Irving Penn | CGauthier.art , Irving Penn

Irving Penn is one of the great photographers of the 20th century, known for his striking images and high-quality prints. Although celebrated as one of Vogue magazine's top photographers for over sixty years, Penn was an intensely private man who avoided the limelight and pursued his work with unwavering dedication.

At a time when photography was primarily a means of communication, he approached it with an artist's eye and expanded the creative potential of the medium, both with his professional and personal work.

Brief history

Born in 1917 in Plainfield, New Jersey, to immigrant parents, Penn attended the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Arts from 1934 to 1938, where he studied with Alexey Brodovitch. A Russian émigré who worked at

Paris in the 1920s, Brodovitch taught the application of the principles of modern art and design to the needs of magazines, exhibitions, architecture, and photography.

Fashion photography before Penn

Before the advent of photography, illustration was the only method for publishing fashion images. Initially only available in black and white for reproduction in mass-circulation newspapers, hand-colored illustrations emerged in conjunction with the evolution of fashion presses and magazines.

At the beginning of the 20th century, photography began to be used.

Strongly influenced by the pictorialist approach, the first generation of photographers who made a mark on the fashion industry were:

Baron Adolph de Meye r (Paris, 1868 – California 1946)
Erwin Blumenfeld (Berlin, 1897 – Rome, 1969)
Cecil Beaton (London, 1904 – 1980)
Horst P Horst (Germany, 1906 – Florida, 1999)
Martin Munkácsi (Hungary 1896 – New York, 1963)

Early fashion photography uses elaborate, painted backgrounds with perspective, depth, and rich detail. In addition, a wide range of props, mirrors, and dramatic shadows inspired by film lighting techniques are used. For example, Beaton casts shadows on his bright backgrounds.

The use of elaborate accessories ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous, such as Beaton's bracelet

We later move on to the fantasies of the surrealists, animated and inspired by the Avant-garde movement, who use numerous artifacts like masks, placing the model for example in front of works

Picasso's art:

Edward Steichen (Lusembourg, 1879 – Connecticut, 1973)
Man Ray (Philadelphia, 1890 – Paris, 1978)
Louise Dahl-Wolfe (San Francisco, 1895 – New Jersey, 1989)

Early career at Vogue

After some time in New York as Brodovitch's assistant at Harper's Bazaar and various art director jobs, Penn went to Mexico to paint in 1941. He became disappointed with his paintings and destroyed them before returning to New York late the following year.

In 1943, Vogue's new art director (1942–1994), Alexander Liberman (1912–1999), hired Penn as an associate to prepare layouts and suggest cover ideas to the magazine's photographers. Liberman, another Russian émigré who had worked in Paris, looked at Penn's contact sheets from his recent travels and recognized "a mind and an eye that knew what he wanted to see."

Extreme Beauty

What exactly defines beauty? Is the answer, as some have suggested, perfect symmetry? Or perhaps exotic expressions and features? Is the current perception of beauty something entirely natural or manufactured for dramatic effect? And is it really in the eye of the beholder? Taken from the Vogues archives, here are some of Irving Penn's photographs that pushed the boundaries, ignored the rules. Penn knew how to take risks. The result is a collection of striking and disturbing photographs, with images that are always epitomes of beauty, with unexpected and disconcerting compositions.

Penn's Covers

Under Liberman's influence, Penn enjoyed considerable editorial freedom, allowing him to create innovative material at Vogue.

Penn, who rarely went to the scene, was in Lima for a Vogue issue. He returned with a photo of the model with sore feet; he took off her shoes. Liberman called this photo "the imperfection of real life."

Liberman had a long and lasting relationship with Irving Penn. The perfectionist photographer often threatened to never work for Vogue again if Liberman published a photo he hadn't chosen himself, but this didn't stop Liberman from going ahead and publishing them anyway. Liberman even used a blurry image of Penn and had it blown up to take up a double-page spread.

After World War II, as Penn quickly developed a reputation for his striking style of still life and portraiture, Liberman sent him around the world on portrait and fashion assignments. These were formative experiences, confirming Penn's preference for photographing in the controlled environment of a studio, where he could remove everything that was not essential to his compositions and focus on his subjects.

Portrait of Picasso

The most striking portrait of Picasso, captured by Irving Penn in 1957

Here is a collection of Picasso portraits produced by some of the biggest names. Picasso loved the camera and never hesitated to have his picture taken. In my opinion, Penn's portrait is the most striking of all.

Personal project: Earthly Bodies, 1940 -50

In addition to his commercial contracts, Penn undertook a major personal project, photographing nudes in the studio and experimenting with how to produce prints to bring out the subtlety of the image. This was a new approach to photography for Penn, but the images were deemed too provocative and were not shown for decades.

Parisian period

In 1950, Penn was sent to Paris to photograph Vogue's haute couture collections. He worked in a daylit studio with an old theater curtain as a backdrop. It was then that he first met the extraordinary model Lisa Fonssagrives in 1947. Born in Sweden and trained as a dancer, she was one of the most sought-after models of the time, with a sophisticated expression of form and posture. They married in London in September 1950.

Lisa Fonssagrives

Parisian period

During this period, Penn also worked on a project inspired by a tradition of old master prints, photographing the " Small Trades "—butchers, bakers, laborers, and eccentrics who belonged to a vanishing world. From this vast collection, Penn published a book titled "Small Trades," with several hundred black-and-white photographs of workers depicted in their uniforms and work tools, all in front of a painted background. The models are shown full-size.

Penn's Studio in Paris

International period

Penn's travels for Vogue became more frequent between 1964 and 1971, taking him to Japan, Crete, Spain, Dahomey (now part of Benin), Nepal, Cameroon, New Guinea, and Morocco. During these trips, Penn was increasingly free to focus on what truly interested him: taking portraits of people in natural light.

During his early travels, he adapted existing spaces like a garage or a barn to his needs, emphasizing the crucial role of a neutral environment in fostering the respectful exchange he sought. Eventually, this led him to build a studio tent that could be easily dismantled and transported from one location to another.

Penn seeks to establish a relationship of trust with his subjects: this experience is a revelation for him and a moving encounter for the subjects themselves, who without words, only by their position, their expression and their concentration, were able to say a lot, to bridge the gap between different cultures.

Penn's work enjoyed an ideal outlet in the pages of Vogue, allowing it to be widely distributed. However, by the early 1950s, editors began to believe that Penn's photographs were too harsh, too intense, for the magazine.

As a result, his assignments were reduced and he turned to advertising. Penn welcomed the challenges this new field offered, particularly in the areas of still life photography, and experimented with strobe lights to produce dynamic images that revolutionized the use of photography in advertising.

Penn's Creative Philosophy

Penn's approach was different: "If there was no reason for an object to be in the image, it wasn't there." He stripped down the image and thus revolutionized the image of fashion.

Here are Penn's preferred design components: Clarity, neutral background, space, light, detail, line and pose, all to create a new language.

Clarity: “The photographic process is all about simplification and elimination.”

Background: Penn resists negative comments from magazine critics and persists in using his white backgrounds

Space: Penn creates his own space. For example, he created his angled space: "a niche to lock people in." Some people felt safe in the narrow space, others felt trapped. It was a kind of "truth serum." For Penn, the subject's spontaneous reaction determines the expression captured on camera.

Portraits in a Corner, by Irving Penn

Light: Penn's light was very different from the dramatic, high-contrast lighting of his time. "Daylight is the most delightful of the various types of lighting available to a photographer." He referred to the soft northern light entering a studio. He also used strobe lighting: the color balance is predictable and repeatable, and the models are not exposed to heat.

Use of details: Pfaff series, 1950, Dior Kerchief glove, 1950: the importance of showing fashion. Penn chose to present the details of the garments.

Line: body line, corresponds to the shape of a flower, inspired by contours.

Pose: Unlike the "dramatic poses" used previously, he prefers simplified, natural poses.

Fashion was also influenced by Avadon and Ritts during the same period, including the movement and vitality of models, the use of outdoor lighting and wide open spaces.

The value of a photo

As a young photographer in 1950, Penn mentioned that "for the modern photographer, the final product is the printed page, not the photographic print."

Fourteen years later, he changed his mind: "A beautiful print is the object itself, not just a transitional process on its way to the page of a magazine."

What brought about this radical change in mentality?

This can be explained by the fact that Penn, early in his career, sought respect for his fashion work. Over the years, Penn came to the idea that he did not want an ephemeral representation of his work. He once mentioned to studio photographer Vin Greco (famous studio photographer): "Today's photo will wrap tomorrow's fish."

Production of silver prints

In the early 1960s, magazine budgets were cut, leading to a reduction in the quality of prints. Although Penn continued to photograph for the magazine, he became increasingly disappointed with the way his photographs appeared on the pages, commenting that he avoided looking at them because "they hurt too much."

His solution to this situation was to quietly revive his darkroom printing practice, a revolutionary approach at a time when photographic prints were not considered artistic objects.

Beginning with extensive research and experimentation, he studied 19th-century methods that could provide greater control over the subtle variations and tones he sought in a print. He continued his research until he perfected a complex platinum and palladium printing process, projecting negatives to print on sensitized paper, then onto aluminum foil so that it would withstand multiple coatings and printing.

Withdrawal from commercial activities

In the early 1970s, Penn closed his Manhattan studio and immersed himself in platinum and palladium printing in the laboratory he built on the family farm on Long Island, NY.

Irving Penn's Darkroom on Long Island

This led him to produce three major photographic series designed for platinum and palladium prints: Cigarettes (1972, shown at the Museum of Modern Art in 1975), Street Material (1975-1976, shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1977), and Archaeology (1979-1980, shown at the Marlborough Gallery in 1982).

Like his earlier nude series, these works represent a radical departure from the dominant uses of photography. Although many found these subjects repugnant, Penn saw "a treasure in the city's refuse, intriguing, distorted forms with varying colors and stains."

In 1983, Penn returned to his business activities and opened a studio in New York to resume his advertising and magazine work.

End of career

Penn's creativity flourished in the last decades of his life. His innovative portraits, still lifes, fashion, and beauty photographs continue to appear regularly in Vogue.

Penn embraced new ideas, building cameras to photograph debris on the sidewalk, experimenting with a moving light strip for long exposures, and digital color printing. Book projects also became a priority, and Penn took great care to ensure quality design and printing.

Develop your archives

From his prolific career, he wanted to leave a carefully structured body of work. Particularly after Lisa's death in 1992, he sought solace in his work and the structure of his studio schedule. He painted most nights after work and on weekends. In 2009, Penn died in New York City at the age of 92.

He established the Irving Penn Foundation, dedicated to managing Penn's legacy and preserving the inspiration of his remarkable mind.