Eve Arnold, in retrospect

Here is Eve Arnold - the distillation, in words and pictures, of her life and her lifework. Her story challenges many of our casually held notions about photography, photographers and the careers of women in the second half of our century, and presents us with a set of happy contradictions. For Eve Arnold managed to become and remain one of the world's leading photographers without ever succumbing to trendiness or self-aggrandizement; she rapidly reached an extraordinary level of professionalism and achievement with almost no formal training; she succeeded as an American in England and as a woman in a (mostly) man's world; she grounded herself emotionally as a mother and grandmother while working nonstop around the world; she proved herself a master of both black-and-white and color; she became both an ardent social critic - of McCarthyism, apartheid, poverty - and a mirror of glamour and highlife, photographing Marilyn Monroe, Joan Crawford, presidents, prime ministers, royals; and she has faced us - and herself - with our own country in all its complex and disturbing particularities, as well as taking us on searching and exotic explorations of Afghanistan, China, Russia and the Arab Emirates (inside a harem). Despite her modesty and lack of experience, Eve Arnold's talent and potential were quickly noticed. In the only photography class she ever took - she was an absolute beginner - the legendary art director Alexei Brodovitch singled her out for praise and encouragement. Soon she was the first American woman to be accepted by Magnum Photos, the prestigious international cooperative of photographers; she became a star photographer for both Life magazine in its period of splendor and the Sunday Times Colour Magazine (London) when it was a fresh and innovative (and admired) playground for writers and photographers.