Identical Twins by Diane Arbus - Story Behind the Iconic Photograph

“There are and have been and will be an infinite number of things on Earth. Individuals all different, all wanting different things, all knowing different things, all loving different things, all looking different… . That is what I love: the differentness.”

Hello, photography fans! Two weeks ago I posted a video about Diane Arbus, one of America’s best-known and also most controversial photographers. Today I would like to talk about perhaps her most famous photograph, “Identical Twins.”  If you have not seen my previous video or you are not familiar with Diane Arbus, feel free to check it out. So, let’s get started and let’s talk about the photograph.

The black and white photograph I would like to talk about today is called “Identical Twins” and was taken in Roselle, New Jersey in 1967. Arbus met the twins at a Knights of Columbus hall during a Christmas party for twins and triplets. Even though no one actually knew how she got there. The photo has been described as creepy, freakish or haunting.

Arbus was known to photograph “different” subjects, outsiders, or people on the fringes of society. The great recurring theme of her work is a sense of otherness and that is also something we see in this photograph.  The girls are the same, but different. We can see the photo was shot at a waist-level, so perhaps shot with her Rolleiflex medium format twin-lens reflex that she was using. They are both looking straight into the camera, which is also one of the signature styles for Arbus’s portraits. It was perhaps the isolation against the wall that made them look like the only two children in the room.

Seven-year-old sisters Cathleen and Colleen Wade were attending a Christmas party where they met Diane Arbus. They wore almost the same clothes except their white stockings. When you look at the photograph for the first time it is pretty clear, at least for me, that the girls are identical twins. However the more you look at them more you see the small differences that make the picture so interesting. Even though they have same green clothes (which appears black in the photograph) and the same haircut, we can clearly see the difference in their facial expression and body language. The girl on the left shows no sign of emotion and looks almost bored, not caring too much, and the other is slightly smiling. We can see their individuality in their body language. The twins' father once said about the photo, "We thought it was the worst likeness of the twins we'd ever seen."

It is safe to say the photo was the most popular one of Diane Arbus. Perhaps that’s why it became an inspiration for many artists; the most famous example is probably Stanley Kubrick’s horror movie The Shining. He saw the abnormality in the sameness and their soulless gaze.

The photograph is said to be one of the most expensive photographs. It was sold in 2004 for 480 thousand dollars. It was also one of Arbus’s favourite photograph that she picked for her only portfolio called A Box of Ten Photographs which was a self-produced collection she put together with Marvin Israel. The current value is estimated at around 5 million dollars.

Unfortunately just like her mother, Arbus suffered from depression as well as hepatitis. She experienced mood swings and her then ex-husband even talked about “violent changes of mood.” It escalated in 1971 when Arbus committed suicide. She was 48 years old.

Today, her works are held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others.