Irving Penn: Beyond Beauty. Beren and Graves Galleries September 30, 2017 January 7, 2018

Transcription

1 Irving Penn: Beyond Beauty Beren and Graves Galleries September 30, 2017 January 7, 2018

2 Photographs! The negative 1. Camera lens, shutter, and light reflexive surface (the film) 2. Film is coated with a mixture of light-sensitive crystals (typically silver and halogen mixed with gelatin), which cluster together when the exposed to the light 3. Light burns or exposes the crystals, recording the light pattern that was seen through the lens the image 4. Film is then developed exposed grains become silver, unexposed areas (those impacted with less light) stay silverhalide crystals 5. Film is fixed, which arrests the chemical process, then removes the remaining silver-halide crystals so only the silver grains remain 6. Film strip is then washed to remove any remaining chemicals, and then dried

3 Photographs! The print 1. Now we need to transfer that image onto another light sensitive material so we can see it photo paper, which is coated with silver in the same way the negative is (called emulsion) 2. Negative is placed in an enlarger, which is placed over photo paper, casting a shadow over the paper 3. The paper is exposed for a specific amount of time using light from the enlarger 4. This time, the densest parts of the film negative receive the least amount of light, making them the lightest and brightest images of the page 5. Like the negative, the process ends with chemical that stop the development process, and then finally with washing the print to remove all excess chemicals 6. Penn will experiment with different chemical coatings, exposure times, developing papers, etc. platinum instead of silver made even richer prints with more tonal variation (blacker blacks), but could looked coarse; palladium produced lovely grays but lacked true blacks, combined them

4 L: Irving Penn, Harlequin Dress (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn), New York, 1950, printed 1979, platinum-palladium print R: Irving Penn, Cigarette No. 42, New York, 1972, printed 1974, platinum-palladium print

5 commercial vs. art vs. documentary fashion vs. art beautiful vs. ugly luxury vs. everyday permanent vs. fleeting

6 Irving Penn Timeline 1917 Born in Plainfeild, New Jersey Attends Philidelphia Museum School of Industrial Art Becomes Alexey Brodovitch's assistant at Harper's Bazaar Penn buys his first camera, a Rolleiflex Travels through the American South and to Cuzco Mexico to spend a year painting Hired to Vouge by Art Director Alexander Liberman and has his first cover on October Travels to France, Italy, Spain, and Peru for Vouge After completeing fashion editorials in Lima, he prolongs the stay to make portraits of local people in a daylight studio in Cuzco Photographs a series of nudes which he prints using an experimental process of bleaching and redeveloping.

7 1950 Striking fashion photographs by Penn appear in Vogue. Many of these feature the Swedish model Lisa Fonssagrives She an Penn marry in London the same year 1952 Begins advertising in addition to editorial work 1960's 1967 Publishes his first book, "Moments Preserved" Continues fashion and portrait photography for Vogue; begins series of flowers; travels for Vogue to Japan and Crete Begins experiments to develop a complex method for printing in platinum and palladium metals. January: Travels to Dahomey (now Benin) October: Travels to Nepal 1968 Travels to Cameroon 1970 Travels to new Guinea 1970's Pursues photographic projects concieved for the platinum palladium process Exhibitions at MoMA, MeET, and Marlborough Gallery

8 1971 Travels to Morocco "Irving Penn" a retrospective exhibition at the MoMA, tours widely in the US and abroad 1986 Penn begins collaboration with fashion designer Issey Miyake 1987 Penn gifts 120 works to the Smithsonian Insitute in Washington DC 1990 "Irving Penn: Master Images" retrospective jointly organized by the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of American Art in Washington DC 1992 Wife, Lisa Fonssagrives, dies in New York Penn's innovative portraits, still life, fashion, and beauty photographs continue to appear reguarly in Vogue Also persues a number of personal projects and experiments. Still life work flourishes, he returns to flowers and nudes as subjects, sursues complex technical experiments with cameras and printing, in addition to painting, drawing, and printing

9 1995 Penn travels to Paris to photograph the Haute Couture collections for the final time Donates a majority of his archies and 130 fine art prints to the Art Insitute of Chicago "Irving Penn: A Career in Photography" retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago "Earthly Bodies: Irving Penn Nudes, " exhibition at the MET Simultaneously, "Dancer: 1999 Nudes" exhibition held at the Whiney Museum of American Art 2004 Photographs his 165th Vogue cover 2005 Establishes the Irving Penn Foundation 2006 Returns to flowers as a photographic subject 2009 Irving Penn dies at his home in New York at the age of 92

10 L: Irving Penn, Harlequin Dress (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn), New York, 1950, printed 1979, platinum-palladium print R: Irving Penn, Cigarette No. 42, New York, 1972, printed 1974, platinum-palladium print

11 commercial vs. art vs. documentary fashion vs. art beautiful vs. ugly luxury vs. everyday permanent vs. fleeting

12 L: Alexey Brodovitch R: Richard Avedon, Suzy Parker and Robin Tattersall, coat by Dior, Place de la Concorde, Paris, August 1, 1956, gelatin-silver print

13 L: Evans, Alabama Tenant Farmer Wife (Allie Mae Burroughs), 1936, gelatin silver print R: Atget, During the Eclipse, 1912, gelatin silver print

14 L: Irving Penn, Shop Window, Mexico, 1942, gelatin silver print R: Irving Penn, Eye in a Keyhole, 1953, printed 1984, dye transfer print

15 L: Irving Penn, Single Oriental Poppy, New York, 1968, printed 1987, dye transfer print R: Irving Penn, New York Still Life, 1947, printed 1978, platinum-palladium print

16 L: Irving Penn, Single Oriental Poppy, New York, 1968, printed 1987, dye transfer print R: Osias Beert, Breakfast Still Life, oil on canvas,

17 L: Irving Penn, Coffee Pot, New York, 2007, silver print R: Irving Penn, Cracked Egg, New York, 1958, printed 2000, chromogenic print

18 L: Irving Penn, Chimney Sweep, London, 1950, printed 1976, platinum-palladium print R: Irving Penn, Salvador Dali, 1947, gelatin-silver print

19 L: Irving Penn, Vionnet Harness Dress, New York, 1974, printed 1984, selenium toned gelatin silver print R: Irving Penn, Balenciaga Sleeve (Regine), Paris, 1950, silver print

20 L: Irving Penn, Nude No. 58, New York, , printed 1976, platinum-palladium print R: Nike of Samothrace, BCE, marble

21 L: Irving Penn, Nude No. 150, New York, 1949/50, printed June/July 1989, platinum-palladium print R: Irving Penn, Nude No. 147, New York, , printed 1969, platinum-palladium/palladiumiridium print

22 Penn wanted to undermine the idea that whatever s in the picture is sort of an ideal condition and the lasting condition, especially in a magazine about beauty. Penn wanted to undermine that because if you re an artist and your experience shows you that the world is a much more complicated place, how could you pretend? You only have to dive into the right literature to understand the post war, it was an existential moment and the world as it was [previously] known had come to an end and many people had suffered. Because of Penn, we now see flowers that are dying as beautiful things and his vision of the reality of life and death is what makes his work profound. -Maria Morris Hambourg, co-curator of Irving Penn: Centennial

23 Incongruous contiguity