on the fringes of society, including dwarfs, circus performers, the mentally ill, and transgendered persons, Arbus was one of the 20th century’s most provocative artists.Diane Arbus: In the Beginning” is on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third Street, San Francisco, January 21–April 30. Diane Arbus, Child With Toy Hand Grenade, Central Park, NYC, 1962 , is for sale at artnet Auctions, March 14–28, 2017. Arbus found intrigue and conjured beauty in unlikely subjects, and made remarkable portraits of people that were not often deemed "fit" to be in front of the lens of a camera. She sought out unique characters on the fringes of society for her work, and said to this, "I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them." This went a long way from the art that is often thought to be reserved only for the aesthetically pleasing, as opposed to showing the "real" or "true" world. Biographer Arthur Lubow writes of a time Diane recollected being a girl at summer camp, when all of the other girls were bitten by leeches, and she was disappointed she had not: “She complained that she had rarely felt anything in her entire life. She was untouched by the ordinary joys and pains that make people feel alive. This was her prison.” Does Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park say more about Diane Arbus than the subject of the photograph?

This photograph is of Nat and June Tarnapol, a successful agent and publisher in the pop music business and his well-coiffed wife. When Arbus stopped June in a bookstore to ask her to sit for a photograph, it was because she was impeccably dressed. Arbus wrote, "...she suggested I wait until warm weather so I can do it [photograph] around the pool!" Yet, Arbus did not want to recreate an idyllic family portrait. Once photographing the wealthy family at their home in the New York suburbs, Arbus spent almost eight hours shooting the family. Her truth-by-exhaustion technique made her ultimate photo far more interesting. It is a powerful statement confirming that traditional family roles can be stifling. Her cathartic uncovering of this sense gave rise to a bold photographic narrative that became the emblematic and diarist project detailing Arbus's own life and views. By understanding this image further, one understands how the artist's personal biography can affect the work they seek to produce, which is a theme consistent in Modern and Post-Modern Art. Segal, David. "Double Exposure." The Washington Post, May 12, 2005, https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/11/AR2005…. Masters of Photography: Diane Arbus (Creative Arts Television Archive, Contemporary Arts Media (distributor), 1972). A print of the iconic photograph was recently on view here in New York, at the Met Breuer’s exhibition “Diane Arbus: In the Beginning” (July 12–November 27,2016). A critically-acclaimed overview of the first seven years of the photographer’s career, the show is currently on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. To mark what would have been her 94th birthday, artnet Auctions is offering a print of Child With Toy Hand Grenade, Central Park, NYC, 1962, one of her most famous images. A skinny young boy, named Colin Wood, is shown in Central Park, a perturbed look on his face as he clutches a toy grenade in his hand.There is also controversy over Arbus's relationships with her subjects. In one infamous series, a number of photos focus on an interracial couple, but one of the photos includes a nude Arbus on top of the man. This series, and related rumors of Arbus's modus operandi have different interpretations: maybe she was engaged in an orgy with this couple, or maybe she always stripped nude when photographing nudists, or it might have been her way to make the couple more comfortable. All of this, of course, sums up to an artist that is very provocative and regularly gets re-interpreted in the age of post-modern art - a time of art-making that accepts and embraces a number of these practices (that Arbus may or may not have pioneered). The following are excerpts from Sartle's upcoming book Art's Mind: The Creative Lives and Mental Health of Famous Artists, written by Kathryn Vercillo: Keep collections to yourself or inspire other shoppers! Keep in mind that anyone can view public collections—they may also appear in recommendations and other places. Despite this admitted numbness to joy and pain, Diane Arbus had a striking ability to pull the drama out of any situation and illuminate it through portrait photography. One of her most famous photographs, Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park, NYC is exemplary of this skill. The photograph is a powerful image of a knobby-kneed, dirt-stained boy holding a plastic grenade in the park, his mouth set into a grim, serious expression and his eyes bursting wildly out from the image. Author Deborah Nelson explains how this photograph was number eight in a set of eleven that Diane took of the boy, none of which were particularly remarkable, except for this one. In all of the other images, he looks like a normal, happy little boy playing in the park. In the photo she chose to print and publish, he looks entirely different. Perhaps this wildness reflects his true self, and Arbus was only able to capture it in one frame. Or perhaps the boy is a symbol, representative of a certain excitement or intensity Arbus was seeking from life and from the people that she encountered.