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Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park

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Arbus' Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C. 1962
Arbus' contact sheet from the photo shoot

Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C. 1962 (1962) is a famous black and white photograph by Diane Arbus.

Significance

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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.

The contact sheet[1] is "revealing with regards to Arbus' working method. She engages with the boy while moving around him, saying she was trying to find the right angle. The sequence of shots she took depicts a really quite ordinary boy who just shows off for the camera. However, the published single image belies this by concentrating on a freakish posture - an editorial choice typical for Arbus who would invariably pick the most expressive image, thereby frequently suggesting an extreme situation."[2] The boy in the photograph is Colin Wood, son of tennis player Sidney Wood.[3][4] An interview with Colin, with his recollections about the photograph, is presented in the BBC documentary The Genius of Photography.

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.[3]

She catches me in a moment of exasperation. It's true, I was exasperated. My parents had divorced and there was a general feeling of loneliness, a sense of being abandoned. I was just exploding. She saw that and it's like...commiseration. She captured the loneliness of everyone. It's all people who want to connect but don't know how to connect. And I think that's how she felt about herself. She felt damaged and she hoped that by wallowing in that feeling, through photography, she could transcend herself.

— Colin Wood[3]

History

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The photograph was displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in 1967 under the title Exasperated Boy with Toy Hand Grenade in the New Documents exhibition, a three-person show featuring works by Arbus, Lee Friedlander, and Garry Winogrand.[5][6]

The photograph was published in the Time-Life book The Camera (1970).[7][8]

The photograph has seven known original prints by Arbus, one of which sold in April 2005 at Christie's in New York for US$408,000 (equivalent to $637,000 in 2023).[9] Posthumous prints from the original negative have been made by Neil Selkirk, authorized by the Arbus estate.[10]

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Soon after writing the song "Teach Your Children" in 1968, Graham Nash associated its message about nonviolence with Arbus's photo in a San Francisco gallery.[11][12][13] The photograph was used, without permission, on the first version of the cover of Canadian punk band SNFU's 1984 album And No One Else Wanted to Play after the band "found the picture in the library."[14] The image is also used on the cover of American indie rock band Cloud Cult's debut album Who Killed Puck?.

The director John Waters, who had just completed the film Hairspray, sat for a promotional documentary about himself entitled, "Growing Up with John Waters," and immediately tells the off-camera interviewer "...that picture is exactly how I felt as a child… I don’t mean that in a bad way, that kid’s having fun…” and that he “really identified” with child in the photograph. Waters prefaces this by saying that the documentary crew will "never get to show it cause her estate is very, very picky. I promise you, they'll never give you the rights to show it." The filmmakers, in fact, were able show the photo.[15]

In a 1989 interview with Fresh Air, within the same year The Simpsons began airing, creator Matt Groening stated that the character of Bart Simpson was partially inspired by the photograph.[16]

Collections

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ Published in Diane Arbus: Revelations, 2003, p. 164, and online in the article "Paris Photo 6: Diane Arbus à la galerie Robert Miller". 2006. Archived from the original on 12 May 2016.
  2. ^ Bissell, Gerhard (2006). "Arbus, Diane". Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon (World Biographical Dictionary of Artists)., and "Diane Arbus" (condensed English version).
  3. ^ a b c Segal, David. "Double Exposure: a Moment With Diane Arbus Created a Lasting Impression." Washington Post, May 12, 2005. Retrieved February 3, 2010.
  4. ^ Hart, Hugh. Post-Developments. For the Subject of Arbus' 'Child with a Toy Hand Grenade,' Life Was Forever Altered at the Click of a Shutter. San Francisco Chronicle, October 19, 2003. Retrieved February 7, 2010.
  5. ^ Philip Gefter (22 March 2017). "The Exhibit That Transformed Photography". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2 October 2022.
  6. ^ "New Documents" (PDF) (Press release). Museum of Modern Art. 28 February 1967. Retrieved 2 October 2022.
  7. ^ Life Library of Photography: The Camera. Time-Life Books. 1970. p. 222.
  8. ^ Robert B. Stevens (1 September 1977). "The Diane Arbus Bibliography" (PDF). Exposure. Society for Photographic Education: 15. Retrieved 2 October 2022.
  9. ^ Pitman, Joanna (1 November 2005). "Vintage Photography: the Market for Photographs Has Grown Rapidly Since the 1980s". Apollo. Retrieved 7 February 2010.
  10. ^
  11. ^ "Graham Nash On Diane Arbus's Child With A Toy Hand Grenade In Central Park, N.Y.C., 1962 | Aperture | Fall 2009". Aperture | The Complete Archive. Retrieved 4 February 2025.
  12. ^ "Listening post | The San Diego Union-Tribune". web.archive.org. 17 July 2011. Retrieved 4 February 2025.
  13. ^ Reverb (18 September 2017). Graham Nash "Teach Your Children" Live | Reverb Song Stories. Retrieved 4 February 2025 – via YouTube.
  14. ^ "Punk History Canada :: Gallery :: Album Covers :: Original Source of image from SNFU - Nobody Else Wnated to Play". web.archive.org. 27 September 2007. Retrieved 4 February 2025.
  15. ^ Opal Crafter (13 January 2013). Growing Up with John Waters (1993). Retrieved 4 February 2025 – via YouTube.
  16. ^ Fresh Air (27 December 2024). Cartoonist Matt Groening on "The Simpsons" (1989 interview) | Fresh Air. Retrieved 4 February 2025 – via YouTube.
  17. ^ "Diane Arbus: Child with a Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C. 1962 1962, printed after 1971" Tate. Accessed 23 November 2016
  18. ^ "Diane Arbus: Child with a Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C. 1962" National Galleries of Scotland. Accessed 23 November 2016
  19. ^ Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C. National Galleries of Scotland. Accessed 23 November 2016
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