Fans of Eve Arnold, the first woman photographer to be appointed a member of the Magnum photographic co-operative, are in for a treat. Devotees of the top photographer can buy a series of posters priced at £30 emblazoned with 15 of Arnold’s most recognisable images, notably her powerful and poignant shots of Marilyn Monroe captured on the set of The Misfits film in 1960 (some of these pictures are only now seeing the light). The pair developed a unique relationship over more than a decade. “This was less than a year before she died. It occurred to me then that when she had lived with the fantasy of Marilyn that she had created, that fantasy had sustained her, but now the reality had caught up with her and she found it too much to bear,” Arnold said. Other black-and-white images in the series—including a 1961 shot of Black Muslim children at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York—reflect Arnold’s bold photojournalistic approach. The Eve Arnold Estate says that this “affordable art” bonanza is in keeping with the late photographer’s wishes. “I would prefer photography to be a folk art: cheap and available to everybody, rather than elevated to mandarin proportions created through an artificial scarcity,” the photographer once proclaimed.
Marilyn Monroe on the set of The Misfits, Eve Arnold (1961) courtesy Eve Arnold Estate
