Diane Arbus was born into a privileged, affluent Jewish-American family in New York City on March 14, 1923. Her parents were the proprietors of a business, Russek’s Fur Store. She was a privileged child, living in sizeable apartments on Central Park West. Her material wealth was met with a drawback, however: her father was often away on business, and her mother was depressed. As a result, in her childhood, her parents were almost completely absent from her life.

Like most youth of privilege, Diane found herself combatting her dual existence: on the outside, she had one persona, but on the inside, she felt herself false and invisible, and was lost in reflection on who she really was. In her own words, she said “I grew up feeling immune and exempt from circumstance. One of the things I suffered from was that I never felt adversity. I was confirmed in a sense of unreality.”

In the beginning of her photographic career, she did not take the kinds of photos that would leave her as one of the true trailblazers for the art. Promptly upon turning 18, she told her family she was marrying Allan Arbus, who was also a photographer, studying in the New Jersey Signal Corps.

She would spend a long period of her young life doing advertising and fashion photography, working with her husband and utilizing his connections to gain some respect. The duo’s work was prominent in magazines such as Glamour, Seventeen, and Vogue. What got them especially popular was a picture accredited to them that was in Edward Steichen’s photo exhibit “The Family of Man” in 1955.

Also, in 1955, Diane worked closely with someone who would be her greatest inspiration and role model inlife: Lisette Model. She studied under Model at the new School for Social Research from 1955 to 1957. The two had a close relationship, and Model helped Arbus develop her own style in photography. According to Allan Arbus, “…after three sessions with Model she had become a photographer. It was “as if she was ready to be a photographer and just needed a release–Model provided that release.” Model helped Arbus form the distant, independent style that Arbus would become famous for. A year later, in 1956, Diane decided to stop working with her husband and explore her individual artistic interests. She ended her work at the fashion magazines and looked to make her own name.