Irving Penn defined several generations of fashion through his unique approach to photography. Penn is perhaps best known for his fashion photography beginning with his notable 1950s series of the Paris fashion collections. He came to define the new look for magazines. By placing models against plain backdrops, Penn removed the familiar indicators of space or scale and allowed fashion to stand alone as the subject of his images. Many fashion photographs point to changes in aesthetic sensibilities as well as to changes in fashion itself, and Penn’s routine use of minimal, flat backgrounds can be viewed as the introduction of the modern age of fashion photography. Penn, who was born in 1917 in New Jersey, worked in New York as a graphic artist in the 1930s, and spent a year painting in Mexico before starting work at Vogue magazine in the early 1940s. His photographs have been widely exhibited, included in major retrospective exhibitions, and are in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Irving Penn’s work can be defined by his unique sophistication shot with a soft natural light. He has also become known for his unusual arrangements, photographed with great detail and clarity. While his prints are always clean and clear, Penn’s subjects vary widely. Many of his photographs have now become important works within the modernist photography canon. His still life compositions are skillfully arranged assemblages of food or objects; at once spare and highly organized, the objects are raised to a graphic perfection, articulating the abstract interplay of line and volume.

Description: SIGNED by IRVING PENN on the Title page. Hard bound in dust jacket. Some minor wear to dust jacket, otherwise very good. A nice copy of a scarce signed photography monograph.

Bookseller Inventory # 61634
Passage
Penn, Irving

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