IRVING PENN
Woman with roses (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn), Paris, 1950
© The Irving Penn Foundation / Courtesy Kicken Berlin
Biography
Irving Penn (American, 1917-2009) studied design at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art with Alexey Brodovitch, working as Brodovitch’s assistant at Harper’s Bazaar until 1938. Penn then took up photography himself, working at Vogue from 1943 on, first as assistant to Art Director Alexander Liberman. Penn’s elegant fashion shots, purist still lifes, and artist portraits adorned hundreds of Vogue covers. Since 1951 he has operated a studio for commercial photography, boasting to his death such renowned clients as General Foods, Issey Miyake, and Clinique. Penn also published ethnographic photo-essays of his travels to Morocco, Sweden, Japan, Nepal, Cameroon, and other locations around the world.
