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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Nude No. 57 Silver Gelatin Print, Signed, Circa 1949, Edition of 12
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....
Silver Gelatin
$3,000
H 32 in W 24 in D 0.1 in
"Untitled 1" (En Rouge) Nude Photograph 32" x 24" in Ed. 3/7 by Larsen Sotelo
By Larsen Sotelo
Located in Culver City, CA
"Untitled 1" (En Rouge) Nude Photograph 32" x 24" in Ed. 3/7 by Larsen Sotelo Giclee (Archival Ink) print on 310G Platine Fibre Cotton Rag w/satin finish 32” X 24” inch Limited Edit...
Archival Ink, Rag Paper, Giclée
He Exudes a Powerful Fragrance Like Horses Do
By Bill Costa
Located in New York, NY
Gelatin silver print (Edition of 5) Signed and numbered, verso This artwork is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City.
Silver Gelatin
steve - ritual
By Frank Yamrus
Located in New York, NY
Gelatin silver print Signed, dated, and numbered, verso 10 x 8 inches, sheet 7 x 7 inches, image (Edition of 10) 14 x 11 inches, sheet 10 x 10 inches, image (Edition of 10) 20 x 1...
Silver Gelatin
$1,200
H 17.5 in W 16.5 in D 1 in
Male Nude with Head Down (Sepia Toned Figurative Photograph by David Halliday)
By David Halliday
Located in Hudson, NY
Contemporary figurative sepia toned photograph of nude male model Sepia toned silver gelatin print, edition 3 of 25 Image size: 8 x 8 inches 17.5 x 16.5 x 1 inches framed with 8-ply white mat and non reflective glass. Signed and dated below image with atelier stamp This contemporary figurative photograph was taken by David Halliday in 1998. The sepia toned silver gelatin print beautifully captures a standing male model on a simple monotone background. The nude model's flawless skin complements the similarly toned sepia backdrop, while contrasts in light and shadow accentuate his toned back and shoulder muscles. The figure's casual pose lends a serene atmosphere to the image. This print, 3rd in the edition of 25, is framed in a custom brown wood Larson Juhl frame with an 8 ply white mat and non reflective glass. The print is signed with an atelier stamp on the lower right. About the Artist: David Halliday's photographs are about beauty, pure and simple. His primary subjects are carefully composed still lifes, portraits and landscapes which he shoots in black and white film with only natural light. He is a purist behind the lens, rarely manipulating his negatives in any way, and a master in the darkroom. His work has an ethereal quality that's translated not only through the subject, but also by the warm colors and sepia tones he uses in his printing. More about the work: A master of light, David Halliday produces lush and elegant images that are both classical and modern. Celebrated for his ‘purist’ eye, he poetically captures the nude male body in a selection of sepia-toned prints from 1996. Rarely revealing the model's face, Halliday prefers to focus on the natural drape of limbs, soft folds of flawless skin, and curvature of the spine. Overall, a stunningly intimate portrayal of the male form done with elegance and charm. Resume: Born 1958, Glen Cove, New York Lives in Schodack Landing, NY EDUCATION 1998 Penland School of Crafts, Penland, North Carolina 1988 The Maine Photographic Workshops, Rockport, Maine 1976-79 Syracuse University, New York 1974-76 Wooster School Community Art Center, Danbury, Connecticut SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2013 Threadbare/New Photographs, Arthur Roger Galley, New Orleans, LA McMurtrey Gallery, Houston, TX 2012 The Past Still Present, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA 2010 Arthur Roger Gallery, New Orleans, LA Wessel+O’Connor Fine Art, Lambertville, NJ Julie Heller...
Silver Gelatin
After Callahan
By Chuck Samuels
Located in New York, NY
Gelatin silver print (Edition of 20) Signed and numbered on label, verso From the series, "Before the Camera" This artwork is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. Chuck S...
Silver Gelatin
After Weston
By Chuck Samuels
Located in New York, NY
Gelatin silver print (Edition of 20) Signed and numbered on label, verso From the series, "Before the Camera" This artwork is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. Chuck S...
Silver Gelatin
After Gibson
By Chuck Samuels
Located in New York, NY
Gelatin silver print (Edition of 20) Signed and numbered on label, verso From the series, "Before the Camera" This artwork is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. Chuck S...
Silver Gelatin
$525
H 14 in W 11 in
PRINCE photograph Detroit 1980 (Prince by Leni Sinclair)
By Leni Sinclair
Located in NEW YORK, NY
Prince Detroit 1980: A standout, hand signed photograph of the late all-time great Prince, shot by legendary Detroit photographer Leni Sinclair,...
Inkjet
$450
H 20.25 in W 16.25 in
"Milano, Italia, " Nude Statue Silver Gelatin Print signed by Philip Krejcarek
By Philip Krejcarek
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Milano, Italia" is an original silver gelatin photographic print by Philip Krejcarek. The artist signed the piece. It features a statue of a nude woman with a figure grabbing onto her shoulder. The photograph is in black and white. 7 1/4" x 9 1/4" art 20 1/4" x 16 1/4" frame EDUCATION: M.F.A. - University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee (1973) B.S. in Art - University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh (1968) POSITION: Professor of Art, Carroll College (began1977) Co-Chairman, Art Dept. COLLECTIONS Milwaukee Art Museum Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee Denver Art Museum Wustum Museum of Fine Arts, Racine City of Milwaukee Milwaukee Journal Sentinel The University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, Fine Art Gallery The University of Wisconsin Center - Waukesha Oshkosh Public Museum Wisconsin Artists Collection, Carroll College ONE-PERSON EXHIBITIONS 1972 University of Wisconsin Center - Waukesha 1974 Tom Hayes...
Silver Gelatin
After Bullock
By Chuck Samuels
Located in New York, NY
Gelatin silver print (Edition of 20) Signed and numbered on label, verso From the series, "Before the Camera" This artwork is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. Chuck S...
Silver Gelatin
Unmade Beds East Village 1976 by Fernando Natalici
By Fernando Natalici
Located in NEW YORK, NY
Unmade Beds, East Village, New York, 1976 by Fernando Natalici: Cooler than cool, "Unmade Beds" was photographed on the set of the Amos Poe directed film of...
Silver Gelatin
Elliott Gould, Donald Sutherland, Jo Anne Pflug
Located in Palm Desert, CA
A photograph by Lawrence Schiller. “Elliott Gould, Donald Sutherland, Jo Anne Pflug” is a vintage silver gelatin photograph in black and white by Ame...
Silver Gelatin
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 ...
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 ...
Photographic Paper