Eve Arnold, born in 1912 to Russian-immigrant parents in Philadelphia, began her photography career in 1946 while working at a photo-finishing plant in New York City. She pursued formal photography education in 1948 with Alexey Brodovitch at the New School for Social Research in New York. Her association with Magnum Photos began in 1951; she became a full member in 1957.
Arnold is well known for her intimate portraits of Hollywood stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Joan Crawford and Angelica Huston. She also reported on the women’s rights movement, the civil rights movement in America, and the lives of working people all over the world. Robert Capa, co-founder of Magnum Photos, described Eve’s work as “Falling between Marlene Dietrich’s legs and the bitter lives of migratory potato pickers.”
Images Arnold captured during her years spent in China in the 1970s led to her first major exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in 1980. The same year, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Magazine Photographers, and the National Book Award for In China. She was later
made a fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, and named a Master Photographer, the world’s most prestigious photographic honour, by New York’s International Center of Photography.
Arnold published twelve books in her lifetime. She passed away in January 2012, at the age of 99.