Anniversary auctions at Bukowskis presenting two works of art by Irving Penn
Bukowskis presents "Woman with Roses on Her Arm" (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn in Lafaurie Dress) by Irving Penn on the autumn anniversary-auction Contemporary Art & Design.
Woman with Roses on Her Arm is said to have been one of Irving Penn’s favourite photographs. The image depicts Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn – a famous model as well as Irving Penn’s wife.
Fonssagrives-Penn (1911-1992) was the world’s first supermodel, before the term was even invented. From the 1930s to the 1950s she was known as “the most highly paid, most famous and greatest model of all”, and appeared regularly in magazines such as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Life and Vanity Fair. She was born and raised in Sweden but moved to Paris in the 1930s, where she met her first husband, Fernand Fonssagrives – a dancer and later photographer. Together they created fashion images that met with great success and paved the way for Lisa’s career as a supermodel.
In 1939 the couple moved to New York, where eventually their marriage dissolved. During a modelling job Lisa met photographer Irving Penn and the two took a liking to each other. They were married the same year as this iconic image of Lisa was taken in Paris – 1950.
Sara Danius has written in the daily Dagens Nyheter about the couple’s collaboration and about Penn’s talent as a fashion photographer:
“Irving Penn eliminated all forms of props and concentrated on the light, the model, the cut of the clothes… It was his way of showing respect to the designer and the seamstress. At the same time he was translating minimalism for the world of fashion. He worked with a neutral background, like the worn theatre-curtain. Bike messengers would deliver the clothes to the studio in the morning, to return with them later the same day.
It was an unusually good year for French designers. But it all hinged on finding the right kind of models. Irving Penn had a knack for that too. He wanted Lisa Fonssagrives and a handful of other models from the USA. Fonssagrives was born and raised on the west coast of Sweden. As a former dancer and gymnast she knew how to move in a room for the light to sculpt itself across her body.
She was the first supermodel. No one was better paid than her, no one was more celebrated. Fonssagrives had an exquisite sense of style, she seemed at one with the clothes and was able to express their inherent movement like no other. People who met them recalled that there was a special aura surrounding Irving Penn and Lisa Fonssagrives. Later that same autumn they married in London.”
Penn printed Woman with Roses on Her Arm (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn in Lafaurie Dress) in 1977 as a platinum-palladium print. The image was included in Camera Obscura’s first exhibition that same year. At the time the gallery was Sweden’s first and only gallery focused on photography. They organised a number of shows with what were then the best Swedish and international photographers. But their first exhibition was with Irving Penn – this was thanks to Lennart Durehed, who for a time had worked as an assistant to the already famous photographer.
In 2015 Lars Hall recalled:
“Lisa is about 39 in the image. She was a model and knew exactly what the result of her movements would be in front of the camera. What I particularly like with this image is that you can make out another face, a profile, from out of the folds of her dress”.
We are also proud to present "Cuzco Children" from 1948 by Irving Penn,
Irving Penn travelled a lot, sometimes on commission by Vogue who he ended up being employed by for more than sixty years. In 1948 he visited France, Italy, Spain and Peru. When he was done with a fashion shoot in Lima he extended his stay in Peru in order to portray the local population in Cusco. The city is set high above the sea, in the Andes, and was once the cultural and religious centre of the Inca Empire. Penn visited the city over the Christmas weekend, a holiday where the indigenous population arrived in the city to sell their goods and arts and crafts. During the three days that Penn photographed in Cusco he took more than 2000 images. Eleven of these, including this image of the two small children, were published in Vogue in 1949 as part of a feature entitled “Christmas at Cuzco”.
As was Penn’s custom the portrait was taken in a borrowed daylight studio. A simple canvas background and a bare stone floor frame a small solitary pillar table. The children are in the same frayed clothes and hats they would usually be wearing. The looks on the children’s faces are impenetrable, and in some ways timeless. They’re young and barefooted, yet at the same time dressed as grown-ups and with such serious eyes. Their interlaced hands form the focal point of the image.
Other examples of this subject are included in the collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Several motifs taken at the same time in Cusco can be found in the collection of Moderna Museet.
When is the viewing and auction?
Contemporary Art & Design
Viewing: 5 – 9 November, Berzelii Park 1, Stockholm
Open: Mon–Fri 11 AM – 6 PM, Sat–Sun kl 11 AM –5 PM
Auction: 10 November, starts at 11 am, Arsenalsgatan 2, Stockholm
Catalogue online from 28 October
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