Two friends in the park, N.Y.C.

Diane Arbus

1965 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

This photograph is part of a series of portraits Arbus made in Washington Square Park during the summer of 1965. She later remarked that the park’s inhabitants included rival but permeable factions: "There were young hippie junkies down one row. There were lesbians down another, really tough amazingly hard-core lesbians. And in the middle were winos. They were like the first echelon and the girls who came from the Bronx to become hippies would have to sleep with the winos to get to sit on the other part with the junkie hippies." While which faction the couple depicted here is affiliated with remains an open question—as does their gender and the nature of their relationship—their confidence in the photographer and themselves is unmistakable.

Artist

Diane Arbus

Date

1965

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Purchase, Alfred Stieglitz Society Gifts, 2016