KYOTOGRAPHIE 2022
Irving Penn
Irving Penn: Works 1939–2007. Masterpieces from the MEP Collection
Presented by DIOR
From the collection of MEP, Paris (Maison Européenne de la Photographie) in collaboration with The Irving Penn Foundation
2022/4/9-2022/5/8
Venue [ Annex ]
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Saul Steinberg in Nose Mask, New York, 1966
Gelatin-silver print toned in selenium
Purchased in 1992The Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris has one of the most significant and complete European collections of the works of the American Photographer Irving Penn (1917-2009). This unique ensemble is primarily the result of the longstanding and close relationship between MEP and the artist himself, during his lifetime, and more recently a close and precious collaboration with The Irving Penn Foundation, led by his son, Tom Penn. Today the MEP holds over 100 vintage works, which not only span the entirely of Penn’s working life, but includes some of his most celebrated and iconic images. This presentation of 80 works, specially selected for KYOTOGRAPHIE by MEP, offers its audience in Japan an unparalleled insight, not only into the richness and diversity of Penn’s images but also his incredible skill as a print-maker. Penn’s photographs, in silver gelatin, platinum-palladium, and colour processes, are among the most highly cherished in the history of photography, effortlessly bringing to life, and in the highest possible quality, the whole range of photographic genres from still life and landscape, to portraiture and fashion. It is with the latter in mind that KYOTOGRAPHIE and MEP have worked closely with our colleagues at Maison Dior in Japan and France to bring this priceless body of work to a new audience for the first time.
From his earliest documentary work in late 1930s America, and during the Second World War, to his poignant final still life pictures, Irving Penn strived always to produce photographs of the very highest quality. As such he is perhaps without equal in being celebrated as much for his pictorial ingenuity in commercial and commissioned work as for his expressive artistry. There are no distinctions in quality in Penn’s oeuvre between the absolute attention given to an apparently simple still life, even a crushed cigarette or piece of gum, and the beauty and sophistication of his fashion pictures or celebrity portraits. Each subject finds its proper place, and achieves its artistic status through a complex and life-learned process of looking, thinking, composition and perfect technical reproduction.
[Quotation from the introduction text by Simon Baker, Director of Maison Européenne de la Photographie]
Saul Steinberg in Nose Mask, New York, 1966
Gelatin-silver print toned in selenium
Purchased in 1992Information
- Period
- April 9 (Sat) − May 8 (Sun), 2022
- Time
- 10:00−17:30 (Last admission 17:00)
- Venue
- Annex
- Closed on
- Mondays, except 2 May and public holidays.
- Admission
- Adults: ¥1,500
Students: ¥1,200
Museum Membership: ¥1,300
*Students = university, high school, vocational students. Please present your student ID.
*Admission free till junior high school age.
*Free admission for persons with disabilities and their caregivers (certificate required)
Irving Penn
Irving Penn studied design from 1934–38 with Alexey Brodovitch at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art. Following a year painting in Mexico, he returned to New York City and began working at Vogue magazine in 1943, where Alexander Liberman was art director. Penn photographed for Vogue and commercial clients in America and abroad for nearly 70 years. Whether an innovative fashion image, striking portrait, or compelling still life, each of Penn’s pictures bears his trademark style of elegant aesthetic simplicity. In addition to his editorial and advertising work, Penn was also a master printmaker. Beginning in 1964, he pioneered a complex technique for making platinum-palladium prints, a 19th century print process to which he applied 20th century materials. The first retrospective of Penn’s work was organized by the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1984. Following the landmark exhibition which travelled to over 14 countries after MoMA, he resumed painting and drawing as a full-fledged creative endeavor. Until his death in 2009, his innovative photographs continued to appear regularly in Vogue, and his studio was busy with assignments and experimental personal work. Recent exhibitions include Irving Penn: Beyond Beauty at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. (2015–16) and Irving Penn: Centennial at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2017).
- Organizer: KYOTOGRAPHIE International Photography Festival
- Co-organizer: City of Kyoto
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Saul Steinberg in Nose Mask, New York, 1966 Gelatin-silver print toned in selenium
Purchased in 1992Picasso (1 of 6), Cannes, 1957 Gelatin silver print
Purchased in 1992Christian Dior, New York, 1947 Gelatin silver print
Purchased in 1992Balenciaga Mantle Coat (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn), Paris, 1950 Platinum print
Purchased in 1992