When Diane Arbus died in 1971 at the age of 48, she was already a significant influence--even something of a legend--for serious photographers, although only a relatively small number of her most important pictures were widely known at the time. The publication of Diane Arbus: An Aperture Monograph in 1972--along with a posthumous retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art--offered the general public its first encounter with the breadth and power of her achievements. The response was unprecedented. The monograph, composed of 80 photographs, was edited and designed by the painter Marvin...

Untitled is the only volume of Diane Arbus' work devoted exclusively to a single project. The photographs were taken at residences for the mentally retarded between 1969 and 1971, in the last years of Arbus' life. Although she considered making a book on the subject, the vast majority of these pictures have remained unpublished until now. These photographs achieve a lyricism and an emotional purity that sets them apart from all her other accomplishments: "Finally what I've been searching for," she wrote at the time. The product of her consistently unflinching regard for reality as she...