Irving Penn

After studying design under Alexey Brodovitch, Irving Penn worked as a graphic artist at the Philadelphia Museum School on Industrial Art. In 1938 he moved to New York and began freelancing. In 1943 he produced his first picture for Vogue, a still laugh. Since then his photographs have appeared regularly in Vogue and other magazines. since 1951 he has been taking pictures for individual clients all over the world. Like Richard Avedon, Penn is mainly known for his work as a fashion photographer, unlike his counterparts, Penn is not interested in photography outside the studio, let alone shots in streets and cafes. All his life he has remained faithful to photography in the studio, under very specific lighting conditions, allowing cognoscenti of his work to distinguish between his pictures taken in Paris and those taken in New York. Despite these fundamental differences in approach, Penn also sees the interest in the human being as central to his work. In his fashion photographs, the personality of the model is always given considerable play, so that his pictures appear close to being portraits. His series, such as his 1949 assignment for Vogue to photograph fashion that is characteristic of the first half of the 20th century in five shots - the scene depicting the fifties with the relaxed pose and dress almost allowing us to forget that it is a fashion shot, were it not for the repeated subtle background color. The significance of this background only becomes clear when one remembers that even his portraits, his series on British and French small business people in Morocco, Benin, or New Guinea feature that background. The background is Penn's stage, on which he allows his models to act. Be it fashion or portraits, he detaches people from their own social context, isolating them to draw greater attention to their idiosyncrasies. Indeed, by consistently using the same background, he both highlights the individual, pulling him or her out of anonymity, and draws to the clothing. For Penn, every piece of clothing, as soon as it is presented on a specific stage, becomes fashion. From the viewpoint of cultural history, this idea can certainly be justified, even if the style of clothing of earlier centuries changed at a somewhat slower pace. In his series of pictures taken of carpenters, lesser employees, and workers in England and France, Penn removed their different uniforms and work-clothes from their practical purpose and presented them as a fashion phenomenon. Likewise, these intentions were expressed in his portraits of native inhabitants of New Guinea, whose tribal dress was defined in terms of fashion.

Information from 20th Century Photographers, Museum Ludwig Cologne, Taschen