Eve Arnold

Eve Arnold 

 self portrait http://everyday-i-show.livejournal.com/115212.html

From the Guardian www.guardian.co.uk

Words by Bidisha

Photograph: Bernard Gotfryd/Getty Images

 

Photographer Eve Arnold died this week at the grand age of 99. Her successful, prolific and important career documented developments both in her chosen art form and in American history. Many newspapers (hello, Daily Mail and Huffington Post) have led their obituaries by mentioning Arnold's shots of Marilyn Monroe, a talented woman who was patronised and treated like dirt by nearly everyone she met.

 Marilyn http://everyday-i-show.livejournal.com/115212.html

Arnold's black and white photographs of 1950s Harlem, documenting existence under racism and apartheid, exploited labour, global poverty and working women's lives are the most meaningful and powerful of her images. Her move from black and white into a gentle, grainy colour film was seamless. She ends her life and career at a time when film itself is dying out and the rise of "civilian" photo-reportage has put the notion of prestige photography under threat.

 http://everyday-i-show.livejournal.com/115212.html

Arnold did not just document discrimination and injustice, she was a victim of it. Her career began when she sent her photographs to a magazine in London, after being ignored in the US. Although there are more photographers who are women working today than 60 years ago, the discrimination continues. The prestigious Prix Pictet has a remit for international, socially engaged documentary images that capture the world's environmental changes, which will affect women, who are the poorest of the poor, the worst. The prize has had three editions and its shortlists are notable for their racial diversity. The most recent shortlisted 10 men and two women. The one before shortlisted 12 men and no women, and the first listed 15 men and three women.

Mikhail Baryshnikov (left), Stony Brook, Long Island, 1959 (right). http://everyday-i-show.livejournal.com/115212.html

Eve Arnold was the first woman to be invited to join the Magnum photo agency, back in the 1950s. Visit Magnum's website today and look at its list, 60 years on. Less than 10% are women.

http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.PhotographerDetail_VPage&l1=0&pid=2K7O3R14AZX1&nm=Eve%20Arnold