Irving Penn

mounted, number in ink on the mount, the photographer's credit and copyright/reproduction rights stamps, number, and reduction notations in pencil, on the reverse, framed, the photographer's Famous Photographers Schools data sheet with information in ink by the photographer, a small copy print of the image with technical information in ink, and a partial mount, with FPS stamps, on the reverse, 1950, printed no later than 1964 (Vogue, 'This Half Century,' January 1950, pp. 92-3; U. S. Camera Annual 1951, p. 153; 20th Century Photography: Museum Ludwig, Cologne, p. 495)

This photograph comes from the archives of the Famous Photographers School, a correspondence course for budding photographers that operated from 1964 into the 1970s. Irving Penn was a member of the school's Guiding Faculty, along with Richard Avedon, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Philippe Halsman, Bert Stern, and Ezra Stoller. This print was produced no later than 1964, when the three volumes for the Famous Photographers Course were published. This early print, on paper with a slight surface sheen and mounted to white board, is in generally very good condition. There are red ink guide marks on the mount. The edges are rubbed, and there is minute lifting of the emulsion and a tiny loss at the right edge. When examined in raking light, the following are visible: small areas of original retouching and faint silvering in the darkest areas. The front of the mount is lightly soiled, and the edges are rubbed and appropriately age-darkened. There are red ink guide marks and the number '150' in blue ink on the front of the mount. There is also a remnant of brown paper tape along the upper edge of the mount. On the reverse of the mount, in addition to the credit and copyright/reproduction rights stamps, are the following: the number '18767P' (twice) in black ink, a stamped black star and a star drawn in black ink, and a vertical cropping notation '6" neg only' in pencil. The reverse of the mount has yellowed adhesive staining overall, likely from a prior mounting. The section of the former underlying mount that is affixed to the reverse of the frame has the following Famous Photographers School stamps: 'Famous Photographers Schools,' 'Original Art,' 'Please Return to Art Archives, Graphics Building,' and FPS Lesson stamps, with numbers in ink. Irving Penn has filled in portions of the accompanying two-sided FPS Photographic Data and Pertinent Information sheet in blue ink. He filled in the title, location, camera used, indicated that it was shot 'To Illustrate One Period in a Series: 50 Years of Fashion' for Vogue, and that a model release was obtained and Condé Nast should be contacted for permission. The accompanying 4-by-5-inch copy print of the image with technical information about the taking of this photograph indicates that it was used as part of a quiz for the Famous Photographers School for Lesson 3, 'Composing Your Photographs.' The reverse is marked with 'Penn,' 'Lesson 3, Pic Quiz, Pic 1B,' and 'Finish in Lesson' in ink. The technical categories are stamped in black and filled in with blue ink, as follows: Camera: Rolleiflex Lens: F/3.5 Film: Super XX Light Source: Tungsten bank Exposure: 1/5th second at f16 Client: Vogue Contact for permission release and credit: Vogue - Paul Bonner
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For his January 1950 Vogue fashion survey, ‘This Half Century,’ Irving Penn chose to illustrate the 1940s with top models Dorian Leigh and Evelyn Tripp in clothes by Clare McCardell.  McCardell was famous for her comfortable yet stylish clothes and for her choice of practical footware, epitomized in the ballet slipper by Capezio.  

The photograph offered here was used by the Famous Photographers School, where Penn was on the guiding faculty, as an example of superb composition.  As with Penn’s best fashion photographs, not only the clothes, but also the attitude with which they are worn, are of equal importance.  In its entry dedicated to McCardell, the Vogue Voguepedia website singles out Penn’s photograph for perfectly capturing ‘the McCardell slouch,’  taught by McCardell to her models.  The image offered here is hailed as ‘Irving Penn’s indelible 1950 photograph of two McCardell-clad beauties knitting, reading, smoking, and oozing insouciance . . . ’