become a luminescent, textured garment through
Penn’s photographic lens.
Penn’s ability to transform objects from the realm
of the everyday to the realm of art was particularly
seen in an exhibitionStreet Material, mounted by
the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1977. Showing
photographs primarily taken in 1975 and 1976,
Penn printed the images of old gloves, twisted
paper, a paper cup, or cigarette butts using platinum
paper with its gorgeous sheen and sensual appeal.
Although taken decades earlier, the seriesEarthly
Bodiescaused a sensation when it was exhibited in
1980, showing nude studies of overweight models
who celebrated their fleshiness.
Throughout his career Penn has photographed a
long list of celebrities, statesmen, and artists, includ-
ing Duke Ellington (1946), Alexander Calder
(1946), Alfred Hitchcock (1947), Edward Steichen
(1947), Georgia O’Keeffe (1948), Duchess of Wind-
sor (1948), Edward Murrow (1951), Tennessee Wil-
liams (1951), Senator Hubert Humphrey (1951),
Grace Kelly (1954), Pablo Picasso (1957), Henry
Kissinger (1958), Sophia Loren (1959), Yo-Yo Ma
(1964), Gore Vidal (1970), Arnold Schwarzenegger
(1977), Merce Cunningham (1978), Yves St. Laur-
ent (1983), Fernando Botero (1985), Mikhail Bar-
yshnikov (1989), and Louis Malle (1990).
Penn’s career is indeed multi-dimensional, em-
bracing many aspects of the world around us. As
his long-time friend and colleague, Alexander Lib-
erman wrote
I am struck by the diversity and by the incredible attempt
of this man to embrace all creation. The range of experi-
ence seems to me like the roving focus of a unique,
implacable, all-seeing eye, disturbing and moving us in
its passionate roving over life’s meaning, shaking our
preset expected experience of existence.
(Penn 1991, 9)KatherineHoffmanSeealso:Conde ́Nast; Fashion Photography; Film:
Infrared; Portraiture
Biography
Born in Plainfield, New Jersey 16 June 1917. Studies design
with Alexey Brodovitch at the Philadelphia Museum
School, 1934–1938. Works as graphic artist in New
York, 1938–1941. Spends year painting in Mexico, in Coy-
oaca ́n, suburb of Mexico City, 1942. Hired by Alexander
Liberman, Art Director ofVogue, 1943, to work as his
assistant; becomes a photographer at Liberman’s sugges-
tion, October 1 first cover ofVogue.Servesasambulance
driver and documentary photographer in the American
Field Service, with the British Army in Italy and India,
1944–1945. Series of dance photographs forVogueand
various dance companies, 1946–1948. Photographer work-
ing with Alexander Liberman for Conde ́ Nast publica-
tions, 1946 onward. Marries the fashion model Lisa
Fonssagrives, 1950. Freelance advertising photographer
living and working in New York City, 1952 onward. Asso-
ciated with Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York City. Re-
ceived Hasselblad Award, 1985. Major donation to the
Art Institute of Chicago of prints and archival material,- Lives and works in New York City.
Individual Exhibitions
1961 Photographs by Irving Penn; Museum of Modern Art,
New York, New York, and traveling
1963 Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
1975 I Platini de Irving Penn: 25 Anni di Fotografia; Galleria
Civica d’Arte Moderna, Turin, Italy
Recent Works; Museum of Modern Art, New York,
New York
1977 Street Material; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York, New York
Photographs in Platinum Metals—Images 1947–1975;
Marlborough Gallery, New York, New York
1980 Earthly Bodies; Marlborough Gallery, New York,
New York
1981 60 Photos; Marlborough Fine Art, London, England
1983 Recent Still Life; Marlborough Gallery, New York,
New York
1984 Irving Penn; Museum of Modern Art, New York, New
York, and traveling
1988 Irving Penn: Cranium Architecture; Pace/MacGill Gal-
lery, New York, New York
1990 Irving Penn: Other Ways of Being; Pace/MacGill Gal-
lery, New York, New York
Vintage Prints from the Earthly Bodies Series 1949–
1950 ; Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York, New York
1991 48 Portraits from 1948; Pace/MacGill Gallery, New
York, New York
1994 Irving Penn: New York; Pace/MacGill Gallery, New
York, New York
1997 Irving Penn: A Career in Photography; Art Institute of
Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, and traveling
2002 Irving Penn: Still Life in Color, 1947–2001; Pace/Mac-
Gill Gallery, New York, New York
Earthly Bodies: Irving Penn’s Nudes 1949–1950;
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York
Amazing Grace, Alexandra Beller; Whitney Museum
of American Art, New York, New York
2004 Present Concerns; Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York,
New YorkSelected Group Exhibitions
1955 The Family of Man; Museum of Modern Art, New
York, New York, and world tour
1967 Photography in the 20th Century; National Gallery of
Canada, Ottawa, Canada, and traveling
1975 Photography Within the Humanities; Jewett Arts Cen-
ter, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts
1976 Masters of the Camera; American Federation of the
Arts traveling exhibition
1977 Fashion Photography; International Museum of Photo-
graphy, George Eastman House, Rochester, New York,
and traveled to the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NewPENN, IRVING