Unretouched Women

In the mid-1970s in the United States as feminism gained huge momentum, three American photographers Eve Arnold, Abigail Heyman and Susan Meiselas published books of a new kind. Combining testimonies and images, they offer very original documentaries of women at work, their daily routines and their private lives. The trio brought their own style and experimented with the book format while showing women in a new light through photography. Their work sidestepped clichés to create alternative representations. This catalogue reveals their unusual approach to their works. The first, Growing Up Female by Abigail Heyman, published in 1974, is a kind of feminist personal diary. The photographer casts a lucid eye at her own life and questions the imprisonment of women in stereotype roles. The second, The Unretouched Woman, published by Eve Arnold in 1976, shows unknown women and celebrities in unexpected moments of their daily lives. The photos were deliberately not retouched or staged and,