Newman is best known for his probing portraits of famous artists and politicians. Born in New York, Newman grew up in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and later moved to Miami Beach. He studied painting and drawing at the University of Miami. Unable to afford to continue, he moved to Philadelphia to work in a portrait photography studio in 1938. In the early 1940s, he moved back to Florida and managed a photography studio there. In 1946 he relocated to New York and opened Arnold Newman Studios. He also worked as a freelance photographer for Fortune, Life, and Newsweek. He became known for his "environmental portraits," where he photographed his sitters within appropriate milieus: artists in their studios, actors in theaters, politicians in their offices. Newman taught photography at Cooper Union in New York for many years.
