Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park

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

Significance
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 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." The boy in the photograph is Colin Wood, son of tennis player Sidney Wood. 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.

"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."

History
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.

The photograph was published in the Time-Life book The Camera (1970).

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. Posthumous prints from the original negative have been made by Neil Selkirk, authorized by the Arbus estate.

Collections

 * Jointly held by Tate and National Galleries of Scotland, UK
 * Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York