Thursday, July 07, 2011

I wrote a Preview for the Irving Penn exhibit at Fraenkel Gallery

When we think of classic glamour — pencil skirt, gloves, and arched-eyebrow glamor, the kind that would have looked askance through perfectly lined eyes and French milliner’s netting at you and your holey shoes and yoga pants — the image we conjure probably has its roots in the work of legendary photographer Irving Penn. His austere brand of elegance dominated fashion photography throughout the 1940s and ’50s, when he shot more than 150 covers for Vogue. The less-celebrated period of his career, however, is one he pursued independent of the fashion juggernaut, and one that chafed against the narrow concept of beauty extolled in his day job. (continue reading)

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