From the African American women of the Harlem ghetto to Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich or even women in Afghanistan in 1969, all with the same importance.
A Eve Arnold, the Villa Bassi House-Museum, in the heart of Abano Terme, dedicates a large retrospective, entirely centered on his famous and original female portraits.
Eve Arnold, born Cohen, daughter of a rabbi who emigrated from Russia to America, contends with Inge Morath the primacy of first female photographer to join Magnum. In fact, the two of them were the first photographers to be fully admitted to the Parisian agency founded by Robert Capa in 1947. An agency before them, reserved only for great male photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson or Werner Bischof.
It was Henri Cartier-Bresson who called Eve Arnold in Magnum in 1951, struck by the photographer's New York shots. They were images of fashion shows in the African American neighborhood of Harlem, New York. Those same images, rejected in America for being too "scandalous", were published by the English magazine Picture Post. In 1952 Eve Arnold and her family moved to Long Island, where she made one of the most touching reportages of her career: "A baby's first five minutes", recounting the first five minutes of life of babies born at the Mother Hospital in Port Jefferson. In 1956 she went with a psychologist friend to Haiti to document the secrets of Voodoo practices. Later she was called to replace the photographer Ernst Haas for a report on Marlene Dietrich, the acquaintance with Hollywood celebrities and with the American star system begins.
In 1950 the meeting with Marilyn Monroe, the beginning of a deep partnership that was interrupted only by the death of the actress. For her goal Joan Crawford reveals the secrets of her magical beauty. In 1960 she documents the shooting of the famous film "The Misfits", "The Misfits", with Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable, directed by John Houston and the screenplay by Marilyn's husband at the time, Arthur Miller.
After moving to London in 1962, Eve Arnold continues to work with and for film stars, but also dedicates herself to travel reportage: in many countries of the Middle and Far East including Afghanistan, China and Mongolia.
Between 1969 and 1971 she created the project "Behind the veil", which also became a documentary, bearing witness to the condition of women in the Middle East.
17 May 2019 – 08 December 2019 – Abano Terme (Pd), Villa Bassi “EVE ARNOLD. All about women – All about Women”
