In China

Best known as Marilyn Monroe's personal photographer, Eve Arnold and her literary legacy In China nonetheless have an important place in photography books about China, not in that she was the first foreign photojournalist EVER permitted access into Communist China, but that she was a 67 year-old woman when she made the trip! Spending 5 months traveling across late-1970's Red China (accompanied by a government-issued sentinel), Ms. Arnold traversed the country to capture the daily lives of ordinary Chinese, from Beijing city dwellers to South China villagers to Inner Mongolian herdsmen. Many of her images of the P.R.C. come across as more "postcard perfect" than profound, and we wonder what Ms. Arnold might have uncovered had she not been shadowed by Communist Party spooks. But there is no doubt that Ms. Arnold had a connection with each of her Chinese subjects, and despite being the first westerner most of these people surely had ever encountered, was able to immortalize them in all their candid innocence. Having made a similar journey across the Middle Kingdom myself - almost thirty years later - in preparation for my own book of photography CHINA: Portrait of a People, I can attest that China is one of the most challenging countries in the world to travel - even for a 6'4" American male. I have nothing but the utmost respect and regard for what Eve Arnold has accomplished with her beautiful book.