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Nude, No. 40, 1949-50
Details
Irving Penn (1917-2009)
Nude, No. 40, 1949-50
gelatin silver print
signed in pencil, stamped 'one of no more than 13 signed silver prints of this negative. Each print differs somewhat from the others. Negatives and prints made 1949-50' and Penn/Condé Nast copyright credit stamp (verso)
image: 39.7 x 37.8cm. (15 5/8 x 14 7/8in.)
sheet: 50.8 x 40.3cm. (20 x 15 7/8in.)
This work is from the edition of 13.
Nude, No. 40, 1949-50
gelatin silver print
signed in pencil, stamped 'one of no more than 13 signed silver prints of this negative. Each print differs somewhat from the others. Negatives and prints made 1949-50' and Penn/Condé Nast copyright credit stamp (verso)
image: 39.7 x 37.8cm. (15 5/8 x 14 7/8in.)
sheet: 50.8 x 40.3cm. (20 x 15 7/8in.)
This work is from the edition of 13.
Literature
Maria Morris Hambourg, Earthly Bodies Irving Penn's Nudes, 1949-1950, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and Bulfinch Press, 2002, p. 31.
Further Details
Irving Penn’s series of female nude studies, an early personal project pursued over a number of weekends and holidays between 1949 and 1950, became the focus of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and an attendant publication, under the title Heavenly Bodies, in 2002. In a long career through which Penn explored many broad themes in countless variations – fashion, beauty, portraiture, still-life – these close-cropped, abstracted observations of the female body stand as a discrete and powerful statement.
These nude studies provided a radical contrast from the pressures of Penn’s Condé Nast work, even with regard to the more fulsome bodies that he mostly worked with in the series, so distinct from the slender elegance of his high-fashion models. The present lot, and the other work from the series in this catalogue (Lot 55), are atypical in presenting a slim rather than voluptuous subject.
The female nude always has been, and remains, a core subject for artists. Taking inspiration particularly from the works of modern masters, including Brancusi, Matisse, Arp, and Moore published in the pages of Cahiers d’Art. Penn’s nudes are sculptural, at once intimate and respectful, subtle exercises in tonal modeling, sensual rather than erotic. They rank among his greatest achievements.
These nude studies provided a radical contrast from the pressures of Penn’s Condé Nast work, even with regard to the more fulsome bodies that he mostly worked with in the series, so distinct from the slender elegance of his high-fashion models. The present lot, and the other work from the series in this catalogue (Lot 55), are atypical in presenting a slim rather than voluptuous subject.
The female nude always has been, and remains, a core subject for artists. Taking inspiration particularly from the works of modern masters, including Brancusi, Matisse, Arp, and Moore published in the pages of Cahiers d’Art. Penn’s nudes are sculptural, at once intimate and respectful, subtle exercises in tonal modeling, sensual rather than erotic. They rank among his greatest achievements.
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Philippe Garner