Irving Penn, Fashion Photographer...

 

 

 

 

...I could go on, but I think you get the point.

Mike
(Thanks to Yuanchung Lee)

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Question from Don Bryant: "There has been a suggestion on an internet forum that Penn didn't actually do his platinum printing. Of course anything can be written on the net but the suggestion was made by someone very knowledgeable about the world of platinum printing. I don't know if that is true or not but the rumor is out there. But I have to ask, if the rumor is true, does it matter? I was fortunate to see a couple of large exhibits of his work and was a great admirer of the work I saw firsthand. His dye transfer color prints were great as well. I recall coming back to the exhibits three times to soak it all in."

Answered by Keith Trumbo: "Regarding Mr. Penn and some vague internet accusation questioning whether he made his own platinum prints: I worked for Mr. Penn for many years alongside him as he made his platinum prints. He made the developers, he coated each one personally. I was lucky enough to be an extra pair of hands to help get his work done. Yes I was one of many that helped him in one aspect or another in the production, but I want this to be heard loud and clear—Penn personally made his own platinum prints."

Featured Comment by Calvin Amari: "At least with respect to Penn's career, the institutional guardians of fine art photography are well over marginalizing his commercial work as a fashion photographer. Indeed, things more generally have gone so far to the other extreme—witness the most commercial of Annie Leibovitz's photos with all their gooey appeal displayed in art museums—that I suspect that some readers don't fully appreciate the sardonic nature of Mike's post.

"Despite working at Vogue magazine since 1943, Penn did not have an exhibition at MoMA until the mid-Seventies show of the cigarette butt series that, to me at least, must be seen in their monumental original size to be fully appreciated. Much of the ambiguity of the pictures—both optically (their resemblance to ancient ruined marble columns) and intellectually (the questions of whether he was both literally and figuratively inflating something prosaic into something larger than it can become)—does not come through in reduced size. But there was another sort of ambiguity or tension regarding the exhibition as well. John Szarkowski in his wall essay acknowledged in passing Penn's commercial work in the world of 'haute couture or cuisine' and said, with what appeared to be almost an apologetic sense of embarrassed dismissal, that 'one might guess that he [Penn] has only rarely enjoyed more than a cursory interest in the nominal subject of his [fashion] pictures.' 

"At the same time, it is hard to escape the sense that Penn was not being sardonic himself about this issue of his primary home being located in the ghetto of commercial photography. He had to be smiling to himself and at himself that, after three decades at the top of the profession, cigarette butts became his key to the pantheon. It's not that Penn pulled a fast one, per se. The cigarette butt work reflects keen intellect and craft, but it is interesting to contemplate all the subtle elements of the wit and schmaltz that Penn also brought to that particular proceeding."

Comments

[Rob Young]

One of my very first photographic heroes, sad day

[Louis McCullagh]

There is a great Penn exhibition on in LA. I went there 2 weeks ago.
http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/penn/

[David Paterson]

You could not be a photographer through the '60s, '70s and later and be unaffected by Penn's work. He defined or re-defined every genre he worked in, and a first viewing of "Worlds in a Small Room" was a relevatory experience to most people.

[Ken White]

You have to admire anyone with the talent to turn cigarette butts into an evocative image. The Picasso portrait manages to capture the essence of the artist from a partially hidden face. Minimal and powerful.

[John Brewton]

Not sure why you restrict a man by giving him the title of "fashion photographer". He was just a damn fine photographer period.

[Mike Johnston]

"Not sure why you restrict a man by giving him the title of 'fashion photographer.' He was just a damn fine photographer period."

John,
Yes, that's the point of the post.

Mike

[Terence Hogben]

Shame thought he was going to live forever , certainly inspired me no end.
I do not think many current highly regarded photographers come close to what Irving Penn has achieved.

[Don Jagoe]

This has been a particularly tough last five years in terms of losing photographic greats. This is very sad and a huge loss. Whata body of work and what vision.

[James McDermott]

No EXIF information? His workflow was a bit sloppy. And he should have told Pablo to pull his head out of his coat. And that table top's a proper mess. And ...

[Mike O'Donoghue]

A man of exquisite taste and a photographer to boot. Had a nice long run, tho. Can't be sad when a 92 year old shuffles off to Buffalo. Let's hope there will come another to fill his shoes.

[David]

Wow, bum me out.

Penn was a brilliant man. I think more than a photographer he was a designer.

Amazing how he tagged everything he shot with his sensibility..clean, elegant, strong and playful, sexy.

[Don Bryant]

There has been a suggestion on an internet forum that Penn didn't actually do his platinum printing. Of course anything can be written on the net but the suggestion was made by someone very knowledgeable about the world of platinum printing.

I don't know if that is true or not but the rumor is out there.

But I have to ask, if the rumor is true does it matter?

I was fortunate to see a couple of large exhibits of his work and was a great admirer of the work I saw firsthand. His dye transfer color prints were great as well. I recall coming back to the exhibits 3 times to soak it all in.

[Mike Johnston]

Don Bryant,
I don't know, but I can't see that it matters. Lots of photographers don't do their own printing. Tom Baril was Mapplethorpe's printer. Cartier-Bresson printed almost none of his own work.

The subject might make an interesting post, come to think of it.

Mike

[Dave Karp]

Good save. :-)

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Lots of photographers hire people to do the printing at some or most stages of their career. Most of the photojournalists just sent in exposed film, right? Even the very famous ones? They didn't even see the prints before they were published often. So that goes even a step past the great art photographers, nearly all of whom hired people to print for them.

[misha]

@Don Bryant: I have a lab do all of my silver halide printing. I used to take me one hour to produce one exhibition quality print. A lab can do it in far less time, and sometimes better. I have some B&W silver prints hanging in my loft, made by an Agfa machine in a lab, and they are equal or better than what I used to print in my darkroom.

I now have a HP 13x19 inkjet, but I sometimes go to a lab. No shame in that. I think Arnold Neuman had a darkroom assistant, and I'm sure Clyde Butcher spends most of his time behind the camera, and has others doing darkroom duty.

It would make an interesting column.

Personal opinion: I think Penn was better than Avedon.

[Ken Tanaka]

Irving Penn was among the very few standard-bearers of photography's epitome. One of the very few climbers who reached the summit and took photos of the scene against which the rest of us can measure our own works and the works of others. Penn's body is gone but his work will thankfully be immortal.

[Carl Leonardi]

Keith, I was hanging out at the farm with Lisa at the time he was doing his platinum prints. She asked if I would like to help him--I would have loved to --but had a family to feed.
Never saw the lab-- I did see all the original prints though.
Great stuff--Yes he did all his own work when it came to the Platinum work. At the time I was working on my series of images on bronze-- really looking for the archival image that would last at least 5,000 years. Loved the farm, nothing like walking on deer skins in the house.

[Keith Trumbo]

Carl Leonardi,
The old house and farm on LI was truly beautiful. The lab was incredibly well designed on two levels but on the outside as you remember looked like the classic red barn. Lisa was a true Renaissance woman, a great artist in her own right. It was a privilege to have known both of them.

[Eddie]

I hear that Frank Llyod Wright didn't make his famous buildings either...

[Bron Janulis]

A wonderful artist, who balanced commerce and art exquisitely; creative and powerful, regardless of the "label".

Doing a little reading, I found that Penn started and ended as a painter.

[Carl Leonardi]

Keith Trumbo,
A privilege and a great gift--They were both very kind and down to earth--I spent many hours with Lisa, listening to her many tales of Mr. Penn and herself.

The photo world has lost a great master--I hope his work will become better known in years to come.

[Christopher Jones]

This AP picture of a photo shoot with a New Guinea mud man and a child http://msnbc.msn.com/id/33217044/displaymode/1176/rstry/33214155/ reveals some details of Penn's craft. Don't you hate it when one of the levers of your pan/tilt head sticks into you? He has set his facing to the front! That satchel hanging from the tripod surely contains a few bricks to weigh it down for extra stability.

[Howard Cornelsen]

"Don't you hate it when one of the levers of your pan/tilt head sticks into you? He has set his facing to the front!"

Christopher--
That's the way the Tiltall (tripod brand) was designed to work. Short lever forward keeps you from bumping it.

[James Moule]

Adam Gopnik is one of the most agile writers these days. His "Postscript" on Irving Penn in the Oct 19 issue of the New Yorker is not to be missed.