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Irving Penn, Beyond Beauty Merry Foresta, book review

Sunday 28 February 2016 19:07 GMT
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Famous for his fashion portraits and experimentation with still life images, Irving Penn (1917-2009) ranks as one of the foremost photographers of the 20th century.

In an illustrious career spanning nearly 70 years, Penn was a master of both black-and-white and colour photography, and revived platinum printing in the 1960s and 1970s, a catalyst for significant change in the art world.

He was one of the first to cross the chasm between magazine and fine art photography appearing in such titles as Vogue.

Penn’s portraits and fashion photographs defined elegance in the 1950s, yet throughout his career he also transformed mundane objects – from shop signs to cigarette butts — into memorable images of unexpected, often surreal, beauty.

Foresta’s essay here introduces Penn to a younger generation and delves into how he used photography to respond to social and cultural change.

Shown above is Issey Miyake Fashion: White and Black, (New York, 1990) on show at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington

The Irving Penn Foundation

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