“Sanctum Sanctorum, a sacred room, an inner chamber, a place of inviolable privacy.” It is in these private spaces that Diane Arbus (1923–1971) created some of her most daring and intimate work.

Sanctum Sanctorum, on view at David Zwirner London before travelling to Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco in spring 2026, gathers forty-five photographs made between 1961 and 1971 in New York, New Jersey, California, and London. These images reveal lives rarely seen by outsiders, yet they radiate trust, empathy, and mutual recognition.

Arbus was welcomed into bedrooms, apartments, nudist camps, and celebrity homes, and in each, she captured a singular exchange with her subjects. Her photographs never intrude; they illuminate.

In Sanctum Sanctorum, this spectrum of humanity unfolds: debutantes, circus performers, lovers, socialites, transvestites, babies, widows, and even a blind couple in their bedroom. Each image reflects Arbus’s curiosity, courage, and uncanny ability to see people fully, without judgment.

The exhibition pairs lesser-known works, Girl sitting in bed with her boyfriend, N.Y.C. 1966, Ozzie and Harriet Nelson on their bed, Los Angeles 1970, Interior decorator at the nudist camp in his trailer, New Jersey 1963, with iconic images such as Mexican dwarf in his hotel room, N.Y.C. 1970 and A naked man being a woman, N.Y.C. 1968. Together, they form a constellation of intimacy, vulnerability, and revelation. Even familiar works reveal fresh insights in this context.

Arbus’s black-and-white photographs dismantle aesthetic norms, blur social hierarchies, and probe the limits of identity and desire. Sanctum Sanctorum follows her recent reexaminations: Cataclysm: The 1972 Diane Arbus Retrospective Revisited and Diane Arbus: Constellation, offering a new lens on a practice that continues to captivate.

–

Image: Diane Arbus, Female impersonator on bed, N.Y.C. 1961. © The Estate of Diane Arbus