Camera ready: unseen works by Irving Penn get an airing in Dallas
To many, Irving Penn is known as the man behind the lens of several iconic fashion images – from the 1950 photo of his wife, model Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn in a Rochas Mermaid gown, to the 1995 photo of a bee sitting atop a pair of rosy – (almost) literally bee-stung – lips. But Penn also had a creative side away from fashion, capturing urban social snapshots in the United States and tribal women in Africa. Now, for the first time, many of his unseen works are on display at the Dallas Museum of Art in ‘Irving Penn: Beyond Beauty’, the first comprehensive retrospective of his work in two decades.
‘He saw beauty as an absolute value,’ says Sue Canterbury, the Pauline Gill Sullivan associate curator of American art at the Museum. ‘You see this thread running throughout his work, whether it’s a fashion model in Paris, or a biker in San Francisco with Hell’s Angels, or the people he shot in his travels in Peru, New Guinea, or Morocco.’
The exhibition, which features around 140 photographs, takes viewers through what Penn saw from behind his lens, from early street scenes of Philadelphia and New York in the late 1930s, to his images of the residents of Cusco, Peru in the 40s and native Dahomey girls in the late 60s. Also included are famous portraits of artists and intellectuals like Salvador Dalí and Langston Hughes, and Penn's surveys of the post-Second World War European working class.
As the show leads on to his fashion work, Penn’s gift for fashion photography becomes evident in the way the silhouettes of the clothes become sleek sculptures. ‘Before he stepped in, fashion shoots were situational,’ says Canterbury. ‘You created a tableau vivant. He changed it by creating these wonderful plain backgrounds. The result is that there is no distraction from the clothes.’
Penn was a master of composition, darkroom developing and still life, and had an eye for making anything beautiful – even the flattened street trash he photographed in platinum in the 1970s. He saw beauty in everything, even boxes of frozen produce (photographed in 1977). ‘It was very innovative, the way that he [thought], and also the way that he saw things could be shot,’ concludes Canterbury.
INFORMATION
’Irving Penn: Beyond Beauty’ is on view until 14 August. For more details, please visit the Dallas Museum of Art’s website
Photography courtesy of the Irving Penn Foundation and the Dallas Museum of Art
ADDRESS
Dallas Museum of Art
1717 North Harwood Street
Dallas, Texas
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Ann Binlot is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer who covers art, fashion, design, architecture, food, and travel for publications like Wallpaper*, the Wall Street Journal, and Monocle. She is also editor-at-large at Document Journal and Family Style magazines.
-
Louise Bonnet’s falling figures depict an emotional narrative to be felt rather than told
Louise Bonnet’s solo exhibition 'Reversal of Fortune' at Galerie Max Hetzler in Berlin, nods to historical art references and the fragility of the human condition
By Tianna Williams Published
-
The wait is over: Matthieu Blazy is Chanel’s new creative director
Matthieu Blazy has been appointed as the new artistic director at Chanel, after a critically lauded and commercially successful tenure as creative director of Bottega Veneta
By Jack Moss Published
-
Alaïa’s secret new London café and bookstore is inspired by the art of hosting
Housed on the third floor of Alaïa’s London flagship, the intimate space – inspired by Azzedine Alaïa’s famed hospitality – includes a Violet Cakes bakery and a bookstore by Claire de Rouen
By Jack Moss Published
-
‘Gas Tank City’, a new monograph by Andrew Holmes, is a photorealist eye on the American West
‘Gas Tank City’ chronicles the artist’s journey across truck-stop America, creating meticulous drawings of fleeting moments
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Intimacy, violence and the uncanny: Joanna Piotrowska in Philadelphia
Artist and photographer Joanna Piotrowska stages surreal scenes at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania
By Hannah Silver Published
-
First look: Sphere’s new exterior artwork draws on a need for human connection
Wallpaper* talks to Tom Hingston about his latest large-scale project – designing for the Exosphere
By Charlotte Gunn Published
-
Marc Hom reframes traditional portraiture in Cooperstown, NY
‘Marc Hom: Re-Framed’ has taken over the grounds of the Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, planting Samuel L Jackson, Gwyneth Paltrow and more ‘personalities of the world’ into the landscape
By Hannah Hutchings-Georgiou Published
-
Alexander May, founder of LA studio Sized, on the joys of creative polymathy
Creative director Alexander May tells us of the multidisciplinary approach that drives his LA studio Sized and its offspring, a 5,000 sq ft event space and an exhibition series
By Hannah Silver Published
-
50 of America’s top creatives, photographed by Inez & Vinoodh
Photographed exclusively for Wallpaper* by Inez & Vinoodh, we present a portfolio of 50 creatives driving the current discourse on American culture and its dynamic evolution
By Dan Howarth Published
-
Nona Faustine confronts the past in New York
Artist Nona Faustine reframes New York's colonial past in an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum
By Hannah Silver Published
-
How the west won: Ivan McClellan is amplifying the intrepid beauty of Black cowboy culture
In his new book, 'Eight Seconds: Black Cowboy Culture', Ivan McClellan draws us into the world of Black rodeo. Wallpaper* meets the photographer ahead of his Juneteenth Rodeo
By Tracy Kawalik Published