"Sensitive people faced with the prospect of a camera portrait put on a face they think is one they would like to show the world.... very often what lies behind the facade is rare and more wonderful than the subject knows or dares to believe." Irving Penn 1975
Irving Penn (1917-2009) was one of the great photographers of our time. Focusing specifically on his portraits of major cultural figures of the last seven decades. Penn photographed an extraordinary range of sitters from the worlds of literature, music and the visual and performing arts. Among those featured in the exhibition are Truman Capote, Salvador Dali, Christian Dior, T.S. Eliot, Duke Ellington, Grace Kelly, Rudolf Nureyev, Al Pacino, Edith Piaf, Pablo Picasso and Harold Pinter.
Penn worked for many years doing fashion photography for Vogue magazine, founding his own studio in 1953. He was among the first photographers to pose subjects against a simple grey or white backdrop and used this simplicity more effectively than other photographers. Expanding his austere studio surroundings, Penn constructed a set of upright angled backdrops, to form a stark, acute corner. Subjects photographed with this technique included Martha Graham, Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O'Keeffe, W. H. Auden, Igor Stravinsky and Marlene Dietrich.
Personal life
In 1950, Penn married his favorite model, Lisa Fonssagrives, who died in 1992. They had one son together, designer Tom Penn. Irving Penn's younger brother is movie director, Arthur Penn.
Style
Penn photographed still life objects and found objects in unusual arrangements with great detail and clarity. While his prints are always clean and clear, Penn's subjects varied widely. Many times his photographs were so ahead of their time that they only came to be appreciated as important works in the modernist canon years after their creation. For example, a series of posed nudes whose physical shapes range from thin to plump were shot in 1949-1950, but were not exhibited until 1980. His still life compositions are skillfully arranged assemblages of food or objects; at once spare and highly organized, the objects articulate the abstract interplay of line and volume. Irving Penn exhibit opened in London on Feb. 18, 2009. His still life photography and portraits represent his clear love of capturing both the beauty and the oddities of life. He is most well known for his fashion photography, particularly his work with Vogue. The National Portrait Gallery has procured 120 portraits, and the result is a spectacular exhibit that shows off Irving Penn ability to capture a person's essence. The exhibit will run until June 6, 2010.
Legacy
He has published numerous books including the recent, "A Notebook at Random" which offers a generous selection of photographs, paintings, and documents of his working methods.
The permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum possesses a silver gelatin print of Penn's The Tarot Reader, a photograph from 1949 of Jean Patchett and surrealist painter Bridge Tichenor
The Irving Penn Archives, a collection of personal items and materials relating to his career, are held by the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago.
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