Arnold was born in 1912 in Philadelphia, to immigrant Russian-Jewish parents. She started taking photographs in 1946, using a $40 Rolleicord camera. She went onto to study with Alexey Brodovitch, photographer and art director of Harper’s Bazaar, at the New School for Social Research in New York.
In 1951, she was the first woman to be associated with Magnum, becoming a full member of this photographers’ co-operative in 1957. She moved to UK in 1962 and when the Sunday Times launched its weekly magazine, became one of its main photographers. She has published many books of her work and received an OBE in 2003.
The exhibition was mainly black and white prints (only two in colour) and included many of Marilyn Monroe on film sets on her own or with other film stars, mixed with some of migrants on long island or a brothel in Cuba.
What is striking, especially with the photographs of film stars, is how they seem so candid and the subjects so unaware of Arnold. With the exception of a few that are posed, they record private moments, with the actors not seeming to notice her presence.
The fact that the film star shots were on sale at £10-18,000 did make me wonder whether, if the actors and actresses were unknown, they would be worth as much. I think a better photograph was that of the mentally ill girl in Haiti. It was ‘only’ £800.
Marilyn Monroe, going over her lines for a scene in the misfits, nevada,1960
Marilyn Monroe, Photo session, hollywood , 1955
http://overhereplease.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/a-photograph-that-made-me-think-the-work-of-eve-arnold/
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