Irving Penn Still Life Fashion

Irving Penn: Still Life and Fashion at Vogue

Irving Penn's career at Vogue began in 1943 and continued until his death in 2009 - sixty-six years of work that produced some of the most technically precise and visually refined photography in the history of the medium. Unlike Richard Avedon's theatrical dynamism, Penn's work is characterized by restraint, formal rigor, and an almost scientific attention to surface and material.

The Corner Series and Compression

Penn's most immediately recognizable device is the Corner series (1948-1951): he built a V-shaped set of two converging walls and placed his subjects - celebrities, socialites, models - into the tight apex of the corner, forcing them into physical contact with the walls and with each other. The compression produced poses that no conventional studio setup could generate; subjects leaned, twisted, and pressed against the converging planes. Duke Ellington, Spencer Tracy, Marlene Dietrich, Truman Capote all submitted to this architectural compression. The images are psychologically intense in proportion to their spatial restriction.

Small Trades (1950-1951)

In 1950 Penn traveled to London, Paris, and New York to photograph tradespeople and craftspeople in their occupational clothing: chimney sweeps, fishmongers, pastry chefs, carpenters. Each subject was photographed against a plain canvas drop in the same neutral-ground studio setup. The dignity and formality Penn applied to Vogue fashion subjects was extended without condescension to a baker in a flour-dusted apron. The 252-print series was not fully published until 2009, the year of Penn's death.

Still Life

Penn's still life photography for Vogue - cigarettes, flowers, food, cosmetics - is characterized by the same formal economy: objects placed against white or neutral backgrounds, lit by a single north-facing skylight or diffused artificial source, printed with maximum tonal range. His cigarette series (1972) photographed individual cigarette butts on white grounds at large scale with a clinical, beauty-free objectivity that made anti-smoking advocacy groups and art collectors equally interested.

Platinum-Palladium Printing

Penn is associated with the revival of platinum-palladium printing, an 1870s process abandoned when gelatin silver paper became cheaper. The platinum process produces an extended tonal range, particularly in the midtones, with a matte surface that absorbs rather than reflects light. Penn began printing in platinum in the 1960s and continued for the rest of his career; many of his most celebrated images exist in both gelatin silver (for publication) and platinum (for exhibition and collecting).