When Diane Arbus died by her own hand, in 1971, she was highly regarded within the art community but less known outside of it. That changed a year later, when a retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art put her center stage. Critical response was divided. The Village Voice wrote that the show would “be of interest even to those who are not usually at all interested in photography.” Susan Sontag, on the contrary, described the photographer’s subjects as “pathetic, pitiable, as well as horrible, repulsive, but [do] not arouse any compassionate feelings.” The public, suitably intrigued, lined up in record numbers to see the revolutionary exhibition. Fifty-three years later, all 113 of the original photographs from that MoMA retrospective are on view in Los Angeles. —Paulina Prosnitz