Selected Works
FirstVoguecover, New York, October 1, 1943
Egg Seller with his Son, Cuzco, 1948
Woman with Roses(Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn), 1956
Duchess of Windsor, New York, 1948
Cuzco Chidren, 1948
Rudolf Nureyev’s Legs, Paris, 1961
Faucet Dripping Diamonds, New York, 1963
Truman Capote, New York, 1965
Cottage Tulip (Sorbet), New York, 1967
Scarified Girl, Dahomey, 1967
Two Guedras, Morocco, 1971
Camel Pack, New York, 1975
Ospedale, New York, 1980
Issey Miyake Fashion(Yiki Fujii), New York, 1990
Football Face, 2002
Further Reading
Eisler, Colin. Penn’s Pense ́es—Camera Predicans. New
York: Marlborough Gallery, 1982.
Foresta, Merry A. and William F. Strapp.Irving Penn:
Master Images. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institu-
tion Press, 1990.
Krauss, Rosalind E.Earthly Bodies. New York: Marlbor-
ough Gallery, 1980.
Penn, Irving.Dancer. Tucson: Nazraeli Press, 2001.
———.Earthly Bodies: Irving Penn’s Nudes, 1949–1950.
New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2002.
———.Passage. New York: Callaway/Knopf, 1991.
———.Worlds in a Small Room. New York: Grossman
Publishers/Viking, 1974.
Szarkowski, John.Irving Penn. New York: The Museum of
Modern Art, 1984.
———.Still Life: Irving Penn Photographs, 1938–2000.
New York: Bulfinch Press/Little, Brown and Company,
2001.
Westerbeck, Colin, ed.Irving Penn: A Career in Photogra-
phy. New York: Bulfinch Press/Little, Brown and Com-
pany, 1997.GILLES PERESS
French
Gilles Peress’s enduring interest in documenting the
disturbing consequences of hatred led him to photo-
graph some of the most violent conflicts of the latter
half of the twentieth century: Northern Ireland,
Lebanon, Bosnia, and Rwanda. His photographs of
the Islamic Revolution in Iran gave him the oppor-
tunity to assert himself not only as a leading Mag-
num photojournalist, but also as a careful editor of
his own books. As his work demonstrates, Peress
defined and pursued his own creed.
I work much more like a forensic photographer in a certain
way, collecting evidence. I’ve started to take more still
lifes, like a police photographer, collecting evidence as a
witness. I’ve started to borrow a different strategy than that
of the classic photojournalist. The work is much more
factual and much less about good photography. I don’t
care anymore about ‘‘good photography.’’ I’m gathering
evidence for history, so that we remember.
(US News and World Report, 1997, 67)
Born in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1946, Peress spent
his formative years in Paris. At the age of 20, he
studied for two years at the Institut d’e ́tudes poli-
tiques in Paris, a school with a reputation for inter-
disciplinary teaching in the social sciences. From
1969 until 1971, he studied at the Universite ́ de
Vincennes, which was well known for the activism
of its far left student groups.
In 1970, Peress took up photography as a way of
carrying out his political activism. He first traveled
to the region of Aveyron, France, to photograph a
mining town, Decazeville, which had experienced
social discontent since the closure of its coalmine
some years before. He covered events of national
interest such as President Charles De Gaulle’s fun-
eral in 1970 by focusing on the people’s reaction
to it. One of these untitled black-and-white street
snapshots, published inParis/Magnum 1935–1981,
reveals the shock of citizens as they learn of the
event from a newsagent’s billboard. The social and
economic difficulties experienced by Turkish immi-
grants in France and Belgium were also the focus
of his photographs. Enlarging the scope of his
interest outside continental Europe, he went to
Northern Ireland in 1970 to photograph the con-
flict between two religious communities. These
photographs contributed to Peress’s selection as
an associate member at Magnum Photos in 1972.PENN, IRVING