Cristina Garcia Rodero (Magnum Women No.4)

"I tried to photograph the mysterious, true and magical soul of popular Spain in all its passion, love, humor, tenderness, rage, pain, in all its truth; and the fullest and most intense moments in the lives of these characters as simple as they are irresistible, with all their inner strength, as a personal challenge that gave me strength and understanding and in which I invested all my heart." - Cristina Garcia Rodero

Born: 1949, Spain

Joined Magnum: 2005

Full Member of Magnum: 2009

Old cinema studios, Almeria, Spain. 1991

Holy Saturday, Canossa di Puglia, Italy. 2000

Paseo al atardecer. 2002

Three Flames. 2005

Spiritual Cleaning, Maria Lionza, La Diosa de los Ojos de Agua. (Date unknown)

Martine Franck (Magnum Women No.3)

"A photograph isn't necessarily a lie, but nor is it the truth. It's more of a fleeting, subjective impression." - Martine Franck

Born: 1938, Belgium

Joined Magnum: 1980

Full member of Magnum: 1983

Children's Library, Clamart, France. 1965

Swimming pool designed by Alain Capeilleres, Le Brusc, France. 1976

Bresson on his balcony, Paris. 1992

Tulku Khentrol Lodro Rabsel with his tutor Llagyel Shechen in the Bonarth Monastery, Nepal. 1996

Olivia Arthur (Magnum Women No. 2)

'When I am asked about my work, one of the questions that often comes up is 'How much difference does it make that I am a woman?' And I have to agree that it does make a huge difference, that plenty of the situations I have been in would not have been accessible to a man, or if a man had been present the atmosphere would have been very different.' -Olivia Arthur

Born: 1980, UK

Magnum nominee: 2008

Fatima says her midday prayers. A poster of her uncle, who is a wedding-dj, on the wall

(Iran: Beyond the Veil)

A young married couple in a migrant-worker community on the edge of Tehran

(Iran: Beyond the Veil)

(In the Name of God)

(In the Name of God)

Koran School for Girls. Faith, Turkey

(The Middle Distance)

Getting ready for a wedding party. Istanbul, Turkey

(The Middle Distance)

The prison dining room. Tibilsi, Georgia

(The Middle Distance)

Eve Arnold (Magnum Women No.1)

'If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given. It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.' -Eve Arnold

Born: 1912, USA

Joined Magnum: 1951

Full member of Magnum: 1956

Bar girl in a brothel in the red light district, Havana, Cuba. 1954

US actress Marilyn Monroe on the Nevada Desert going over her lines for a difficult scene she is about to play with Clarke Gable in the film The Misfits by John Huston. 1960

Malcolm X collecting money for the Black Muslims, Washington D.C. 1960

The Queen on tour, Cheshire, UK. 1968

A woman wearing a veil, the colour of which indicates her tribe, Cairo, Egypt. 1970

Horse training for the militia, Inner Mongolia. 1979

Magnum

'Magnum is a community of thought, a shared human quality, a curiosity about what is going on in the world, a respect for what is going on and a desire to transcribe it visually.' -Henri Cartier-Bresson

Magnum meeting, Paris, 1957

There's an amazing exhibition about Magnum Photos and the 'New Role of Photography' at the C/O in Berlin. Magnum is a photography cooperative, owned by its photographer-members, that 'chronicle the world and interpret its peoples, events, issues, and personalities'. Magnum was started by Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, David "Chim" Seymour, George Rodger and William Vandivert in 1947.

The exhibition mainly focusses on the amazing photographs of its founding members, but it also displays other and more recent Magnum members. What struck me was that there was not a single woman photographer within this exhibition. As you can see in the photograph above, in 1957 there were four women in Magnum and there continues to be female Magnum members to this day. Where were they?

Eve Arnold

Olivia Arthur

Martine Franck

Christina Garcia Rodero

Inge Morath

Alessandra Sanguinetti

Lise Sarfati

Marilyn Silverstone

My next few posts will highlight the work of these women.

[I should say that at the Berlinische Galerie there was a fantastic exhibition of women photographers of the Weimar Republic, with Marianne Breslauer as the main draw.]