All About Eve – Art Sensus

In celebration of Eve Arnolds life and work as a pioneering photographer, Art Sensus will be presenting over 100 unique photographs, as well as a new book of the work of American photographer Eve Arnold (1912-2012). Curated by Brigitte Lardinois (editor of ‘Eve Arnold’s People’ and worked on Arnold’s former ‘In Retrospect’ exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery). ‘All About Eve’ will offer a spectrum of incredible works, both vintage and modern, all drawn from Arnold’s personal archive. The only solo exhibition to feature Arnold’s work in the UK this year thus far ‘All About Eve’ has been selected from a private collection, which also loaned some of the prints for the book. Of the works in the book, almost half of the work has not been exhibited and rarely published, if at all.

Conceived as a retrospective, the exhibition highlights the true diversity of Arnold’s oeuvre. Photographs of actress Marilyn Monroe, many from the set of ‘The Misfits’ (her final film before her death), will sit beside portraits of other Hollywood and West End legends such as Marlene Dietrich, Somerset Maugham, Arthur Miller, Joan Crawford, Peter O’Toole, Isabella Rossellini and Orson Welles.

Arnold captured many political figures throughout her career for a number of high-profile editorial clients such as The Sunday Times Magazine and during her lifetime as a Magnum photographer, with a number of colour shots of the Queen and former prime ministers such as Margaret Thatcher, Edward Heath and John Major. This section includes other documentary photographs depicting political events such as Britain at the time of the 1981 riots and extensive coverage of Malcolm X’s Black Muslim movement in the 1960s.

The exhibition also outlines Arnold’s extensive travels, primarily to Afghanistan, China and Russia. Evocative landscapes of rural China, photographs of the Mongolian militia, asylum patients in Haiti, children in the ghettos of Puerto Rico, Navajo women in the American southwest, portraits of veiled Afghani widows and the ‘oldest men in the world’ in the former Soviet Union all demonstrate Arnold’s interest in the vitality of these little known countries.

The accompanying book, edited by her long-time friend and gallerist Zelda Cheatle, provides a different perspective of her work, as her archives contained many pictures rarely seen. The book, designed by Stuart Smith, includes an essay by photography expert Liz Jobey and a poem specially written by Arnold’s best friend and respected writer Hanan al-Shaykh. The exhibition and book endeavour to bring an enhanced and more complete picture of Arnold than previously known.

As the first woman invited to join the New York office of Magnum Photos, Eve Arnold was a pioneer in photography for her generation. Born in 1912 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Arnold began shooting pictures in 1946. After joining Magnum in 1957, she moved to London five years later with her son Francis where she lived the remainder of her life. Arnold has received many awards and honours including the French Prix Pictet, a Lifetime Achievement prize from the Sony World Photography Awards, made a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, elected Master Photographer (one of the most prestigious photographic honours) by the International Center of Photography and was named an officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for services to photography. Eve Arnold passed away in January 2012 at the age of 99.