General Histories/Introductory Works
Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, c1977. [Art: TR183 .S65 1977]
This book is comprised of a series of essays first published in The New York Review of Books. Sontag's oft-cited work provides biographical and critical information, often using Arbus's own writing in her discussion. In her chapter "In Plato's Cave," she discusses photography as truth and evidence, and on pages 31-48 she describes Arbus's attention to truth and her fixation with the terrible-terribleness that she found both in Middle America and in the transvestites and freaks that made her reputation.
Tucker, Ann, ed. The Woman's Eye. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973. [Art TR650 .T78 1973]
This is a collection of select works of ten female photographers with short biographical entries. It analyzes the relationships between the art and the sex of its creator, acknowledging that "knowing a photographer's sex influences our judgment of the photographic content and even its value. Also acknowledges that women must overcome economic and societal barriers. A large component of Arbus' work was in crossing those barriers, determined, according to her daughter Doon, "to reveal what others had been taught to turn their backs on." The Arbus essay begins on page 109. While historically not the most comprehensive discussion of Arbus and her work, it is an important item in order for the scholar to experience the general attitude of scholarship towards Arbus a mere two years after her passing.
Rosenblum, Naomi. A History of Women Photographers. New York, NY: Abbeville Press Publishers, 2000. [Art TR139 .R67 2000]
Rosenblum explains in her introduction that she feels that women have not received due consideration in the study of contemporary photography-work done by male scholars, primarily concerning the work of male photographers. Her book provides a broad history of women photographers and their historical and cultural milieus. As well, she provides separate biographical and exhibition histories (p. 309), as well as bibliographical information for what she considers to be important scholarship.
