"IRVING PENN – PLATINUM PRINTS" par Sarah GREENOUGH. Editions National Gallery of Art, Washington & Yale University Press, New Haven. 2005. Edition originale. Imprimé en Allemagne. Petit in-4, couverture toilée crème sous jaquette illustrée. 190 pages. Texte en anglais, avant-propos de earl A. Powell III, illustré de 112 reproductions photographiques, 87 en trois-tons, 5 en deux-tons et 20 en couleurs, principalement hors texte, par Irving Penn. Ouvrage réalisé dans le cadre de l'exposition éponyme à la National Gallery of Art de Washington du 19 Juin au 02 Octobre 2005.

 

"In a career that spans more than fifty years, American photographer Irving Penn has created some of the most arresting portraits, influential fashion studies, and provocative still lifes of the twentieth century. In the early 1960s when he turned from magazine work to platinum printing, he reinterpreted his earlier photographs, transforming them into the independent works of art that have been celebrated for the last thirty years. Ever the meticulous craftsman, Penn experimented extensively with the platinum process, making innumerable test strips in his quest to achieve remarkably subtle, rich tonal ranges and luxurious textures. When Penn rediscovered these test strips in the late 1980s, he arranged them in seventeen provocative collages, the Platinum Test Materials, which represent timeless meditations on his entire career: in demonstrating his search for perfection - and the difficulties in obtaining it - he has made this quest the very subject of his art. Handsomely designed and beautifully produced, this book reproduces the seventeen Platinum Test Materials, as well as the eighty-five platinum prints that are represented in these collages. Some of Penn's most important photographs are included, from portraits of Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, David Smith, and Saul Steinberg; to studies of indigenous peoples in New Guinea; innovative still lifes; and celebrated fashion studies."

 

Ref LPB1211