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Irving Penn: Centennial
The definitive book on the work of a virtuosic and revered American photographer
“ Irving Centennial . . . presents page after page of startlingly fresh images.”—Luc Sante, New York Times
Irving Penn (1917–2009) was among the most esteemed and influential photographers of the twentieth century. Over the course of a nearly seventy-year career, he mastered a pared-down aesthetic of studio photography that is distinguished for its meticulous attention to composition, nuance, and detail. This indispensable book features one of the largest selections of Penn’s photographs ever compiled, including famous and beloved images as well as works that have never been published, spanning the entirety of his groundbreaking career.
An enlightening introduction situates his work in the context of the various artistic, social, and political environments and events that affected the content of his photographs. Lively essays acquaint readers with Penn’s primary subjects and campaigns, including early documentary scenes and imagery; portraits; fashion; female nudes; peoples of Peru, Dahomey (Benin), New Guinea, and Morocco; still lifes; and much more. Irving Centennial is essential for any fan of this artist’s work or the history of twentieth-century photography.
Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press
Exhibition
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
(April 20–July 30, 2017)
Grand Palais, Paris
(September 21, 2017–January 29, 2018)
Instituto Moreira Salles, São Paolo
(August 21–November 25, 2018)
de Young, Fine Art Museums, San Francisco
(March 16–July 21, 2024)
“ Irving Centennial . . . presents page after page of startlingly fresh images.”—Luc Sante, New York Times
Irving Penn (1917–2009) was among the most esteemed and influential photographers of the twentieth century. Over the course of a nearly seventy-year career, he mastered a pared-down aesthetic of studio photography that is distinguished for its meticulous attention to composition, nuance, and detail. This indispensable book features one of the largest selections of Penn’s photographs ever compiled, including famous and beloved images as well as works that have never been published, spanning the entirety of his groundbreaking career.
An enlightening introduction situates his work in the context of the various artistic, social, and political environments and events that affected the content of his photographs. Lively essays acquaint readers with Penn’s primary subjects and campaigns, including early documentary scenes and imagery; portraits; fashion; female nudes; peoples of Peru, Dahomey (Benin), New Guinea, and Morocco; still lifes; and much more. Irving Centennial is essential for any fan of this artist’s work or the history of twentieth-century photography.
Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press
Exhibition
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
(April 20–July 30, 2017)
Grand Palais, Paris
(September 21, 2017–January 29, 2018)
Instituto Moreira Salles, São Paolo
(August 21–November 25, 2018)
de Young, Fine Art Museums, San Francisco
(March 16–July 21, 2024)
372 pages, Hardcover
First published March 26, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 29, 2023
I wanted to learn more about Irving Penn's work and methods after seeing his most-enthralling celebrity portraits (my favourite of his is his interpretation of Hitchcock). As a a comprehensive monograph, it excellently reproduces Penn's work from all his different epochs, from his early still-lifes, to his work with Vogue, to ethnographs, nudes, American workers, and advertising work. It is also accompanied by well-written essays that give a little bit of context for the traditions Penn is inserted in as well as related biographical information.
My personal gripes:
References to plates and figures are awkward. Plates are interlaced between the written sections. When a reference to a plate was made, I was flipping awkwardly between figures, essays, to locate the exact point. If plates were located entirely at the back, unbroken from 0-222, the reader could move from writing to plates quickly. My favourite art books do that, so to have the reading experience broken repeatedly was frustrating.
Secondly, I felt that the writing was drawn to conclusion-setting without letting the reader in on the inference-making. As a narrative, the various writers are interested in communicating Penn's artistic vision and impact. As reader, we are to understand his genius. But how we get there is often premature. I provide a couple examples below on how the writing on occasion makes me as a reader feel belittled.
Example 1: On a section about Penn's work in Africa and Oceania, we get this elegantly written passage:
"Rather, they are a hybridization of the ethno-document because the information they provide is not about the culture of the subjects alone; rather, it is about the character of the individuals depicted and about Penn’s aesthetic idealizations of their nature. The images are first of all portraits, distillations of the character, poise, and mien of the sitters. Just as a seventeenth-century Dutch painter might have portrayed a sitter in an exotic turban so as to be stylishly up-to-date, creating images that today come across as psychologically portraiture enrobed with the cultural trappings of the time, so too Penn’s portraits from Dahomey transcend costume studies and occupy a deeper level of art."(45)
This is of course only a snapshot, but that description of "deeper level of art" bothers me because much of that long analysis relies heavily on context outside the photograph(s), and does not take me to that conclusion with analyzing the work. Without surgical reference to the photographs visual elements, the passage reads as fabrication.
The section author goes further.
"... Penn's attempt to bridge cultures for the disinterested purpose of art, uninflected by venal or imperialistic gain, is the sort of poetic and moral bridge that E.M. Forster penned as the epigraph for Howard's End: "Only connect."
It is this eulogistic heavy-lifting that troubles me at times, as I feel that I am getting to know the myth of the artist, rather than their work.
The height of what I am talking about comes in the paragraph's end. It goes, "Like an explorer from another planet, Penn arrived in the lives of those tribal peoples via the diplomatic-economic-technological capsule of Vogue, but it was not Conde Nast who greeted them. It was a gentle and magnetic fellow man who saw them, posed them, and, for a lingering, all-consuming moment, touched them." (48)
I would have preferred readings that worked harder in support and evidence.
Take for example, page 54, where the section author writes, "Like others working with a Rolleiflex in the field, Penn held the camera at his waist and thus could look at his bujects eye to eye, not hidden behind a viewfinder. Equally relevant, the waist-level camera also subtly lowered the perspective of the portraits. These two qualities worked together to offer Penn an intimate and psychologically direct connection with his human subjects. Moreover, the low camera position helped reveal his subjects' demeanour by portraying from the ground up how people naturally balance their weight, cross their legs, and rest their arms when they post."
This passage is concise, and communicates Penn's methods and takes us through it. I found myself standing and posing, to imagine how Penn's different subjects would pose for him, organically.
If the slow sections replete with close-ended interpretations moved towards open fields of looking and questioning, my purpose as reader would have been better served, that is to see how a master photographer paints his subjects.
My personal gripes:
References to plates and figures are awkward. Plates are interlaced between the written sections. When a reference to a plate was made, I was flipping awkwardly between figures, essays, to locate the exact point. If plates were located entirely at the back, unbroken from 0-222, the reader could move from writing to plates quickly. My favourite art books do that, so to have the reading experience broken repeatedly was frustrating.
Secondly, I felt that the writing was drawn to conclusion-setting without letting the reader in on the inference-making. As a narrative, the various writers are interested in communicating Penn's artistic vision and impact. As reader, we are to understand his genius. But how we get there is often premature. I provide a couple examples below on how the writing on occasion makes me as a reader feel belittled.
Example 1: On a section about Penn's work in Africa and Oceania, we get this elegantly written passage:
"Rather, they are a hybridization of the ethno-document because the information they provide is not about the culture of the subjects alone; rather, it is about the character of the individuals depicted and about Penn’s aesthetic idealizations of their nature. The images are first of all portraits, distillations of the character, poise, and mien of the sitters. Just as a seventeenth-century Dutch painter might have portrayed a sitter in an exotic turban so as to be stylishly up-to-date, creating images that today come across as psychologically portraiture enrobed with the cultural trappings of the time, so too Penn’s portraits from Dahomey transcend costume studies and occupy a deeper level of art."(45)
This is of course only a snapshot, but that description of "deeper level of art" bothers me because much of that long analysis relies heavily on context outside the photograph(s), and does not take me to that conclusion with analyzing the work. Without surgical reference to the photographs visual elements, the passage reads as fabrication.
The section author goes further.
"... Penn's attempt to bridge cultures for the disinterested purpose of art, uninflected by venal or imperialistic gain, is the sort of poetic and moral bridge that E.M. Forster penned as the epigraph for Howard's End: "Only connect."
It is this eulogistic heavy-lifting that troubles me at times, as I feel that I am getting to know the myth of the artist, rather than their work.
The height of what I am talking about comes in the paragraph's end. It goes, "Like an explorer from another planet, Penn arrived in the lives of those tribal peoples via the diplomatic-economic-technological capsule of Vogue, but it was not Conde Nast who greeted them. It was a gentle and magnetic fellow man who saw them, posed them, and, for a lingering, all-consuming moment, touched them." (48)
I would have preferred readings that worked harder in support and evidence.
Take for example, page 54, where the section author writes, "Like others working with a Rolleiflex in the field, Penn held the camera at his waist and thus could look at his bujects eye to eye, not hidden behind a viewfinder. Equally relevant, the waist-level camera also subtly lowered the perspective of the portraits. These two qualities worked together to offer Penn an intimate and psychologically direct connection with his human subjects. Moreover, the low camera position helped reveal his subjects' demeanour by portraying from the ground up how people naturally balance their weight, cross their legs, and rest their arms when they post."
This passage is concise, and communicates Penn's methods and takes us through it. I found myself standing and posing, to imagine how Penn's different subjects would pose for him, organically.
If the slow sections replete with close-ended interpretations moved towards open fields of looking and questioning, my purpose as reader would have been better served, that is to see how a master photographer paints his subjects.
April 21, 2021
It’s a giant tome focusing on 12 bodies of work, each with a boring essay:
1. Signs of Life 1939-47 - early work
2. Existential Portraits 1947-48 - iconic celeb portraits
3. In Vogue 1947-50 - some Vogue work
4. Cuzco 1948 - photos of indigenous Peruvians
5. Nudes 1949-50 - amorphous torsos
6. Small Trades 1950-51 - charming portraits of blue collar tradespeople
7. Classic Portraits 1948-62 - more iconic portraits
8. Ethnographic Portraits 1967-71 - iconic portraits of indigenous people from Morocco, New Guinea, and West Africa in a jarring studio setting
9. Cigarettes 1972 - close up shots of butts
10. Time Capsules 1960s-2007 - a wompwomp roundup of his later work done “in retirement”
11. Still Life 1968-2007 - what I most admire Penn’s work for, however not very much of nor included are any of my personal favorites
12. Advertising - a few examples of his ads
+ 13. Printing Process - I’m not a photographer so I don’t really care enough to go more than “hm”
The sheer size/weight of the book with its exquisite print quality (and it being from The Met) made me blind buy. It stands impressive as a coffee table book and while it is interesting to flip through as every photo is impeccable, the content itself isn’t what I’d hoped for from an “Irving Penn; Centennial” collection. Nice to have, as the essence of Penn is there, but definitely not a prize addition (or even necessary) to your Penn/photography book collection.
1. Signs of Life 1939-47 - early work
2. Existential Portraits 1947-48 - iconic celeb portraits
3. In Vogue 1947-50 - some Vogue work
4. Cuzco 1948 - photos of indigenous Peruvians
5. Nudes 1949-50 - amorphous torsos
6. Small Trades 1950-51 - charming portraits of blue collar tradespeople
7. Classic Portraits 1948-62 - more iconic portraits
8. Ethnographic Portraits 1967-71 - iconic portraits of indigenous people from Morocco, New Guinea, and West Africa in a jarring studio setting
9. Cigarettes 1972 - close up shots of butts
10. Time Capsules 1960s-2007 - a wompwomp roundup of his later work done “in retirement”
11. Still Life 1968-2007 - what I most admire Penn’s work for, however not very much of nor included are any of my personal favorites
12. Advertising - a few examples of his ads
+ 13. Printing Process - I’m not a photographer so I don’t really care enough to go more than “hm”
The sheer size/weight of the book with its exquisite print quality (and it being from The Met) made me blind buy. It stands impressive as a coffee table book and while it is interesting to flip through as every photo is impeccable, the content itself isn’t what I’d hoped for from an “Irving Penn; Centennial” collection. Nice to have, as the essence of Penn is there, but definitely not a prize addition (or even necessary) to your Penn/photography book collection.
March 1, 2022
In 2017, on a trip to Stockholm, I had the good fortune to see the Irving Penn: Resonance exhibit at the Fotografiska. What can I say about Irving Penn's photography that hasn't been better said elsewhere? Not much. This book is not as exhaustive as I'd like it to be (particularly with regards to his "corner portraits," which are my favourite of his), but it's as close as I have for now, so I'll take it.
September 28, 2017
If you love Penn, you will love this book!!
November 18, 2017
Jolie ouvrage.
Nevertheless, too much reading, not enough photographies.
Where are the portraits of Karl Lagerfeld, of Mick Jagger, of Helmut Newton???
Nevertheless, too much reading, not enough photographies.
Where are the portraits of Karl Lagerfeld, of Mick Jagger, of Helmut Newton???
February 28, 2018
Genius (well except maybe the cigarette butt part...)
November 15, 2020
The whole magilla, all the work.
Big book.
Big book.
December 21, 2023
Wanted to know more about the photographer. Beautiful photos.
Want to read
March 10, 2025770.92 Irv
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews