Eve Arnold, the professional Photojournalist was born on the 21st of April in 1912 to William (born Velvel Sklarski) and Bessie Cohen (born Bosya Laschiner) who were Russian and Jewish respectively. She was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA and she first took an interest in photography in 1946 while working at a photo-finishing plant in New York City. She learned photography from Harper's Bazaar art director Alexei Brodovitch at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan.for a short period of time in 1948. In 1951 she joined Magnum Photos agency and she was absorbed to full membership in 1957.
Well known for her images of actress Marilyn Monroe on the set of Monroe’s last movie “The Misfits” in 1961, she has been trusted by Monroe more than any other photographer. She had been photographing Monroe since 1951 and an exhibition was last held on her work on Marilyn Monroe at the Halcyon Gallery in London in May 2005. Also her work includes a series of portraits of the wives of American Presidents. The very first exhibition of her work was held in 1980 at the Brooklyn Museum in New York City exhibiting her work done in China. For that she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Magazine Photographers.
Eve Arnold have photographed many important personalities during her career including Queen Elizabeth II, Malcolm X, and Joan Crawford and had toured many countries taking photographs including China, Russia, South Africa and Afghanistan.
She chose England as her adopted home in the 1960s after leaving the United States with her son, Francis. There she worked for the UK Sunday Times and in 1997, she was appointed a member of the Advisory Committee of the National Media Museum which was formerly known as the Museum of Photography, Film & Television in Bradford. It was during this time she started experimenting with colour photography.
In 1995, she was appointed a Master Photographer by New York's International Center of Photography and in the same year she was made a fellow of the Royal Photographic Society.
