Eve Arnold was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Russian-Jewish parents, William Cohen, a rabbi, and Bessie. For over six years she learned photography skills from Harper’s Bazaar Art Director, Alexey Brodovitch. Eve photographed numerous iconic figures in the twentieth century but also captured the lives of the poor and dispossessed, “migrant workers, civil-rights protestors of apartheid in South Africa, disabled Vietnam war veterans and Mongolian herdsmen.” For Arnold, there was no dichotomy: “”I don’t see anybody as either ordinary or extraordinary,” she said in a 1990 BBC interview, “I see them simply as people in front of my lens.”
Eve shot Marilyn Monroe several times throughout her career as well as figures such as Queen Elizabeth II, Malcolm X, and Joan Crawford.
In 1980, she had her first solo exhibition, which featured her photographic work done in China at the Brooklyn Museum in New York City. In the same year, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Magazine Photographers. In 1993, she was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, and elected Master Photographer by New York’s International Center of Photography.
She did a series of portraits of American First Ladies.
Eve Arnold died in London on January 4, 2012, aged 99.
