Irving Penn died today. He was 92.When he was young, he wanted to become a painter and in 1938 graduated from the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts). He wasn't very good though. However, in the 1930s he began creating personal photographs. And by 1943, he was hired as an assistant photographer at Vogue moving his way up and shooting over 150 covers for the magazine. He became one of the first photographers to marry commercial photography with art. No matter what subject he photographed -- from a model to a cigarette butt -- he isolated it with close-up graphic precision. The result icons, not just images.
Although he was known to mistrust perfect beauty, somehow he created it casting all things he photographed with a beautifully soft, even light. His subjects... casual and fluid and comfortable.
Met Museum Dynamic yet restrained. Quiet and serene.
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Veiled Face (Evelyn Tripp), 1949He discarded all of the narrative trappings. He created an expressive visual vocabulary so unique. And when we, the viewer, gaze upon his images, they seem all our own.
