ing plant in New Jersey. She began photographing
while working at the plant and decided to take a
six-week course in photography offered by the
influential photography teacher Alexey Brodovitch
at New York City’s New School for Social
Research. Impressed by her pictures of a Harlem
fashion show, Brodovitch encouraged Arnold to
keep shooting. Some of these photographs were
eventually published in a British magazine, which
brought her to the attention of Magnum.
Arnold soon took up the profession full-time
and capitalized on her status as a woman photo-
grapher—still a relatively rare occurrence—by
using her female insight and personality to inter-
pret what she photographed. After a disastrous
experience in which a hostile writer changed the
meaning of Arnold’s fashion show photographs,
she resolved to get as much control as possible
over the words that accompanied her pictures; for
Arnold, a photograph without words fell short.
Throughout the 1950s, Arnold concentrated
mainly on portraiture, usually undertaken as assign-
ments for magazines or Hollywood film produc-
tions. As she became more confident, she began to
produce work independently, enjoying both the
freedom and the knowledge that if the photographs
were of sufficient quality, they would appear in more
venues than if they had been tailored to the editorial
needs of a particular magazine. Yet she kept the
marketplace in mind when selecting her subjects.
Arnold first became associated with Magnum
Photos in 1951 and became a full member in
- Always interested in improving herself, as
she recalled later, Arnold scoured the files at Mag-
num, especially going over the proof sheets in an
effort to understand how other photographers
worked. Arnold had begun her career using a $40
Rolleicord camera and had gone on to a Rolleiflex
before she discovered that it was very hard to fill
the frame of the large square-format pictures these
cameras produced. She then changed to the 35-mm
format Nikon, in part because it was difficult to get
German-made Leicas in the United States after
World War II. To move around easily and elicit
more from her subjects, Arnold streamlined her
equipment early in her career, eschewing motor
drives, lights, or tripods, and carrying a minimal
amount of gear in a single bag. As Arnold
explained in her autobiography,In Retrospect, her
way of working was a low-key approach based on
establishing contact with the subject and using
whatever light was available.
For example, when photographing on movie
sets, Arnold habitually worked barefooted, seeking
to not draw the attention of her subjects, and
would stop photographing if noticed. For greater
variety Arnold would photograph the same situa-
tions in black-and-white and in color; she contin-
ued this method until the mid-1970s when the
market for monochrome largely disappeared. In
her color work, Arnold was inclined to use color
as an accent or as part of the overall design and
believed that muted color often proved more effec-
tive than stark tones.
While Arnold is known for her photographs of
Hollywood stars, political figures, and religious
leaders, including such notables as Marlene Die-
trich, Joan Crawford, Senator Joseph McCarthy,
Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Dwight D. Eisen-
hower, and Malcolm X, she also photographed
ordinary people. The photographs for which she is
perhaps best known are those of Marilyn Monroe.
Unlike those of many celebrity photographers of
the 1950s and 1960s, Arnold’s photographs are
typically candid, unretouched shots, as her por-
traits of Monroe illustrate. She had a total of six
sessions with Monroe, ranging from press confer-
ences to her last film,The Misfits.Male photogra-
phers generally captured Monroe’s sexuality,
whereas Arnold portrays a more relaxed star.
In 1961, Arnold began work with the London
Sunday Timesand relocated to England in 1962;
she stayed under contract with theTimesfor the
next ten years. At this stage in her career, Arnold
worked autonomously, originating ideas and hand-
ling everything from initial research through to the
finished prints. Although she completed difficult
assignments such as traveling alone through the
mountains of Afghanistan, Arnold never covered
armed conflict. Despite her desire to do so, her art
director refused to allow her to cover the Vietnam
War because of the hazards involved.
Arnold is also known for her 11 books, which
she closely oversaw, including volumes that fea-
tured Marilyn Monroe and Mikhail Baryshnikov
and the American Ballet Theater. From the start of
her days as photographer, Arnold had dreamed of
shooting in China; a 1979 assignment resulted in
the bookIn China. In it Arnold sought to reflect the
happiness that most Chinese felt about the
approach of industrialization. The pictures brought
Arnold her first major solo exhibition at the Brook-
lyn Museum in 1980.
CARYNE. NeumannBiography
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1913. Began photo-
graphing in 1946; took a six-week course in photography
with Alexei Brodovitch at New York City’s New SchoolARNOLD, EVE