Irving Penn: Tambul Warrior, New Guinea, 1970, gelatin silver print on board, 15 1/8 by 15 inches. (c) The Irving Penn Foundation. Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York.
Irving Penn (1917-2009) was the rare photographer who moved seamlessly between high fashion and still life assignments, and showed his work in museums and galleries as well as in the pages of Vogue and Vanity Fair. The portraits, fashion editorials and still lifes in Pace’s show (organized with Pace/MacGill Gallery) are interspersed with wall texts pulled from John Szarkowski’s 1984 MoMA catalogue, quotes from Alexander Liberman (the Vogue art director who mentored Penn) and others who worked with him throughout his career. Penn’s portraits of famous men (Truman Capote, Salvador Dalí) and his group portraits shot in places like Cuzco and Dahomey (now known as the Republic of Benin) are particularly alluring.