Irving Penn

Irving Penn ( born June 16, 1917 in Plainfield, New Jersey; † 7 October 2009 in New York City ) was an American photographer. After the war he became famous as a fashion and portrait photographer. In his later years he increasingly turned to the still life. Penn is one of the most important photographers of the 20th century.

Life and work

Irving Penn was the son of a Jewish watchmaker and the older brother of film director Arthur Penn. He grew up in Plainfield (New Jersey) and Philadelphia.

Penn was trained as a designer. Since the 1940s, he photographed for Vogue among others and has been heavily influenced by the style of a fashion photographer Louise Dahl - Wolfe. Many of the most famous Vogue photo taken from his camera. In addition to his fashion photographs, especially his portraits have become world famous. Many are familiar with his portrait by Pablo Picasso with Hat and coat collar made ​​in 1957, looks at the viewer with a haunting eye from the Picasso, or the image of the hand of the jazz trumpeter Miles Davis. Became famous his portraits, in which he primarily artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Georgia O'Keeffe, Igor Stravinsky or Spencer Tracy einzwängte between two partitions.

Irving Penn was married from 1950 until her death in 1992 with the model Lisa Fonssagrives. This was her husband also often model, so many pictures in Vogue. Particularly striking is his painting " Harlequin Dress" (1950), on the Lisa Fonssagrives - Penn with black hat, black -and-white checkered dress and posing cigarette.

In 1991 he was awarded for the book En passant, the Prix Nadar. The Irving Penn Collection is located in the Art Institute of Chicago, which in 1997 organized the traveling exhibition " Irving Penn, A Career in Photography". The exhibition was also shown in the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg and Munich City Museum in 1998.