Irving Penn - Photographs New York Friday, April 5, 2024 | Phillips
  • “The studio became, for each of us, a sort of neutral area. It was not their home, as I had brought this alien enclosure into their lives; it was not my home, as I had obviously come from elsewhere, from far away. But in this limbo there was for us both the possibility of contact that was a revelation to me and often, I could tell, a moving experience for the subjects themselves, who without words – by only their stance and concentrations – were able to say much that spanned the gulf between our different worlds.”
    —Irving Penn

     

     

    Read more about the collection

    • Provenance

      The Photography Gallery, La Jolla, 1986

    • Literature

      The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Irving Penn: Centennial, p. 229

    • Artist Biography

      Irving Penn

      American • 1917 - 2009

      Arresting portraits, exquisite flowers, luscious food and glamorous models populate Irving Penn's meticulously rendered, masterful prints. Penn employed the elegant simplicity of a gray or white backdrop to pose his subjects, be it a model in the latest Parisian fashion, a famous subject or veiled women in Morocco.

      Irving Penn's distinct aesthetic transformed twentieth-century elegance and style, with each brilliant composition beautifully articulating his subjects. Working across several photographic mediums, Penn was a master printmaker. Regardless of the subject, each and every piece is rendered with supreme beauty. 

      View More Works

FIGURE + FORM: PHOTOGRAPHS FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION

327

New Guinea Man with Painted-On Glasses

1970
Platinum-palladium print, printed 1979.
20 x 20 in. (50.8 x 50.8 cm)
Signed, titled, dated, numbered 24/50, annotated in pencil, Condé Nast copyright credit reproduction limitation, and edition stamps on the reverse of the aluminum flush-mount.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$20,000 - 30,000 

Contact Specialist

Sarah Krueger
Head of Department, Photographs
skrueger@phillips.com
 

Vanessa Hallett
Worldwide Head of Photographs and Chairwoman, Americas
vhallett@phillips.com

Photographs

New York Auction 5 April 2024