Portraits of a Lady

If prostitutes, barflies, transvestites and others living on the margins of society ever had a portraitist, it was Diane Arbus. The New York-born photographer produced some of the most memorable portraits ever made before her suicide in 1971, and the best have been gathered for a major retrospective of her work at London's Victoria and Albert Museum (www.vam.ac.uk), showing between now and next January. Her most iconic images are present:

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the giant stooping under the ceiling of his Bronx home; the boy in Central Park, his face a rictus of hostility; the man in curlers (pictured here), with an expression at once vulnerable and defiant. To call these images arresting is to understate their ability to drag you on a bleak journey through the urban aridity of the mid-20th century. But steel yourself. If there's a current exhibition in London that can be fairly described as a must-see, it's this one.