Eve Arnold
Eve Arnold was born in 1912 and died aged 99 in 2012. She was an American photojournalist, but came over to London with her son in 1961 which she made her new home. She was one of the two first women to join Magnum Photos agency in 1951. She was particularly well known for her photos of Marilyn Monroe. It was her approach to portraiture that was novel and of long term influence,. These portraits were generally of candid style photos rather than posed studio ones. She started to take an interest in photography after the war in 1946 when she photographed urban scenes in New Jersey.
Eve learnt her photographic skills during a six week course tutored by Alexey Brodovitch. This was to be her only formal photography course she ever attended. Eve’s first series of photos were of African - American women presenting fashion in Harlem in 1950, followed a year later with a series about migrant workers on Long Island which really set her off on her photographic career. She explored all sorts of challenging events such as the McCarthey hearings, Civil rights, klu Klux Klan, Black power, and veiled women in Afghanistan. She visited Egypt, the Soviet Union and China, gaining a three month visa on two occasions when it was difficult to do so. She went to places and took on assignments that were truely astonishing. She photographed veiled women in Arabia, indigenous africans in South Africa, and Indira Gandhi on the campaign trail in India.
Eve photographed women from all stratas and subgroups of society Her photographs were regularly published in the Sunday Times supplements. As well as being a project based photographeer, Eve was also photographing portraits on the film sets. She befriended film stars like Marilyn Monroe (who she photographed over a period of ten years and became Marilyn’s favourite photographer), and Joan Crawford. She also took photographs of famous people such as Queen Elizabeth the second, Malcolm X, Marlene Dietrich, Dirk Bogarde, Harold Pinter, Terence Stamp and many other.
The range of people Eve photographed stretched accross continents, political differences, social differences and sexual orientations. She said that she was poor and wanted to photograph poverty. She had lost a child and she wanted to photograph birth. On all occasions it was her inquisitiveness that made her look beyond the obvious. Eve got to places and people that few others of her generation succedded in doing so. She always worked hard and professionally until she got the photograph she wanted. Isabella Rossellini sums up how Eve Arnold approached photography:
“Eve’s intimacy with people is revealed in her photos. Her subjects are relaxed and spontaneous in front of her lens. How did she do it? How did she conquer the trust of such revered people? I knew that answer as soon as I met her. She loves life and human beings, and that’s what she is after. With her compasionate eyes and her sense of humour, she is there pointing her lens to take the picture of a human being behind the star, behind the politician, behind the destitute, and behind the child.” (Edited by Brigitte Lardinois ‘Eve Arnold’s People” 2009)
“If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given. It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.”
— Eve Arnold
Elizabeth Taylor with her daughter on the set of the film Becket, England 1963
Retired woman. China. 1979.
Migrant potato picker New York USA, 1951
Reference: Brigitte Lardinois Eve Arnold’s People, Thames and Hudson, 2009
Marilyn Monroe going over her lines for a difficult scene she is about to play in the film "The Misfits". 1960
George Lincoln Rockwell, flanked by members of the American Nazi Party, listening to Malcolm X's speech at Black Muslims meeting held at the International Amphitheater. USA. Chicago. 1962
