Iconic Images
Malcolm X during his visit to enterprises owned by Black Muslims. 1962. © Eve Arnold/Magnum Photos
Throughout Eve’s career she aimed to “show something you wouldn’t have otherwise seen.”
She brought back images that have since come to symbolise important movements, events, people and places of the second half of the 20th century.
“I was amused recently at an international centre of photography group show of pictures of Malcom [X]. The lead picture was one of mine: a huge smiling profile of him looking smart; hat gold watch and Masonic ring worn jauntily. A group of young black photographers came over to talk to me. “Thank you,” they said “for making him look like a dude.”
- From “Eve Arnold: in Retrospect”
“Eve's name is rarely printed without the prefix "legendary".
“Legendary pioneer for female photojournalists. Legendary white woman who went on the road with Malcolm X. Legendary for photographing every American president for four decades. Legendary Eve set the standard for a "new normal" in which we would see our stars "behind the scenes". She photographed Marilyn in the bathroom with her skirt hitched up; Marlene Dietrich with no makeup; Anjelica Houston hugging her director daddy John and a young student Paul Newman before he had ever made a film. Legendary Eve deserved her tag: she went to China when it was closed, Afghanistan, Mongolia, Russia when it was the enemy – she was never deterred.”
- Beeban Kidron OBE, Film director and Member of the UK House of Lords
American actor Paul Newman at The Actors Studio. New York City, USA. 1955. © Eve Arnold / Magnum Photos
Behind the stories
Eve’s personal stories behind her most memorable images
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Over the coming weeks and months you’ll receive Eve’s iconic images in your inbox. You’ll also hear Eve’s own accounts of how she captured these images.
For example, the time Margret Thatcher tried to call the shots while Eve photographed her.
A small selection of Eve’s most iconic images
Partial list of Eve’s icons of the 20th Century
People/ personalities
Marilyn Monroe
Joan Crawford
Marlene Dietrich
James Brown
Marlon Brando
Malcolm X
Margaret Thatcher
Sean Connery
Andy Warhol
Charlie Chaplin
Elizabeth Taylor
Orson Welles
Yves Saint Laurent
Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom
Pierre Cardin
Audrey Hepburn
Jackie Kennedy
Anjelica Huston
John Huston
Paul Newman
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Rudolf Nureyev
Places, events and key figures
New York City in the 1950’s
Civil Rights in America in the 1950s and ‘60s
Vietnam war protests
South Africa under Apartheid
Women in the Middle East
Migrant workers in the US and UK
1972 Olympic games - Munich Massacre
American Presidents and UK Prime Minsters
Notable artists and writers of the 20th Century
The Hollywood film industry in the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s
Cuba under Castro in the 1950s
London in the 1960s
Russia under Communism
China in the 1970s before it was open to the West
America in the 1980s
Fashion icons and fashion designers