Eve Arnold

This first volume in a major new series of illustrated biographies of Magnum photographers traces the life and achievements of Eve Arnold, who captured an incredible array of subjects with remarkable clarity and compassion. Eve Arnold (1912–2012) was born to a poor immigrant family in Philadelphia and became a photographer by chance. In 1950 Arnold was a 38-year-old Long Island housewife when she enrolled in a six-week photography course that led to her groundbreaking photo essay on black fashion models in Harlem. She went on to become the first woman to join Magnum Photos and, eventually, one of the most accomplished photojournalists of her time. Filled with reproductions of Arnold’s acclaimed photographs, shot in both color and black and white, as well as previously unseen archival images, this biography relates Arnold’s bold images to the fascinating story of their making. Renowned for her intimate portraits of figures such as Marilyn Monroe, Malcolm X, and Queen Elizabeth, Arnold was equally comfortable documenting the lives of the poor and dispossessed. "I don’t see anybody as either ordinary or extraordinary. I see them simply as people in front of my lens." To her images of migrant workers, disabled veterans, and protesters for civil rights in the US and against apartheid in South Africa, she brought an unflinching eye and a strong sense of social justice. This highly engrossing narrative tells a compelling story of an intrepid artist whose life’s purpose was to report on the lives of others."This laudatory biography of photojournalist Eve Arnold draws on the artist's diaries and letters to chart the interplay between her private life and her public work."

—Publishers Weekly
Eve Arnold (1912-2012) was one of the greatest of mid-20th-century photojournalists, documentarians who shined a humanist light on the issues of their day . . . Author di Giovanni demonstrates how personal and professional obligations shaped Arnold's driven, compassionate life . . . The politics and social issues of Arnold's subjects still resonate, in particular her series from the late 1960s to early 1970s on the women of Muslim countries. The book is brimming with glossy reproductions of Arnold's black-and-white and color photos, original page layouts, contact sheets, and shots of Arnold's notebooks, research cards, and back-of-photo notations.


—Library Journal
"[This book] provides a comprehensive look at [Arnold's] long, varied career."

—New York Magazine
"The chance to glimpse some of her best photographs alongside the handwritten notes, typed index cards and marked-up contact sheets that reveal her own reactions to (and opinions of) her images contributes something new and valuable to her unique and highly original legacy."

—The Washington Post
"The theme that subtly emerges in Eve Arnold is the sheer time and expense of producing a body of work like hers . . . To send a great photographer out into the world may seem like an extravagance these days, but Eve Arnold is a reminder that it’s worthy one.
—The Wall Street Journal

"Inspiring and fascinating . . . contributes something new and valuable to [Eve Arnold's] unique and highly original legacy."
—The Washington Post

Brilliantly edited, elegantly sequenced, and beautifully produced, Arnold’s photographs shimmer like pools on the page, taking us back to a time and a place that remind us of the power of photography to define the look and feel of the times, particularly by those whose work was seen far and wide in newspapers and picture magazines at a time when circulation was at record highs worldwide . . . Eve Arnold: Magnum Legacy presents the crème de la crème from an archive as vast as it is deep, a veritable ocean of images that continue to resonate with power and intensity."
—Crave

"This is the first study of her work that relies on her diaries, letters and other archival materials more than on personal reminiscences and anecdotes." —TimeJanine di Giovanni is the Middle East editor of Newsweek and a contributing editor to Vanity Fair. Her books include Ghosts by Daylight and The Place at the End of the World: Essays from the Edge. She is the winner of the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) 2016 Courage in Journalism Award. She lives in Paris.