Irving penn biography hamilton

Biography of Irving Penn

Irving Penn, a renowned photographer for Vogue magazine, was born in 1917 in Plainfield, New Jersey. At the age of eighteen, he enrolled in Alexey Brodovitch's advertising design course at the School of Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. During this time, Penn worked as a courier for Harper's Bazaar and began sketching shoes, eventually becoming an apprentice.

In 1938, after completing his education, Penn became an art editor at the luxurious department store Saks Fifth Avenue. However, a few years later, at the age of twenty-five, he followed his creative impulse and quit his job, leaving everything behind to travel to Mexico. There, he spent a year painting with his modest savings. He later destroyed all his Mexican paintings.

Upon returning to New York, Irving Penn interviewed and once again became an art editor, this time for the popular publication Vogue. Initially, Penn assisted Alexey Liberman, but his approach to photography differed from that of the photographers. In one moment, Liberman insisted that Penn take the camera into his own hands. Armed with a studio camera, Penn created his first still life photograph: a brown leather bag, beige cashmere, gloves, a large topaz, and citrus fruits. This photograph appeared on the cover of Vogue on October 1, 1943, marking the beginning of Penn's brilliant career as a photographer and artist. From then on, Penn began taking photographs himself, proving through his work that minimalism was synonymous with luxury. His style later became recognized as the embodiment of aristocratic elegance.

Despite being primarily a photographer, Penn demonstrated incredible productivity and energy. He participated in advertising, photojournalism, portraiture, staged photography, and even worked for television. He constantly experimented with his work, one of his techniques being "enclosing a person in a confined space." Penn would place his model between two planes, forming an angle, and explained that some people felt confident and free in such a space, while others felt trapped and anxious. This technique allowed for greater attention and concentration during the shoot. This was Irving Penn during his early years.

Some of the notable models from Penn's "angle" period were Noël Coward, the Duchess of Windsor, and Spencer Tracy. Another characteristic technique he used was incorporating an ancient carpet he bought at a shop on Third Avenue into his portraits. This carpet became a recurring element in many of his works during that period, appearing in various color combinations. Notably, it served as the backdrop for portraits of John Dewey and Alfred Hitchcock.

Many believe that Irving Penn defined Vogue's aesthetic during the two post-war decades. Another famous project by Penn was "Small Trades," which consisted of numerous portraits of workers in uniform, holding attributes of their profession or craft. Each portrait had a white background and was lit from the side, a lighting technique commonly used by Penn in most of his portraits.

In 1953, at the opening of his own studio, Penn famously said, "A frozen dessert can also be art." His studio carried out the entire process of black and white photography, while he sent his color films to other labs.

Despite working with color film since the early 1940s, the real Irving Penn was defined by his black and white frames, characterized by meticulously crafted compositions that left no room for chance. His subjects simply stood or sat, yet there was a compositional elegance and luxury within this simplicity, encompassing a range from black to white. Penn's talent as a photographic artist opened doors to even the most conservative museums worldwide. Notably, he became the first photographer to have his works exhibited at the Hermitage Museum.

In addition to his work in American, British, and French editions of Vogue, Irving Penn's photographic masterpieces can be found in major American museums such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Metropolitan Museum, the Addison Gallery of American Art, and the Baltimore Museum of Art.

In 1958, Popular Photography magazine named Penn one of the ten greatest photographers in the world.

Since 1950, Penn was happily married to his favorite model, Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn, with whom he had one son.

On October 7, 2009, at the age of 92, Irving Penn passed away in his Manhattan home. He was known as the "master of photography" and a "revolutionary in fashion and advertising photography," with his works studied by students in printing schools worldwide.