LPhotography is learned by studying and practicing. So for practice, about 25 years ago I moved to London, partly to get some fresh air and partly for the usual English that needs to be constantly improved. To give meaning to that stay, I offered to work for free in the mythical Magnum Photosthe most important and prestigious photographic agency in the world. The headquarters were in Old Street, a long road from Clerkenwell to Islington.
CHINA. Song and dance troupe. 1979. (Magnum Photos)
I liked going to the agency, it marked out the days and made wandering around the metropolis less lonely. The photographers met: there was a young and very blond Italian, Alex Majoli who was to become one of the great Italian authors known throughout the world; in the archive worked Lizzy Amanpour, sister of the much better known Christiane, leading face of television journalism of the cnn, legendary reporter of the Gulf War, that of ’90 to be clear. Magnum was a crossroads of young interns who came from all over the world, famous photographers or in search of fame.
Being there made you feel part of history, the big one of the world.
They entrusted me with an archive to arrange. It consisted of replacing the plastic frames of the slides, until then they had been made of paper but the plastic was much more protective, then I had to arrange the prints, divide them according to the alphabetical order of the topics, write down everything that was in envelopes. Anyone who has worked in photography in the analogue era knows that before the web, images were physically fished out of envelopes. And the order of the envelopes was everything. The only chance to find the required picture.
The archive in question was that of Eve Arnold.
Great Britain 1963. Eve Arnold portrayed on the set of the film Becket. Photograph by Robert Penn. (Magnum Photos)
A true archive of photographic paper, proofs and prints. The archive of a great photographer.
After a quarter of her I knew every single frame. At the end of my tidying up, they told me that Eve would come to the agency to see how her archive had been looked after. I was excited: I had prepared a sort of report. I thought she’d ask me about this and that and then we’d talk about her about her life, she would tell me about the time in Harlem when she, white and petite, had ventured into jazz clubs or that other time he met the African American leader Malcolm X; would he explain to me how that portrait was born, why he had put his hands behind his neck? Was it her who asked him? Were you aware that you had given history a portrait of those you don’t forget? Did you know you had contributed to the myth and created an icon?
And about Marilyn, what would he tell me? I would have discovered, alone, the secret of the most beautiful and unhappiest woman in the world. Eve would tell me what she was really like.
United States, 1960. Marilyn Monroe portrayed by Eve Arnold in the Nevada desert during the filming of the film “The Misfits” (The Misfits), written by Arthur Miller and directed by John Huston. (Magnum Photos)
Instead she arrived, silent, very shy, very small and bony. Half a meter smaller than me and 40 kilos less. Elegant and very British, even though she was American. She gave me her hand, almost her fingertips, and she whispered to me thank you. He repeated it two or three times, like a short chant, then turned and walked away.
That was the end of it. She didn’t want to know anything. She didn’t want to tell me anything.
Every time I read about her, at exhibitions here or elsewhere, the memory of that experience comes back. Today the occasion is the return to Italy of an exhibition by her a Room – Italian Center for Photography in Turin, “Eve Arnold. The work 1950-1980” curated by Monica Poggi and created in collaboration with Magnum Photos which can be visited until next June 4th. The exhibition, through 170 images, traces 30 years of work by the great photographer.
Who was Eve Arnold?
Born in Philadelphia in 1912 and died a hundred years later in London. She is the daughter of a Russian rabbi who emigrated to America, Eve Cohen at the registry office, she becomes Arnold after marriage and, despite the subsequent divorce, she keeps her surname. A slender, very strong white woman who, at the end of the 1940s, discovered Harlem and its protagonists by photographing fashion shows in the ghetto. You will devote much energy and many photographs to the black community and anti-racist movements.
New York City, 1950. Fashion in Harlem. Model Charlotte Stribling aka ‘Fabulous’ waits backstage. (Magnum Photos)
A long and prolific career, punctuated by travel, social and racial issues and famous for the portraits of Marilyn Monroe with whom she was a sincere friend. She was a nonconformist throughout her rich and adventurous life, always with the camera in hand. Like her colleague Inge Morath, pioneer of photography and role model for generations of female reporters, she too was invited by Hanry Cartier Bresson to join the staff of the Magnum agency in the early days. It is 1951. He is almost 40 years old but he dedicates the next 30 with conviction and self-sacrifice to photography. His debut in the ghetto had only been the beginning; the world of cinema, the sets, are opportunities for meeting and for portraits: Marlene Dietrich, Silvana Mangano, Joan Crowford, and especially Marylin Monroe, on the set of The MisfitsArthur Miller’s film, or portrayed in private.
Able to go beyond the character, all his photographic practice is dotted with many women, famous or anonymous, who in front of his lens he has made protagonists, human, close, often friends. Portraits that declare the intimacy between the photographer and her subjects, a bit reportage, often imperfect but always with a slight glamorous accent. You have traveled far and wide: in Russia in the 50s and then Cuba, Afghanistan and the Middle East for many travel reports.
Her entire life has been a journey, that of an explorer of humanity.
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