Art Of The Day Weekly
#483 - from 21 September 2017 to 28 September 2017
Irving Penn, Girl with Tobacco on Tongue (Mary Jane Russell), New York, 1951; silver gelatin print; 37,5 × 36,5 cm ; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Promised Gift of The Irving Penn Foundation © Condé Nast
Seven decades with Penn
PARIS – This full retrospective was already shown at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. It is dedicated to Irving Penn and the many facets of a photographer who had an impressively long life (he passed away at age 92 in 2009), and delved in all genres. He is known mostly for his work in the fashion world, since he collaborated continuously with Vogue magazine for 66 years, from 1943 to 2009, and did 165 of its front covers - a record no one could beat! – in particular with his wife, Swedish model Lisa Fonssagrives. But the exhibition shows that he was also brilliant photographing still lives (his famous series on cigarette butts), urban scenes, and portraits – be it London grocery store owners, Peruvian peasants or international stars, from Picasso to Marlene Dietrich and Truman Capote. The 275 prints are all vintage, that is they were all printed while Penn was alive: this is an opportunity to see up close this undefinable Paris light which he described as “soft but precise”, that he wisely recreated in his studio, and which surrounds a number of his images.
• Irving Penn at the Grand Palais, from 21 September 2017 to 29 January 2018.