Arthur Lubow (born September 18, 1952) is an American journalist who has written for national magazines since 1975 and is the author of ''Diane Arbus: Portrait of a Photographer'' (2016).

Early life and education

Lubow grew up in

the Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

and attended the

Bronx High School of Science The Bronx High School of Science is a State school, public Specialized high schools in New York City, specialized high school in the Bronx in New York City. It is operated by the New York City Department of Education. Admission to Bronx Science ...

. At

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate education, undergraduate college of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Part of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Scienc ...

, from which he graduated in 1974, he was managing editor of ''

The Harvard Crimson ''The Harvard Crimson'' is the student newspaper at Harvard University, an Ivy League university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The newspaper was founded in 1873, and is run entirely by Harvard College undergraduate students. His ...

''. He studied at Cambridge University on a Knox Fellowship from autumn 1974 to spring 1975.

Career

Lubow began his career as a staff writer for ''New Times'', a now defunct general interest biweekly; he wrote there about a wide array of subjects, including New German cinema, genetic engineering and President Ford’s environmental policy. He was a senior writer at ''

People The term "the people" refers to the public or Common people, common mass of people of a polity. As such it is a concept of human rights law, international law as well as constitutional law, particularly used for claims of popular sovereignty. I ...

'' from 1981 to 1985, where his profile subjects included Oliver Sacks, John Travolta, Paul Theroux, Brian Eno and Pauline Kael. A contributing editor at '' Vanity Fair'' from 1985 to 1987, he mainly wrote stories on writers, including Gay Talese, Gore Vidal and Stephen Hawking. When Tina Brown left ''Vanity Fair'' as the editor-in-chief of ''Vanity Fair'' for ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'', he was part of a small group of writers asked to accompany her. He worked as a staff writer at ''The New Yorker'' from 1992 to 1993, and continued thereafter to contribute to the magazine as a freelancer, on subjects that include the playwright Tony Kushner, biographical film projects on Jackson Pollock, and the creation of an advertising campaign for Stolichnaya vodka. From 2002 to 2014, Lubow was a contributing writer at ''

The New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. The magazi ...

'', writing mainly on cultural topics, including the artist Takashi Murakami, the chef Ferran Adria, the conductors Valery Gergiev and Gustavo Dudamel, the composer Arvo Part, the photographer Jeff Wall, the novelist Penelope Fitzgerald, the architects Rem Koolhaas, Thom Mayne, Jean Nouvel and SANAA, and the battle between Yale University and Peru over artifacts from

Machu Picchu Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca citadel located in the Eastern Cordillera of southern Peru on a mountain ridge at . Often referred to as the "Lost City of the Incas", it is the most familiar icon of the Inca Empire. It is located in the ...

. He has also written frequently for ''Smithsonian'', ''Departures'', ''W'' and '' The Threepenny Review''. Lubow wrote the first American feature story on the now legendary English singer-songwriter Nick Drake in 1978. His earlier book, ''The Reporter Who Would Be King: A Biography of Richard Harding Davis'', was published by Scribners in 1992. He has contributed to books on the artist Liza Lou and the writer W.G. Sebald. In 2016

Ecco Press Ecco is a New York–based publishing imprint of HarperCollins. It was founded in 1971 by Daniel Halpern as an independent publishing company; Publishers Weekly described it as "one of America's best-known literary houses." In 1999 Ecco was acquir ...

published Lubow's book ''Diane Arbus: Portrait of a Photographer''. The book grew out of a cover story on Arbus that appeared in ''

'' in September 2003. In 2018, he wrote an essay, "On Shame," in which he discussed the interrelatedness between pride and shame in the context of his identity as a gay man.

Personal life

Lubow lives in New York City and East Haddam, Connecticut.

Publications

*''Diane Arbus: Portrait of a Photographer.'' New York:

, 2016. . *''Man Ray: The Artist and his Shadows.''.

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day and Clarence Day, grandsons of Benjamin Day, and became a department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and ope ...

, 2021. . *''The Reporter Who Would Be King: A Biography of Richard Harding Davis.'' Scribner Book Company, 1992. .

Honors and awards

*1984: National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship *1999: James Beard Award, "Journalism - Magazine Restaurant Review or Critique" category *First Prize of the Spanish Academy of Gastronomy in 2003. *Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities *2013-14: Fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars at the New York Public Library

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lubow, Arthur American biographers American bloggers Living people 1952 births The Harvard Crimson people The Bronx High School of Science alumni Alumni of the University of Cambridge James Beard Foundation Award winners 21st-century American non-fiction writers Historians from New York (state)