Girl with Tobacco on Tongue

Andrew Sydenham and Hollie Latham Hucker recreate Irving Penn’s portrait of Mary Jane Russell from 1951

Irving Penn was one of the 20th century’s great photographers, best known for his arresting fashion photographs, portraits, still lifes and nudes. He was born in New Jersey in 1917 to a Russian-Jewish family. From 193438, Penn attended Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Arts. Working under the guidance of teacher and mentor Alexey Brodovitch, Penn’s work was greatly influenced by art culture, in particular the latest avant-garde European styles at the time.

Penn later went on to assist Brodovitch at Harper’s Bazaar and then got his first job as an art director after graduating in 1938. At the age of 25, Penn gave it all up to travel around South America to paint and take photographs. Within a year he was back in New York and ended up at Vogue as an associate to the art director, Alexander Liberman. Not only was this working relationship to become a successful collaboration, it also transformed modern photography and helped launch Penn’s long and fruitful career. Penn founded his own studio in New York in the 1950s and there he continued to develop his work. In 2009 Penn died in New York at the age of 92.

Mary Jane Russell

Mary Jane Russell was a prominent model in the fashion industry during the ’50s and ’60s. She appeared on countless Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar covers and quickly became one of Penn’s favourite models.

Russell was born in 1926 in New Jersey and studied art at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Her modelling career started in 1948 during the height of the New Look era. Russell’s long neck and classical features very much suited the style of the time and she was often photographed in profile. Russell died in 2003 at the age of 77.