Irving Penn: Radical Beauty 1946-2007

Known for depicting his subjects with a rare combination of precision and compositional elegance, Irving Penn's work contrasts elements of the grotesque and the sublime. Throughout his early career as a photographer at Vogue, and then later in his personal work, he consistently questioned and reinvented the parameters of physical beauty. His early nudes, from the late 1940s, were not exhibited until over three decades later.

The thirty photographs on view at Fraenkel Gallery explore Penn's radical and long-standing investigation into what constitutes beauty, an aspect of his career that has received only passing attention. His subjects, from the highlands of Papua New Guinea to the high-society of the fashion world, are presented as distinct and particular. Several images in the exhibition, obscures faces - Canvas Head With Hardware (design by Jun Takahashi) and Football Face, among others - alluding to the masks of fashion and persons.

Later in his career, Irving Penn traveled the globe photographing indigenous people in a stimulated, portable studio, producing memorable images from Africa, South America, and Papua New Guinea. Numerous books on his work have been published.

Irving Penn

Canvas Head With Hardware (Design by Jun Takahashi), New York, 2006

Copyright by Conde Nast Publications, Inc

Chanel Feather Headdress (B), New York, 1994

Copyright by the Irving Penn Foundation

Hell's Angel (Doug), San Francisco, 1967

Copyright by the Irving Penn Foundation

Mouth (for L'Oreal), New York, 1986

Copyright by the Irving Penn Foundation

Sweetie (A), New York, 1986

Copyright by Conde Nast Publications, Inc

Irving Penn: Radical Beauty 1946-2007

Currently on view at Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

June 30 - August 20, 2011