Irving Penn
Image rights
The artworks in this database are protected by copyright and may not be reproduced without the permission of the rights holders. The artworks are reproduced in this database with a license from Bildupphovsrätt.
For condition report contact specialist
“Collapse, 1980”
Signed Irving Penn and dated December 1981 and numrerad 8/23 on verso. Also stamped "Handcoated by the photographer" and "Photograph by Irving Penn copyright 1981 by Irving Penn" on verso. Platina palladium flush mounted on aluminum, image 29 x 49 cm. Sheet 40.6 x 60.8 cm.
Provenance
Camera Obscura, Stockholm.
Literature
John Szarkowski and Irving Penn, Irving Penn (The Museum of Modern Art), 1984, illustrated on p. 155.
Alexandra Arrowsmith, Nicola Majocchi, Irving Penn, "Passage: A Work Record", 1991, illustrated on p. 237.
John Szarkowski and Irving Penn, "Still Life. Irving Penn Photographs 1938 - 2000", 2001, illustrated.
More information
On November 3 2010 Elisabeth Biondi wrote an article in The New Yorker on Irving Penns "Collapse" photographs exhibited at the Pace/MacGill Gallery:
"Perfection is the word that comes to mind whenever I look at Irving Penn’s photographs. Over the past sixty years, he created inspired images of astonishing diversity, but still-lifes occupied an important place in both his professional and his personal work. His flower series are exquisite, his food pictures eccentric, and his cigarette-butt photos eye-opening.
In the late seventies and early eighties, while doing ravishing fashion photography for Vogue magazine, Penn embarked on a series of still-lifes of ordinary found objects, bones, and skulls. Originally these pictures were not well received, but now they dazzle us with their precision and visual poetry. When I saw them recently at Pace/MacGill Gallery, I marvelled at how delicately balanced each setup was and wondered how he possibly could have kept them from collapsing. In fact, collapse they did at times, but the ingenious Mr. Penn photographed them as they tumbled and titled the picture “Collapse.” Yes, the bones remind me of my mortality, but I found a subtle wit at work as well, in both the titles and images. Even the skulls were inspiring.
The show’s platinum prints further demonstrate the superb craftsmanship Penn so valued; he often spent as much time on printing as he did on shooting.[...]"