Irvin Penn Dies

Icon of 20th Century photography Irvin Penn died at his Manhattan home on 7th October 2009. Penn didn't limit himself to one genre and counts portraits, fashion & still-life in his varied creations. Penn's style was one of clarity, composition, arrangement of subjects or objects in the frame and use of light, much of the time window or natural light. A fine example of Penn's natural light portraits was series or portraits of New Guinea mud men created in the early 1970s.

Tambul Warrier, New Guinea, 1970

Much of Penn's earlier work could not exhibited until later in his life due the graphic detail & clarity of subject matter. For over 50 years Penn worked for Vogue shaping the future of fashion photography and creating some of the magazines most memorable images.

Pabloo Picasso 1957

During his life Penn published numerous books including "A Notebook at Random" which shows a broad selection of Penn's photographs, paintings and documents of his working methods. A list of Irvin Penn's books both in and out of prints may be found at www.irvinpenn.com

More information may also be found at the Museum of Fine Art, Houston's website or wikipedia. A quick Google search for Irvin Penn produced a ream of results. Read the obituary in the New York Times here.

Yves St Laurent 1983