Irving Penn: Centennial

Posted by Surplus Camera Gear on 31st May 2017

Irving Penn: Centennial at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present a major retrospective of the photographs of Irving Penn to mark the centennial of the artist's birth. Over the course of his nearly 70-year career, Irving Penn (1917–2009) mastered a pared-down aesthetic of studio photography that is distinguished for its meticulous attention to composition, nuance, detail, and printmaking. Irving Penn: Centennial, opening April 24, 2017, will be the most comprehensive exhibition of the great American photographer’s work to date and will include both masterpieces and hitherto unknown prints from all his major series.

I am very grateful that I was able to slip into New York City on a recent trip to New Jersey and see the Penn Centennial at The Met. A photographer who’s work I have long admired, I first became aware of Irving Penn when I was studying the platinum printing process with Alan Newman at Parson’s School of Design fresh out of high school in 1980. In addition to his many accomplishments, Penn was instrumental in the modern revival of platinum printing in the early 1960s.

Irving Penn: Centennial at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Lisa Fonssagrives, born Lisa Birgitta Bernstone was a Swedish fashion model widely credited as the first supermodel.

Irving Penn: Centennial at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Irving Penn: Centennial at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Irving Penn: Centennial at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Irving Penn: Centennial at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Irving Penn: Centennial at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Irving Penn: Centennial at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Pablo Picasso was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright who spent most of his adult life in France.

Irving Penn: Centennial at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Irving Penn: Centennial at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Irving Penn: Centennial at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor who was noted for his mellifluous baritone voice. Burton established himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor in the 1950s, and he gave a memorable performance of Hamlet in 1964.

Irving Penn: Centennial at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Irving Penn: Centennial at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Irving Penn: Centennial is co-curated by Maria Morris Hambourg, independent curator and the founding curator of The Met's Department of Photographs, and Jeff L. Rosenheim, Joyce Frank Menschel Curator in Charge of the Department of Photographs at The Met.

Irving Penn: Centennial—Curatorial Selection Process In September 2015, Jeff Rosenheim, curator in charge of the Department of Photographs at The Met, and Maria Morris Hambourg, independent curator and former curator in charge of the Department of Photographs at The Met, were filmed at The Irving Penn Foundation making their selections for the Irving Penn: Centennial exhibition.

Irving Penn Darkroom Technique: Platinum-Palladium Prints In this animated video of Irving Penn's darkroom, Vasilios Zatse, who was an assistant to Penn from 1996 to 2009, explains the artist's innovative process for making platinum-palladium prints.

Irving Penn on Location in Morocco, 1971 This 8mm film footage, shot by Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn in 1971, shows Irving Penn at work in his portable studio on location in Morocco.