Arnold, Eve, 1912-2012

b. 1912d. 2012, American
Eve Arnold was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Russian immigrant parents. She began photographing in 1946, while working at a photo-finishing plant in New York City, and then studied photography in 1948 with Alexei Brodovitch at the New School for Social Research in New York.

Arnold first became associated with Magnum Photos in 1951 and became a full member in 1957. She was based in the US during the 1950s but went to England in 1962 to put her son through school; except for a six-year interval when she worked in the US and China, she lived in the UK for the rest of her life.

Her time in China led to her first major solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in 1980, where she showed the resulting images. In the same year, she received the National Book Award for In China and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Magazine Photographers.

In later years, she received many other honours and awards. In 1995, she was made fellow of the Royal Photographic Society and elected Master Photographer – the world’s most prestigious photographic honour – by New York’s International Center of Photography. In 1996, she received the Kraszna-Krausz Book Award for In Retrospect. The following year she was granted honorary degrees by the University of St Andrews, Staffordshire University, and the American International University in London; she was also appointed to the advisory committee of the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television in Bradford, UK. She has had twelve books published.

Eve passed away in January of 2012.

Eve was born in Philadelphia 1912. Her parents were Russian Jewish immigrants who fled to America to escape persecution.
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Eve attended a photography masterclass in New York in 1950 by photographer Alexi Brodovitch.
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Eve always shied away from labels such a “female photographer”. She was a photographer. You wouldn’t call Robert Capa a “male photographer”. But it is undeniable that in an era where women were not commonly expected to have a career, (never mind documenting the world we live in) Eve stood out. If she has been a role model for women who came after her then I know she would have been delighted.

Eve Arnold, American photographer and photojournalist, was born in Philadelphia on April 21, 1912, the daughter of Russian immigrants William and Bessie Cohen. While in her late 20s she moved to New York, where she took a job in a Hoboken photo-finishing plant, married industrial designer Arnold Arnold, and began making her own photographs. Her formal education in photography consisted of a six-week course taught by Alexey Brodovitch at the New School for Social Research in 1947. Her only child, Francis, was born in 1948.

Eve Arnold joined with Magnum Photos in 1951; she became an associate member of the photographers' collective in 1955, and in 1957 its first female full member in New York. The organization, founded in 1947 by Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger, and David "Chim" Seymour, followed Cartier-Bresson's dictum that "one must stay photographically in contact with the realities taking place in front of our lenses and not hesitate to sacrifice material comfort and security." In her work, Arnold traveled to document events, politics, personalities, society, and material culture in locations including Afghanistan, Africa, Cuba and the Caribbean, India, Europe, Egypt, the Soviet Union/Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yugoslavia, as well as the United States and the United Kingdom. She was also known for her documentation of American celebrity culture through her images of film stars Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, and others at work, play, and home; she was the photographer on more than 35 movie sets, most notably The Misfits, a 1961 American drama directed by John Huston from a screenplay by Arthur Miller, which was the last film made by both actors Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable. Arnold also photographed groups as diverse as the 1952 American Republican National Convention, Malcolm X and his Muslim followers, and Mikhail Baryshnikov and the American Ballet Theatre dancers. Her work was regularly published in popular magazines, specialized periodicals, and a variety of books during her lifetime, and was featured in one-woman shows and group exhibitions in the United States and Great Britain; she received honorary degrees from the University of St. Andrews and the University of Sheffield. Arnold wrote or co-authored more than a dozen books including The Unretouched Woman (1976), Flashback! the 50's (1978), In China (1980), In America (1983), Marilyn Monroe, an Appreciation (1987), Private View: Inside Baryshnikov's American Ballet Theatre (1988), All in a Day's Work (1989), The Great British (1991), Film Journal (2002), and Handbook (with footnotes) (2004), in addition to her autobiographical volume Eve Arnold: In Retrospect (1995). She also produced and directed a film, Behind the Veil (1972), which examined harem life in eastern Arabia.

Eve Arnold moved to London in 1961 with her son Francis, and remained a resident of that city until her death there on January 5, 2012.

Eve Arnold, OBE, Hon. FRPS (née Cohen; April 21, 1912 – January 4, 2012) was an American photojournalist. She joined Magnum Photos agency in 1951, and became a full member in 1957. She was the first woman to join the agency.

Arnold died in London on January 4, 2012, aged 99.