Irving Penn

Silver print. Signed in pencil, with the photographer's stamp, the edition stamp annotated in pencil 'One of no more than 15 signed silver prints of this negative. Each print differs somewhat from the others. Negative and prints made 1949-1950.' and two copyright stamps on the reverse of the print. Mounted and framed.

Acquired directly from the Artist by the present owner

'Earthly Bodies, Irving Penn's Nudes, 1949-50', exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, January - April 2002, ill. p. 82.

This silver print is in very good condition. As every Penn print, this one is different as the contrasts are high enough to focus on the lines. A small lack of the gelatin layer in the upper margin at the edge of approx 2 cm away from the image. The corners are very slightly worn.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Penn’s works on female nudity are perhaps his most personal and raw. They were at the core of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition Heavenly Bodies in 2002. The works were taken on weekends and holidays when Penn was free to follow his own trail of thoughts, imagination and inspiration; as evident with the models he chose. At a time when beauty was an intoxication of perfection, Penn collaborated with seven artists’ models that had Rubenesque curves, with their chests and torsos folded. His nude portraits were so avant-garde that they were deemed as pornographic and didn’t appear publicly until the 1980s; they embodied the organic and maintained his idealisation of women with an abundance of power and sexual energy.