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Irving Penn Photography

American, 1917-2009

With a career in magazines that spanned the mid-20th century heyday of print journalism and lasted through the first decade of the 21st, Irving Penn was the preeminent photographer for six decades at Vogue, where he worked right up until his death, in 2009, at age 92.

Penn’s refined and dynamic photography of models, celebrities and products like Clinique and Jell-O pudding, all shot in compositions of stunning equipoise in the cool remove of his minimal studio setups, were designed to stop traffic and cut through the clutter of magazine pages.

Penn flourished under the mentorship of two legendary art directors: Harper’s Bazaar‘s Alexey Brodovitch and Vogue‘s Alexander Liberman, both Russian émigrés like Penn’s father. Brodovitch introduced Penn to Surrealism and avant-garde photography as his teacher at the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art and hired him as his assistant at Harper’s Bazaar during the summers of 1937 and ’38. Penn bought his first camera after graduating that year. He met Liberman in 1941, passing off to the recent New York transplant his freelance art director job at Saks Fifth Avenue. Liberman returned the favor by hiring Penn at Vogue in 1943 to sketch cover concepts, later encouraging him to shoot his unconventional juxtapositions of accessories and household items himself.

Assigned to photograph some portraits in the mid-1940s, Penn took a cue from the stage-set windows at Saks. He angled two studio flats in his studio and placed his subjects, including Truman Capote, Jerome Robbins and Salvador Dalí, in the resulting tight corner, literally and psychologically. Spencer Tracy leans jauntily against the walls in his portrait, while Georgia O'Keeffe simmers straight-armed in her confinement.

Penn didn’t work well with the distractions of the outside world. In 1950, when he was instructed by Liberman to buy an evening jacket and shoot the couture shows in Paris, he managed the assignment by having the dresses brought to him. He rented a top-floor studio with great light but no electricity and photographed models, including Lisa Fonssagrives (whom he married shortly after), against a mottled gray theater curtain that he continued to use for the rest of his career. Between deliveries from Dior and Balenciaga, he began his personal project “Small Trades,” in which he had local Parisians — a knife grinder, a mailman, a cucumber seller — pose for him with tools of their trade against the same backdrop. (He extended the series in London and New York.)

While Penn made bold, reductive still lifes for advertising campaigns throughout his career, in 1972 he applied his sculptural understanding of form to the unlikeliest of subjects: cigarette butts he gathered from the streets. The Museum of Modern Art showed Penn’s cigarette butts in 1975, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibited another series of material salvaged from the street in 1977. At this time, Penn also began revisiting his earlier photographs, reprinting them at larger scale and with the more painterly quality achieved with the platinum-palladium process. In his lush, oversized platinum-palladium prints, he elevates the lowly castoffs to heroic objects worthy of archaeological scrutiny.

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Artist: Irving Penn
Pablo Picasso at La Californie, Cannes
By Irving Penn
Located in Zurich, CH
Irving Penn (1917 – 2009, American) Pablo Picasso at La Californie, Cannes. 1957. Gelatin silver print on baryta paper, mounted on cardboard. With the artist's stamp and copyright st...
Category

1950s Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin, Cardboard

Callot Swallow-Tail Dress
By Irving Penn
Located in Zurich, CH
Irving Penn (1917 – 2009, USA) Callot Swallow-Tail Dress 1977/1978 Platinum Palladium Print on Bienfang Mounted on Aluminium, framed 51,7 x 45,8 cm (20 1/3 x 17 3/4 in.) Edition 9/...
Category

1970s Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Platinum

Untitled (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn)
By Irving Penn
Located in Kansas City, MO
Irving Penn Title: Untitled (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn) Medium: Glossy, fibre based paper Date: New York, circa 1949 Dimensions: 11 x 14 inches Stamped ...
Category

1940s Modern Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin, Photographic Paper

Pagoda
By Irving Penn
Located in New York, NY
Pagoda 1975 Signed, titled, dated, and numbered in pencil, verso Platinum print (Edition of 49) 10 x 7.5 inches, image This platinum print is from the “Street Materials Series.” ...
Category

1970s Contemporary Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Platinum

Nude No. 57, 1949–1950
By Irving Penn
Located in Miami, FL
The work is elegantly framed in a high-end modern frame with archival matting. 1 of no more than 12, each print differs somewhat from the others Negative and print made 1949-1950 I....
Category

1940s Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Still life with Watermelon, NY
By Irving Penn
Located in Miami, FL
Phillips de Pury Collection of Alain Dominique Perrin Printed 1985, One from an edition of 21 dye transfer prints Signed Irving Penn Verso Literature: Szarkowki, Irving Penn Irving...
Category

1940s Modern Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Dye Transfer

Still life with Watermelon, NY
By Irving Penn
Located in Miami, FL
Phillips de Pury Collection of Alain Dominique Perrin Printed 1985, One from an edition of 21 dye transfer prints Signed Irving Penn Verso Literature: Szarkowki, Irving Penn Irving...
Category

1940s Modern Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Dye Transfer

Still Life with Mouse, New York
By Irving Penn
Located in Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA
Signed, titled, dated and copyrighted 1983 on back of print. Stamped, 'Signed silver print of this negative not exceeding' and 78 written in pencil on back of print. Annotated, 'Copy...
Category

20th Century Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Pear with Seeds
By Irving Penn
Located in New York, NY
Pear with Seeds, June 1993/November 1993-February 1994 Signed, titled, dated, numbered, and inscribed in pencil, verso Platinum-palladium print on Rives paper mounted to aluminum ...
Category

1990s Contemporary Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Platinum

New York Still Life
By Irving Penn
Located in New York, NY
New York Still Life, 1947/April 1980 Signed, titled, dated, numbered, and inscribed in pencil, verso Platinum-palladium print on Rives paper mo...
Category

1940s Contemporary Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Platinum

Mermaid Dress (Rochas) [Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn], Paris
By Irving Penn
Located in New York, NY
Mermaid Dress (Rochas) [Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn], Paris, 1950/June 1979 Signed, titled, dated, numbered, and inscribed in pencil, verso Platinum-pallad...
Category

1950s Contemporary Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Platinum

Woman with Roses on her Arm (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn in a Lafaurie Dress)
By Irving Penn
Located in London, GB
Woman with Roses on her Arm (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn in a Lafaurie Dress), Paris, 1950 Signed, inscribed with title, edition and priting details and stamped with photographer's copyri...
Category

Late 20th Century Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Joan Miró
By Irving Penn
Located in New York, NY
Signed, verso Various copyright and studio stamps, verso Vintage gelatin silver print This artwork is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City.
Category

1940s Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Woman with Sunblock, New York - Irving Penn (Colour Photography)
By Irving Penn
Located in London, GB
Woman with Sunblock, New York - Irving Penn (Colour Photography) Signed, titled, dated and stamped with photographer's copyright stamp on reverse Dye transfer print, printed 1985 15....
Category

1960s Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Dye Transfer

Dior Kerchief and Glove, Paris
By Irving Penn
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is an Edition of 9 and is signed by the photographer.
Category

1950s Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Cuzco Children
By Irving Penn
Located in Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA
Signed, titled, dated and numbered on the back with copyright stamp. The image was made by the artist in 1948 and printed in 1984. Includes overmat measuring 30 x 30 inches.
Category

20th Century Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

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Pop Art Vintage Photograph Dye Transfer Print "Leonardo's Lady" Audrey Flack
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Flack has numerous academic degrees, including both a graduate and an honorary doctorate degree from Cooper Union in New York City. Additionally she has a bachelor's degree in Fine Arts from Yale University and attended New York University Institute of Fine Arts where she studied art history. In May 2015, Flack received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Clark University, where she also gave a commencement address. Flack's work is displayed in several major museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Flack's photorealist paintings were the first such paintings to be purchased for the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection, and her legacy as a photorealist lives on to influence many American and International artists today. J. B. Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, organized a retrospective of her work, and Flack’s pioneering efforts into the world of photorealism popularized the genre to the extent that it remains today. Flack attended New York's High School of Music & Art. She studied fine arts in New York from 1948 to 1953, studying under Josef Albers among others. She earned a graduate degree and received an honorary doctorate from Cooper Union in New York City, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Yale University. She studied art history at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. 1953 New York University Institute of Fine Arts, New York City 1952 BFA, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 1948-51 Cooper Union, New York City Career Flack's early work in the 1950s was abstract expressionist; one such painting paid tribute to Franz Kline. Most influential amongst her early supporters was the Bauhaus artist Josef Albers. 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It is also called super-realism, radical realism, or hyper-realism and painters like Richard Estes, Chuck Close, and Audrey Flack as well, often worked from photographic stills to create paintings that appeared to be photographs." In the early 1980s Flack's artistic medium shifted from painting to sculpture. She describes this shift as a desire for "something solid, real, tangible. Something to hold and to hold on to." Flack discusses the fact that she is self-taught in sculpture. She incorporates religion and mythology into her sculpture rather than the historical or everyday subjects of her paintings. Her sculptures often demonstrate a connection to the female form, including a series of diverse, heroic women and goddess figures. These depictions of women differ from those of traditional femininity, but rather are athletic, older, and strong. As Flack describes them: "they are real yet idealized... the 'goddesses in everywoman.'" 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Man with Trousers
By Arthur Tress
Located in London, GB
Silver gelatin print, 19cm x 19cm (print size), (50cm x 40cm in mount), unframed, but contained within archive quality mount. Tress is one of the most renowned and innovative photographers of his generation. Citing his influences as Hokusai, Frank Lloyd Wright, Picasso, El Lissitzky, Duane Michaels...
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1980s Surrealist Irving Penn Photography

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Previously Available Items
Nude No 19 (Cropped)
By Irving Penn
Located in New York, NY
Irving Penn Nude No 19 (Cropped), 1949-1950 Vintage gelatin silver print 20 × 15 7/8 in.
Category

1940s Modern Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Nude No 81 (Variant)
By Irving Penn
Located in New York, NY
Irving Penn Nude No 81 (Variant) (1949 -1950) Vintage gelatin silver print 19 15/16 × 15 3/4 in.
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1940s Modern Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Girl Sitting (Cameroon), 1974
By Irving Penn
Located in New York, NY
Irving Penn Girl Sitting (Cameroon), 1974, Printed November 1978 Platinum Palladium Print 20 x 20 inches Signed and numbered edition of 40 addition...
Category

1970s Modern Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Platinum

Five Moroccan Women
By Irving Penn
Located in New York, NY
IRVING PENN Five Moroccan Women, 1971 Platinum palladium print, printed 1979. 20 1/8 x 19 3/4 in. (51.1 x 50.2 cm) Signed, titled, dated, numbered ...
Category

1970s Modern Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Platinum

Nude No 56 (Variant)
By Irving Penn
Located in New York, NY
Nude No 56 (Variant), 1949-1950, printed 1980 Vintage gelatin silver print paper: 19 7/8 × 15 7/8 in Image: 15 3/4 x 15 3/16 Signed and numbered edition of 17
Category

1940s Modern Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

New Guinea man with Painted-on Glasses
By Irving Penn
Located in New York, NY
Irving Penn New Guinea man with Painted-on Glasses, 1970, Printed April 1979 Platinum Palladium Print 20 x 20 in Signed and numbered edition of 50
Category

1960s Modern Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Platinum

Nude
By Irving Penn
Located in New York, NY
Irving Penn Nude No 141 (Variant), 1949-50, Printed 1980 Silver Gelatin Print Sheet: 19 15/16 x 15 3/4 Image: 15 5/8 x 14 3/4 Signed and numbered edition of 15 Please inquire...
Category

1950s Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Nude
Nude
H 20 in W 16 in
Callot Swallow-tail Dress
By Irving Penn
Located in New York, NY
Irving Penn (1917-2009) Callot Swallow-tail Dress, 1974 platinum-palladium print, printed 1978 signed, titled, dated, numbered edition of 19', in pencil, 20 x 20 inches
Category

1970s Modern Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Platinum

Sculptors Model
By Irving Penn
Located in New York, NY
Sculptors Model, Paris 1950 platinum-palladium print, printed 1960 signed, titled, dated in pencil on verso ed 35 print size 18.5 x 11.5 inches paper size 22.25 x 17.75 inches ...
Category

1950s Modern Irving Penn Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper

Football Face, New York
By Irving Penn
Located in New York, NY
Photographer Irving Penn (American, 1917–2009) is celebrated for his compelling portraits, scenes, and still lifes, in genres ranging from fashion to travel photography. Born in Plai...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Irving Penn Photography

Cate Blanchett as Queen Elizabeth I, New York
By Irving Penn
Located in New York, NY
Photographer Irving Penn (American, 1917–2009) is celebrated for his compelling portraits, scenes, and still lifes, in genres ranging from fashion to travel photography. Born in Plai...
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21st Century and Contemporary Irving Penn Photography

Irving Penn photography for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Irving Penn photography available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Irving Penn in silver gelatin print, platinum print, dye transfer print and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the contemporary style. Not every interior allows for large Irving Penn photography, so small editions measuring 8 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Newbold Bohemia, Peter Beard, and Michael O'Brien. Irving Penn photography prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $6,900 and tops out at $185,000, while the average work can sell for $52,000.
Questions About Irving Penn Photography
  • 1stDibs ExpertApril 5, 2022
    Celebrated American fashion photographer Irving Penn made great contributions to photography through his use of simple backgrounds. This gave him greater control over aspects like the lighting, and asserted his subjects and their fashions as the sole focus of the composition. Shop a collection of Irving Penn photography from some of the world’s top sellers on 1stDibs.

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