First Retrospective in 20 Years of Master Photographer Irving Penn Opens February 24 at Nashville's Frist Center

Organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Merry Foresta, the museum's curator of photography from 1983 to 1999, the exhibition contains more than 140 photographs, including the debut of 100 photographs recently donated by The Irving Penn Foundation and several previously unseen or never-before-exhibited photographs. Penn's renown as a fashion photographer is matched by the recognition of his innovative and insightful portraits, still lifes, nudes, and travel photographs. The exhibition features work from all stages of Penn's career, including street scenes from the late 1930s, photographs of the American South from the early 1940s, celebrity portraits, fashion photographs, and Penn's stunning late color work. 

In a career that spanned nearly 70 years, Penn's aesthetic and technical skill earned him accolades in both the artistic and commercial worlds. He was a master of both black-and-white and color photography, and his revival of platinum printing in the 1960s and 1970s was a catalyst for significant change in the art world. He successfully crossed the chasm that separated magazine and fine-art photography, narrowing the gap between art and fashion. "Penn adopted a workmanlike approach to making pictures,'" says Frist Center Chief Curator Mark Scala. "But even in his most commercial images, he upended convention with a penchant for formal surprise."

Schooled in painting and design, Penn eventually chose photography as his life's work. His portraits and fashion photographs defined elegance, yet throughout his career he also transformed mundane objects—storefront signs, food, cigarette butts, street debris—into memorable images of unexpected, often surreal, beauty.

The exhibition is arranged in reverse chronology, allowing viewers to peel away layers of history by moving from the present into the past. In Bee, made for Vogue in 1995, Penn reflects the decadence that permeated much fashion photography of the nineties. Penn's equally assertive portraits show cultural figures such as dancer Rudolph Nureyev, singer Leontyne Price, and painter Francis Bacon in intimate close-up. "Rather than containing clues about their creative enterprise, the portraits allow nuanced facial expressions to convey deep introspection," says Scala. "And among the most psychologically charged of Penn's images are his 'corner portraits.'" Taken in the late 1940s, these photographs depict artists, writers, and others posed in a constructed corner, often in positions suggesting discomfort and claustrophobia.

His earliest works—urban street scenes from the late 1930s and photographs of the American South made during a road trip from New York to Mexico in 1941–42—show Penn to be attuned to the photography of his own time, especially the documentary approach of Walker Evans and the New York Photo League. At the same time, they echo Surrealism's fascination with provocative juxtaposition and symbolic meaning.

Exhibition Credit
Irving Penn: Beyond Beauty is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum with generous support from ART MENTOR FOUNDATION LUCERNE, Sakurako and William Fisher, The William R. Kenan Jr. Endowment Fund, The Lauder Foundation—Leonard and Judy Lauder Fund, Edward Lenkin and Roselin Atzwanger, The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Margery and Edgar Masinter, The Margery and Edgar Masinter Exhibitions Fund, the James F. Petersen Charitable Fund in honor of Tania and Tom Evans, The Bernie Stadiem Endowment Fund, and the Trellis Fund. The C. F. Foundation in Atlanta supports the museum's traveling exhibition program, Treasures to Go.

Image Use and Caption
This image is approved only for publication in conjunction with promotion of the exhibition Irving Penn: Beyond Beauty. Reproductions must include the full caption information including copyright credits. Images may not be used as cover images, bleed off the page, be cropped or altered in any way, superimposed with any printing, or span more than one page. The correct aspect ratio must be maintained when presenting the artworks in any format. Online images may be reproduced no larger than 1500 x 1500 pixels. No images are approved for social media use.

Irving Penn. Bee, New York, 1995, printed 2001. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of The Irving Penn Foundation. © The Irving Penn Foundation

Sponsor Acknowledgment
This exhibition is supported in part by the Metro Nashville Arts Commission, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Public Programs

Friday, February 24                                                 
Curator's Perspective: "Irving Penn: Beyond Fashion" presented by Merry Foresta, founding director, Smithsonian Institution Photography Initiative
6:30 p.m.                                                                          
Frist Center Auditorium
Free; first come, first seated 

Independent curator Merry Foresta will introduce major developments in Penn's career and exhibition highlights in this one-hour lecture.

About the Frist Center
Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, the Frist Center for the Visual Arts is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit art exhibition center dedicated to presenting and originating high-quality exhibitions with related educational programs and community outreach activities. Located at 919 Broadway in downtown Nashville, Tenn., the Frist Center offers the finest visual art from local, regional, national, and international sources in exhibitions that inspire people through art to look at their world in new ways.  Additional information is available by calling 615.244.3340 or by visiting fristcenter.org. 

SOURCE Frist Center for the Visual Arts

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