Moments Preserved

IRVING PENN 1960

Worlds in a Small Room 1974
Photographs in platinum metals 1977
Inventive Paris Clothes: 1909-1939 1977
Earthly Bodies 1980
Flowers 1980
Irving Penn 1984
Irving Penn photographs in platinum metals images 1947-1975. 1984
Monte Carlo 1986
Issey Miyake 1988
Cranium Architecture 1988
Other Wats of Being 1990
Passage, A Work Record 1991
Astronomers Plan a Voyage to Earth 1999
People in passage 1992
Penn 1996
Le Bain 1997
Drawings 1999
Irving Penn regards the work of Issey Miyake 1999
Still Life 2001
Archaeology 2001
Dancer 2001
Objects for the printed page 2001
Earthly Bodies: Irving Penn's Nudes, 1949-50 2002
A Notebook at Random 2004
Dahomey 2004
Platinum Prints 2005
Small Trades 2009
Portraits 2010
Ethnos 2011
Cigarettes 2012
Cranium architecture 2013
Beyond Beauty 2015
Flovers 2015
Irving Penn was born June 16, 1917 in Plainfield, N.J. Educated in public schools, he attended the Philadelphia Museum School of Art from 1934 to 1938, where
Alexey Brodovitch taught him advertising design. While training for a career as an art director, Penn worked the last two summers for Harper's Bazaar magazine
as an office boy and apprentice artist, sketching shoes. At this time he had no thought of becoming a photographer.
 
His first job on graduating in 1938 was art director of the Junior League magazine, later he worked in the same capacity for Saks Fifth Avenue department store.
At the age of 25, he quit his job and used his small savings to go to Mexico, where he painted a full year before he convinced himself he would never be more
than a mediocre painter.
 
Returning to New York, he won an audience with Alexander Liberman, art director of Vogue magazine, who hired Penn as his assistant, specifically to suggest
photographic covers for Vogue. The staff photographers didn't think much of his ideas, but Liberman did and asked Penn to take the pictures himself. Using a
borrowed camera, and drawing on his art background and experience, Penn arranged a still life consisting of a big brown leather bag, beige scarf and gloves,
lemons, oranges, and a huge topaz. It was published as the Vogue cover for the issue of October 1, 1943, and launched Penn on his photographic career.
 
Penn soon demonstrated his extraordinary capacity for work, versatility, inventiveness, and imagination in a number of fields including editorial illustration,
advertising, photojournalism, portraits, still life, travel, and television.
 
In his earlier work Penn was fond of using a particular device in his portrait work, replacing it with a fresh one from time to time. At one time he placed two
backgrounds to form a corner into which his subject was asked to enter. It was, as Penn explains, "a means of closing people in. Some people felt secure in this
spot, some felt trapped. Their reaction made them quickly available to the camera." His subjects during this 'corner period' included Noel Coward, the Duchess
of Windsor, and Spencer Tracy, most of whom complied readily.
 
Two series of portraits are especially memorable. One was made during Christmas in Cuzco, Peru, the other in studios in London, Paris, and New York. The
first, in 1948 high in the Andes, followed a fashion assignment. With a few days to spend between planes, Penn persuaded the local photographer to rent him
his studio. Pushing aside the ancient studio camera and picking up his Rollei, Penn made some 200 portraits in color and in black-and-white, in a studio that had
a stone floor, a painted background, a small rug, and an upholstered posing chair similar to a piano stool.
 
The other series was the famous Small Trades project, a large number of workers posing formally in their work clothes and holding the implements of their trade
or occupation. Each was posed against a plain background and lighted from the side, the characteristic lighting that has become identified with most of Penn's
portraiture.
 
In the 1950s, Penn founded his own studio in New York and continued to develop his fashion, commercial and personal work for the rest of his life. Notably
series include Flowers - produced over seven years for Vogue's Christmas editions; Dahomey - taken in 1967 when visiting the kingdom for Vogue; Still Life -
modernist compositions formed of objects Penn accumulated, and Cigarettes - shot in the early 1970s and exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in
his first exhibition in 1975.
 
Penn died in 2009; his work is still widely exhibited around the world, and is held in major collections including the Art Institute of Chicago; J. Paul Getty
Museum, Los Angeles; National Portrait Gallery, London; National Gallery of Art, Washington and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, amongst others.
In 2013 The Irving Penn Foundation donated 100 images to the Smithsonian American Art Museum, bringing the number of works in their collection to 161.
 
 [Edited from publicly available sources, © respective authors.]
Moments Preserved
1960

Hard cover with dust jacket and slipcase

25 x 34cm
183 pages
Irving Penn’s Moments Preserved – Eight Essays in Photographs and
Words, was one of the first photography books that I desired and
hunted down for years. We are talking pre-internet, obviously. I
managed to get the italian edition from a friend in Milan who parted
with his copy when he saw my eyes light up as I spotted the book on
his shelf. This is Irving Penn’s first book, printed in Switzerland by C. J.
Bucher AG Luzern; Camera Verlag (who produced and published
Richard Avedon’s book Observations the year before) and
simultaneously published in four languages. The american edition by
Simon & Schuster New York,  the french edition by Les Editions de
Temps, the italian edition by Editoriale Domus, Milano and the
german edition by Swiss publisher C. J. Bucher AG Luzern; Camera
Verlag. A variation of the german edition dust jacket exists,
presumably produced in the later 1960s. This volume brings
together Irving Penn’s best works in fashion, portraiture, travel and
still life photography.
Introduction by Alexander Liberman
Published by Simon & Schuster New York, (english) C. J. Bucher AG
Luzern; Camera Verlag, (german) Les Editions de Temps,
(french) Editoriale Domus, Milano (italian)
All published editions
Irving Penn, Moments preserved, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1960, Slipcase, dust jacket, cloth cover

Irving Penn, Moments, Les Editions du Temps, 1960, Slipcase, dust jacket, cloth cover
Irving Penn, Augenblicke, C. J. Bucher AG Luzern; Camera Verlag, 1960, Slipcase, dust jacket, cloth cover

Irving Penn, Momenti, Editoriale Domus, Milano, 1960, Slipcase, dust jacket, cloth cover
Irving Penn, Augenblicke, C. J. Bucher AG Luzern; Camera Verlag, 1960, Slipcase, dust jacket (variation), cloth cover
Irving Penn, Momenti, Technical information leaflet, front and back
Irving Penn, Momenti, Technical information leaflet, inner pages
Worlds in a Small Room
1974

Worlds in a Small Room

Grossman Publishers, (1974)
Photographs in platinum
metals
1977
PHOTOGRAPHS IN PLATINUM METALS -
IMAGES 1947-1975.; With texts by John
Szarkowski and Irving Penn.
NY: Marlborough Gallery, 1977 First edition.
4to., (32) pp., 29 plates.
Illustrated wrappers
Issued as a catalog for the exhibition which
traveled 1979-1981.
PENN, Irving and Diana Vreeland
Inventive Paris Clothes: 1909-1939
1977
New York: A Studio Book / The Viking Press,
1977. First Edition.
Square quarto.
SIGNED by Irving Penn, with his photographic
essay by Irving Penn; text by Diana Vreeland.
Illustrated with Penn's black and white
images of early 20th century Parisian haute
couture,inspired by an exhibition at The Met
curated by Diana Vreeland
with jacket

$ 600 > harpersbooks.com

Earthly Bodies
1980

IRVING PENN, EARTHLY BODIES: 76

PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE FEMALE NUDE,
NEGATIVES AND SILVER PRINTS MADE IN
1949-1950. Introduction by Rosalind E.
Krauss.
NY: Marlborough Gallery, 1980 First edition.
4to., 10 pp., 4 full-page b&w photos.
Pictorial stiff wrappers.
Published on the occasion of the exhibition
held September 4-October 1, 1980, at the
Marlborough Gallery in New York.
Flowers
1980

Published: New York Harmony Books, 1980

Quarto. Original cream cloth, titles to spine
in black. With the photographic dust jacket.
Illustrations
74 full page illustrations printed by offset
lithograph in six colours on Kromekote stock
art paper.

£250 > Peter Harrington

Irving Penn
1984

Irving Penn by Penn, Irving - Photographs;

Edited by John Szarkowski
New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1984.
Hardcover.
SIGNED. First edition.
216 pages; 156 photographic plates, 21 in
color, with 35 text illustrations, 7 in color; 11
x 12.5 inches.
Published in conjunction with an exhibition
at MoMA, this survey is one of the best
collections of Penn's (1917-2009) work.
Includes an overview of his career by
Szarkowski (1925-2007).

€820.00 + 52 > Biblio.com

$650.00 > harpersbooks.com

€ 120,00 > MiCamera

Mo.Ma, 1984 (I edizione )
Copertina morbida, 27,5 x 31cm
216 pagine, fotografie b/n e colori
Lingua inglese
Condizioni generali ottime
Peso 3 kg Editore Moma
Isbn 0870705628
Irving Penn photographs in
platinum metals images
1947-1975.
1984
Published by London, Marlborough Fine Art
(1981) 4 °, 29 cm.
16 pagine
ISBN 10: 0897970047
ISBN 13: 9780897970044
Title: Irving Penn photographs in platinum
metals ...
Publisher: London, Marlborough Fine Art
Publication Date: 1981
Binding: Soft cover
Edition: 1st Edition
Monte Carlo
1986

Printemps Des Arts Monte Carlo, 1986

Copertina morbida, 24 x 30 cm
95 pagine, fotografie b/n
Lingua francese e inglese
Ottime condizioni generali.
Lieve piega all’angolo superiore delle ultime
pagine.
Fotografie in perfette condizioni.
Peso 2 kg
Isbn B0010XT7X2

€ 80,00

Descrizione
Raro catalogo della mostra organizzata al
festival Printemps Des Arts de Monte Carlo
nel 1986.
In splendida gravura sono presentate 73
immagini, alcune inedite, che tracciano la
carriera del grande fotografo.
Issey Miyake: Photographs by
Irving Penn
1988
Boston: New York Graphic Society / Little,
Brown and Company, 1988. First Edition
Quarto. With 46 color photographs by Penn
of Miyake's cutting edge design
Fine in a fine French-folded jacket.

Issey Miyake. Bulfinch, 1999. Neuf, sous film

plastique d'origine.Editeur Bulfinch
Cranium Architecture
1988

Publisher: Pace/Macgill Gallery (December

1988)
ISBN-10: 9999768598
ISBN-13: 978-9999768597
Product Dimensions: 0.2 x 8.8 x 11.2 inches
Other Wats of Being
1990

Title: Other Wats of Being

Penn, Irving; Woodward, Richard B.
Published by Pace / MacGill Gallery, New
York, 1990
Publication Date: 1990
Binding: Wraps
Book Condition:Very Good
Edition: First edition.
 Irving Penn
Passage, A Work Record
1991
Publisher: New York: Alfred A. Knopf / Callaway,
1991
Edition: 1st Edition
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN: 0679404910
Condition: Fine / Fine
Item #: 108272

Specifics
First edition, first printing. Hardcover. Beige cloth-
covered boards with title stamped in black on spine;
with photographically illustrated dust jacket.
Photographs by Irving Penn. Introduction by
Alexander Liberman. Produced by Nicholas Callaway.
Includes an illustrated chronology. 300 pp., with 397
quadritone and 71 four-color plates, beautifully
printed in eleven impressions by Franklin Graphics,
Providence, Rhode Island, under the direction of
Wayne Turner, from separations by Richard Benson
and Thomas Palmer. 12-3/4 x 11 inches.
Condition
Fine in Fine dust jacket. A mint copy.
Description
A gorgeously printed survey of Penn's prolific career,
spanning the 1930s to 1990.
Astronomers Plan a Voyage
to Earth
1999
Astronomers Plan a Voyage to Earth
Apparition, (1999)
People in Passage
1992

Hardcover: 87 pages
Publisher: Photology (1992)
Language: English
ASIN: B001OFTE3E Product
Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.6 x 1.1 inches
 Irving Penn: Photographs: a
Donation in Memory of Lisa
Fonssagrives-Penn
1996
PENN, Irving, SPRINGFELDT, Björn, SEGERSTAD, Ulf Hård af,
LUNDSTRÖM, Jan-Erik
Publisher: Stockholm: Moderna Museet and Raster Förlag,
1996
Edition: 1st Edition
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN: 9187214679
Condition: Fine / Fine
Item #: 112651

$150.00
Specifics
First edition, first printing. Hardcover. Black cloth-covered
boards with title debossed on cover and spine; with
photographically illustrated dust jacket. Photographs by
Irving Penn. Text in Swedish and English. Foreword by
Björn Springfeldt. Essays by Ulf Hård af Segerstad and Jan-
Erik Lundström. Includes a list of plates, selected work
biography and a selected bibliography. 272 pp., with
duotone and four-color plates throughout. Published on
the occasion of a traveling exhibition.
Condition
Fine in Fine dust jacket.
Description
Feature's Penn's most famous work, including still lifes,
fashion, portraits, work, ethnographic images and nudes.
Penn Irving
Le Bain
1997
Penn Irving
Le Bain : Dancers' Workshop of San
Francisco. Maison Européenne de la
Photographie, 1997. 46 pages. Texte en
français. Très bon état.Editeur MEP

Estimate : 40 - 50 €

Paris, Maison Européenne de la

Photographie. 1997., 1997. In-4°. 46 p. Avec
14 photographies en noir. Reliure pleine
toile, jaquette. Edition originale. - Texte en
français et anglais d'Edmonde Charles-Roux
Prezzo: EUR 94,82
Drawings
1999

Drawings
Apparition, (1999)
Irving Penn regards the work
of Issey Miyake
1999
Irving Penn regards the work of Issey Miyake
Jonathan Cape, (1999)

Flammarion, 1999
Neuf, sous film plastique d'origine.
Editeur Flammarion
Estimate : 20 - 30 €
Still Life
2001

Still Life
Bulfinch Press, (2001)
Archaeology
2001

New York: Pace/MacGill Gallery, 2001. First

Edition
Oblong quarto
Published in conjunction with the exhibition
Irving Penn: Archaeology at Pace/MacGill
Gallery, New York, October 28, 2010 –
January 15, 2011
Includes 21 black-and-white plates of Penn's
platinum still-life prints.
With an essay by Colin Eisler and an
afterword by Peter MacGill
Fine in blind-stamped boards, still in the
publisher's shrinkwrap
No dust jacket, as issued

$ 100 > harpersbooks.com

Dancer
2001

Dancer
Nazraeli Press, (2001)
Objects for the printed page
2001

Penn Irving
Objects for the printed page. Pendant plus de
90 ans, Irving Penn (1917-2009) a marqué
l’histoire de la photographie par ses images
de mode, ses natures mortes et ses portraits.
Ses cimaises étaient les pages des magazines,
surtout et encore Vogue, et sa production
photographique très dense, une œuvre que
les archivistes de la Fondation ne cesse
d’exhumer, avec respect. Ce catalogue de
l’exposition du Musée Folkwang d’Essen,
montre une sélection de natures mortes
qu’Irving Penn a crées pour Jil Sander, Calvin
Klein ou Chanel (entre autres). Les
photographies sont présentées dans leur
contexte original de l’annonce. Texte en
anglais et en allemand. Publié en 2001 par le
Musée Folkwang d’Essen. Le livre est relié,
neuf, sous film plastique d’origine Editeur
Museum Folkwang Essen

Estimate : 20 - 25 €
Earthly Bodies: Irving Penn's
Nudes, 1949-50
2002
PENN, Irving and Maria Morris Hambourg
Title: Earthly Bodies: Irving Penn's Nudes,
1949-50
Publisher: The Metropolitan Museum of
Art / Bulfinch Press Book / Little, Brown and
Company, New York & Boston, MA
Publication Date: 2002
Binding: Hardcover
Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
Edition: 1st Edition

First edition. Hardcover. 90 pages. Published

in conjuction with a traveling show that ran
January 14 through April 21, 2002 at The
Metropolitan Museum of Art and then went
on to Chicago and San Francisco for
additional dates. Essay by Maria Morris
Hambourg. Includes 54 tritones, 10 text
illustrations and 4 gatefolds. A very fine copy
in a very fine dust jacket and still in the
publisher's shrinkwrap
A Notebook at Random
2004

A Notebook at Random. Bulfinch Press,

(2004)
Dahomey
2004

Irving Penn
Photographs of Dahomey (1967)
Preface by Ann Wilkes Tucker, text(s) by
Melville J. und Frances S. Herskovits, Jacques
Maquet, Irving Penn, ed. Museum of Fine
Arts, Houston
English
2004. 80 pp., 31 ills.
clothbound
22.20 x 24.80 cm
ISBN 978-3-7757-1449-5
Platinum Prints
2005

Washington, DC / New Haven: National

Gallery of Art / Yale University Press, 2005.
First Edition.
Quarto.
SIGNED by Irving Penn.
Handsome hardcover monograph published
in conjunction with Penn's exhibition at The
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC,
2005.
Essay by Sarah Greenough.
102 black and white illustrations.
Fine in a fine jacket.

$ 500 > harpersbooks.com

 Small Trades
2009

Copyright 2009 the estate of Irving Penn, published by the Getty Museum
Small Trades is but one of many projects that was completed by Irving Penn (b. 1917 Plainfield, NJ – d. 2009), and one that actually
spanned his photographic career. The photographs were created in the early 1950’s in Paris, London and New York. As a body of work,
Penn would return to these negatives to continue his investigation of what a photograph print should look like.
The original photographs were made on 2-1/4 x 2-1/4 roll film (Rolliflex), but usually cropped into a vertical image and printed on gelatin
silver enlarging paper. Penn has stated that his studies were primary inspired by Eugene Atget’s petits métiers (small trades), early 1900’s
photographic studies of workers in their Paris environments. As has frequently been mentioned, the viewer can also find themselves
noticing the similarities to August Sander’s “People of the Twentieth Century” environmental studies created in the 1930’s in Germany.
Penn on the other hand removed his subjects from their environment to a more neutral sitting located in his studio.
In the 1960’s while investigating the printing qualities of platinum/palladium printing, Penn returned to this body of work to further
investigate the potential print qualities of these images. He also found that different negatives could be more expressive in platinum over
the earlier gelatin silver paper process. The first image I provide below (Chamois Seller, London, 1950) provides a comparison of these
two printing methods. I am not sure if the difference will be apparent on your monitor, but it is apparent in the printed pages of this
book. In the book, the cooler silver plates represent his gelatin silver prints, while the warmer plates represent the platinum prints.
As noted in their introductory essay, “Quite often, Penn’s choice of a different negative for the platinum/palladium print triggered a
subtle shift from the description of a figure in space to a more fundamental concern with the relationship of figure to space”. The
differences between the two printing methodologies are only hinted at in the printing of this book.
In his later printing sessions, Penn would crop the photographic boundaries even tighter around his subject. Then later still, Penn began
printing the entire square negative, revealing the edges of the studio and his backdrop which had been cropped out in the earlier
versions.
This is a thick and beautifully printed hard cover book. The book was edited by, with an introduction essay, Virginia Heckert with Anne
LaCoste.  Anne Lacoste also interviews Edmonde Charles-Roux, Penn’s assistant during his creation of this body of work. My review is
completed from the book’s second printing, which is virtually unchanged from the first edition.
Portraits
2010

Copertina rigida
80 pagine
Abrams - 2010
Dimensioni: 25 x 25 cm
Portraits. National Portrait Gallery, 2010. In-8
(24 x 24 cm)
Photographs by Irving Penn. Essay by
Magdalene Keaney. Foreword by Sandy
Nairne.
Harry N Abrams, New York, 2010. 80 pp., 30
tritone illustrations, 9½x9½".
Irving
Penn Ethnos
2011
BERNHEIMER, 2011
28x24cm
Cigarettes
2012

Irving Penn
Cigarettes
Irving Penn, 2012
Hardback
Publisher: Hamiltons
ISBN: 978-0-9547257-1-6
Dimensions: 14 x 12 in.
£125
http://www.hamiltonsgallery.com/pub
lications/#/publications/4/
Cranium Architecture
2013

Irving Penn
Cranium Architecture
Irving Penn, 2013
Hardback
Publisher: Hamiltons
ISBN: 978-0-9547257
Dimensions: 12 x 14 in.
£125
http://www.hamiltonsgallery.com/publications/#
/publications/4/
Irving Penn
Beyond Beauty
2015
€ 45,00
Yale University Press, New Haven 2015
Copertina morbida, 23.5 x 28 cm
240 pagine, 167 fotografie a colori e in b/n
Lingua inglese
ISBN: 9780300214901

Descrizione
Questo meraviglioso catalogo comprende
161 fotografie iconiche dell’autore, più un
discreto numero di suoi lavori inediti.
È l’accompagnamento perfetto alla prima
mostra retrospettiva di Penn.
Flowers
2015

Irving Penn
Flowers
Irving Penn , 2015
Hardback
Publisher: Hamiltons
Dimensions: 14 x 12 in.
£125
http://www.hamiltonsgallery.com/pub
lications/#/publications/4/