Maastricht puts photography legend Eve Arnold in the spotlight

Getting Marilyn Monroe in front of the lens is one thing. Capturing her in a way that makes you almost forget you are looking at a global star is quite another. Photographer Eve Arnold mastered that art like few others. This autumn, Fotomuseum aan het Vrijthof in Maastricht presents All about Eve, a tribute to the woman who observed celebrities and everyday life with the same curious eye.

Eve Arnold (1912-2012) is regarded as one of the most important photographers of the twentieth century. In 1951, the Philadelphia-born photographer became the first woman to join Magnum Photos. At the time, this was far from a given.

Arnold lived in New York and moved to London in 1962. During the more than fifty years she worked, she developed an approach to photography centred on observation and understanding. Less distance, more attention to the person in front of her camera. This resulted in both socially engaged reportage and strikingly personal portraits.

Carefully constructed image fades into the background

From 19 September, Maastricht will present 130 black-and-white and colour photographs from her body of work, with emphasis on work from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. There are plenty of famous faces. Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich and Joan Crawford all appear. Yet the photographs rarely seem to be about celebrity alone. Arnold sought out the moments when the carefully constructed image briefly receded.

That All about Eve encompasses more than Hollywood becomes clear from the rest of the selection. Series such as Fashion Shows in Harlem, New York by Night, A Baby's Momentous First Five Minutes and Malcolm X are also represented. Beyond this, Arnold photographed during travels through Afghanistan, China, Egypt, Haiti, India and South Africa, among others. Her subjects varied considerably, her approach hardly at all: curious, engaged and without unnecessary fuss.

From magazine to museum wall

Arnold's work appeared in fifteen photography books and is now part of collections at the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and Centre Pompidou in Paris, among others. In 1995, she was also honoured by the British Royal Photographic Society and the International Center of Photography in New York.

All about Eve was created in collaboration with Magnum Photos and CAMERA – Centro Italiano per la Fotografia in Turin. The exhibition runs from 19 September 2026 to 31 January 2027 at Fotomuseum aan het Vrijthof in Maastricht.