One of the early experimenters with the telephoto lens, Penn perceived photography as a distillation of reality, rather than an elaboration upon it. He achieved deliberately structured compositions by borrowing from the natural northern lighting of traditional European painters. His first...
[more]One of the early experimenters with the telephoto lens, Penn perceived photography as a distillation of reality, rather than an elaboration upon it. He achieved deliberately structured compositions by borrowing from the natural northern lighting of traditional European painters.
His first cover for Vogue (October 1, 1943) was a still life of autumn accessories composed in a classic pyramid and rendered in full, luminous tones of yellow and brown. His lean, austere style, eliminating the backdrops and extraneous props on which other fashion photographers relied at the time, allowed the extreme elegance of the outfits and the women who wore them to speak for itself. On other occasions he pushed simplification to the point of abstraction.
Another Vogue cover (April 1, 1950) features a stark black and white study of opposing vectors. The model's hat brim is horizontal, her silk scarf vertical, her dress diagonal, and her face, obscured by a black veil of wide weave, becomes an element of the photograph's abstract design. Only her eyes are alive, shining with suspicion as they look beyond the picture frame.
Penn created what Alexander Liberman identified as "the photographic analogue of Post-Impressionst Pointillism" in the shimmering, grainy technique evident in such photos as "Sunday on the Seine" (April 15, 1953). Discussing a travel series chronicling the lives of plumbers, patissiers, charwomen, and cucumber salesmen, Penn suggested, "What I really try to do is photograph people at rest, in a state of serenity."
A striking example of this sensibility can be found in the portrait of French novelist Colette (1951), then an invalid seventy-eight-year-old. Her face, its wrinkled pallor emphasized by white powder and darkly painted eyes and lips, is a death mask surrounded by a fitfully illuminated halo of frizzy hair. Her garments -- a heavy velvet laprobe, a blouse with a ruffle and voluminous sleeves, threaten to entrap her. Nonetheless, the mind within is free and alive, triumphing over the confinement of the body, scrutinizing the world with an immortal gaze.
The reviewer Owen Edwards said of Penn's opus: "There is more sensual pleasure per square inch than can be found in the work of any other photographer." Upwards of 300 of his fashion, travel, and portrait photographs were selected and organized by him in his book "Moments Preserved."
On October 7th, 2009, at the age of 92, Irving Penn died.
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