An artist who changed our conception of the portrait, Diane Arbus (1923-71) used her photography to document children and eccentrics, couples and circus performers, female impersonators and nudists, and many of these pictures are among the most recognizable images of our time. Drawn primarily from the holdings of the Metropolitan Museum's Diane Arbus Archive, this book showcases over 100 of the artist's early photographs, more than half of which are published here for the first time. Focusing on her first seven years of work, the book provides a crucial, in-depth presentation of the artist's genesis, showing Arbus as she developed her evocative and often haunting imagery.