Eve Arnold 1912–2012

Eve Arnold on the Set of Becket, 1963. Photo by Robert Penn/Magnum

Eve Arnold, the first woman to become a Magnum photojournalist, died last Wednesday at the age of 99. An American expatriate, she lived in Great Britain for many decades.

From The Telegraph, the story of her two most important early lessons:

Eve Arnold was self-taught, her only tuition being a brief course in 1948 with Alexey Brodovitch, the celebrated art director of Harper’s Bazaar, at the New School for Social Research in New York. The class, which included ambitious professionals such as Richard Avedon, mercilessly criticised Eve Arnold’s amateur efforts.

For the class assignment, however, Arnold ventured into Harlem to record the black fashion shows that took place daily in deconsecrated churches. On seeing her, the hitherto feline star model "Fabulous" Charlotte Stribling began to mince down the catwalk like a white model. "Lesson number one," recalled Arnold, "pay attention to the intrusion of the camera." In the next class, Brodovitch singled out her pictures for their freshness.

As no American magazine of the period would publish photographs of black people, Eve Arnold’s husband sent her pictures to Britain — to his friend Tom Hopkinson, the editor of Picture Post. The pictures were printed but the text changed, so that its tone was snide. Henceforth, vowed Arnold, everything she wanted to say would be in the photograph.

There are encomia all over the web, including:

The obituary from the World's Best Photography Magazine;

An audio segment on NPR;

An excellent video presentation of her and her work at Magnum;

Another article from her adopted country; and

Her most recent and most accessible book of the sixteen or so she published. A new book, All About Eve, will be published by teNeues next month, on February 15th, and can be pre-ordered now. I hope she got to see it.

Mike
(Thanks to Doug Howk)

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Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Comments

[the other ian]

Eve Arnold was a champ, through and through. Look no further than her books on America, Britain and China.
She was also one of the first to recognise the decline of the marketplace...

[Bambang Indrayoto]

99.9% of the viewer of the above photo must be wondering ... oohh, what camera she's using ? ... isn't that pre-production D4 ?...

[Bill Mitchell]

In the above picture (sitting cross-legged) she is clearly using a Leica with 50mm Elmar, but what is the other camera with the long lens?

[Marcelo Guarini]

Bye Eve, thanks for the pictures.

[PWL]

Another of the Great Old Ones is gone....

[Steve Jacob]

I wonder how many of the worlds great photographs would not have even made the shortlist for the average camera club's annual competition ;)

[Rob Atkins]

I recall an exhibit of Arnold's work from China that was on view in Seattle in the early 1980s. Beautiful work, and the first time I saw dye transfer prints. She wrote something in the accompanying book about using the most simple equipment: "I want to be the tripod, the light meter, the motor drive."

"Encomia." A great addition to the lexicon Mike. Thanks

[jean-louis salvignol]

Inside / Outside

Light and shade

This ability to capture the moment and seize the inner light of a being

Mrs. Arnold was a respectful visionary

[the other ian]

Eve Arnold worked with Nikon rangefinders and slrs, according to her comments in her Britain book.

[Clay Olmstead]

What a great lesson: how to use a camera as an excuse to connect with people, rather than as a shield to protect yourself from them.

[PWL]

Bambang, to answer your question: I think that in that photo, she's using early Contax SLRs--looks like they might be Contax S model cameras.

Yeah, I know--my inner gearhead is showing through....

[Harry Wirtz]

Re: Another obituary

Ten years or so ago, I enjoyed a series of intimate black and while images of kitchen utensils but never managed to remember the name of the photographer. Over the years, those images kept coming to mind and I attempted to re-visit them, but because I did not have the name, I couldn’t find them.

In today’s NY Times, I read this obituary for Jan Groover at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/arts/design/jan-groover-postmodern-photographer-dies-at-68.html?hpw and I realized that she is the photographer whose work I had been trying to find.

I ordered a copy of this book as a result: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0934032076/ref=tmm_pap_used_olp_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1326395751&sr=8-1&condition=used.

I’m so sorry that the only way I could find her work was through the obituary. There may be a lesson here for me.

[Account Deleted]

I wish that I would have found her work earlier. I really enjoy it.

@ Harry wirtz thank you for the link to the black and white kitchen stuff.