Research Notes: Irving Penn -

Photographer Research -

Irving Penn -

Born: June 16th 1917
Died: October 7th 2009
Place of Birth: Plainfield, New Jersey
Occupation: Photographer

• Penn attended the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art where he studied drawing, painting and graphics.
• He was then offered a position as an associate in Vogue.
• Penn founded his own studio in New York where he began doing advertising photography.
• Penn was well known in photography for his work in fields such as portraits of creative greats, modern still life, photojournalism travel essays and ethnographic images.
• Penn experimented printing his works on various backgrounds such as aluminium.
• Penn is probably best known for his black and white highly contrasted tonal images.

Irving Penn Examples:

This picture is of the great jazz musician Miles Davis. The facial expression implies the creative process that the musician goes through. The stark contrast between tonal areas of negative space.

This photograph is of Pablo Picasso and the mysterious nature links to the mystery around the creative mind. The line cutting across the face gives the impression of shape geometry and cubism linked to the artists own style in Penn's portrait.

This picture of Kennedy shows the president in an atmosphere that is more relaxed and intimate than the formal portraits often commissioned. This picture is very remiscent of the Churchill portrait as photographed by Yousuf Karsh although this particular image is more happy than the serious nature of Churchill.