Irving Penn found beauty everywhere
Generations of fashion devotees swooned over the ultra elegant models Irving Penn photographed for Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue.
But Penn’s 69-year career, which spanned most of the 20th century, stretched far beyond narrow runways. His relentless curiosity drove him to capture urban streets in New York, Philadelphia, and America’s Deep South. He journeyed to Africa, Asia, Europe, Indiaand South America.
A traveling Smithsonian exhibition, “Irving Penn: Beyond Beauty,” showcases 146 photographs and runs through Sept. 10 at The Frick Pittsburgh in Point Breeze. Penn died in 2009; the centennial of his birth was June 16, the day the show opened here.
While documenting people employed in trades, Penn made excellent portraits of two Parisian pastry chefs, a London chimney sweep and a Berber shepherdess in Morocco. He photographed food, too, including the bouillabaisse Pablo Picasso ate one day in Barcelona, Spain, in 1948.
A quiet, surgical perfectionist, Penn was the son of Russian Jews. He studied drawing, painting, graphic and industrial design at the Pennsylvania Museum School of the Industrial Arts from 1934-38. Leading the school’s groundbreaking Design Lab was Alexey Brodovitch, art director for Harper’s Bazaar from 1934-58.
Brodovitch was demanding and difficult, but ultimately his students found working with him rewarding, said curator Sarah Hall.
With money earned during summer internships at Harper’s Bazaar, Penn bought a Rolleiflex camera and began experimenting. He did not hesitate to approach a famous person he admired. One day in 1944, he spotted and embraced Giorgio de Chirico on a street in Rome. The Italian artist’s metaphysical and surrealist art influenced many painters, photographers and filmmakers, including Penn.
“For him to be recognized on the street by a young American was exceptional,” Ms. Hall said. Chirico spent two days showing his American admirer around Rome.
Penn photographed a wide range of 20th-century luminaries, including artist Salvador Dali, Swiss architect Le Corbusier, English sculptor Henry Moore, opera singer Leontyne Price, jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, author Truman Capote, dancers Tanaquil Le Clercq and Rudolf
Nureyev plus baseball legend Willie Mays.
Among the many arresting portraits is one of Spanish artist Joan Miro with his daughter, Dolores, in Spain in 1948. The image is a fine example of Penn’sway of simplifying portraits to reveal his subjects’ personalities, Ms. Hall said. Unlike his contemporary, photographer Richard Avedon, Penn eliminated distractions from portraits.
While on assignment in Paris in the late 1940s, Penn met and photographed fashion model Lisa Fonssagrives, whom he married in 1950. She is pictured in “Woman in Moroccan Palace,” a photograph Penn made in Marrakesh in 1951.
In the 1950s, Penn opened his own studio, attracting such commercial clients as Clinique, De Beers, L’Oreal and fashion designer Issey Miyake.
Penn preferred working in a studio where he could control the environment. In the 1960s and ’70s, he perfected a complex method of printing photographs using platinum instead of the more traditional silver. His efforts resulted in warmer prints with more tonal variations, giving his work a painterly quality, Ms.Hall said.
“Irving Penn: Beyond Beauty” runs though Sept. 10 at The Frick Pittsburgh, 7227 Reynolds St., Point Breeze (15208); www.thefrickpittsburgh.org.