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Lot Essay
Throughout a remarkable career that spanned nearly eighty years, Irving Penn secured himself as one of the leading photographers of the 20th Century, consistently reflecting his mastery of multiple genres, from fashion to still-life and, as seen in these lots, flowers. The flowers series began while on assignment for Vogue, when, over seven consecutive December issues, Penn devoted each one to a particular flower. In keeping with his trademark minimalist aesthetic, Penn stripped the flower of its traditional context and associations, namely, a romantic bouquet or a traditional centerpiece. Instead, each was presented in a fresh, modern way, encouraging viewers to focus on the petals’ undulating edges, the glimmer of the water droplets, the wide range of sumptuous colors, and the velvety texture of each flower. This was Penn’s consistent methodology, which lent itself naturally to presenting something as ordinary and familiar as a flower as an extraordinary, sculptural objet d’art.
Penn, admittedly ignorant of horticulture and unable to appreciate the rarity of his impressive bounty, was pleased to be able to 'react with simple pleasure just to form and color, without being diverted by considerations of rarity or tied to the convention that a flower must be photographed at its moment of unblemished, nubile perfection,' as he later confessed. This impulse to capture blemishes within the aging flowers underscores Penn’s lifelong devotion to exploring beauty within imperfections. To connect intimately with an object, each portion of the whole—and inevitably, each imperfection—was to be explored and honored equally. This guiding principle is evident throughout Penn’s oeuvre, which began over two decades before the flowers series was commissioned.
While a student at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art, where he pursued his passion for painting, Penn was acquainted with the man who would become his first mentor, Alexey Brodovitch. Recognizing Penn’s astute eye and undeniable talent, Brodovitch, an editor at Harper’s Bazaar at the time, took Penn under his wing, and soon thereafter, to the magazine’s offices. Penn would later consider Brodovitch his ‘spiritual, aesthetic father’ for having encouraged Penn to ‘give up the preciousness’ in his work and learn to appreciate beauty within the details of form, texture, materiality, color, and seemingly mundane details (Exhibition catalogue, Irving Penn Centennial, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2017, p. 11). This concept guided Penn’s approach to his subjects and became the hallmark of his work, one that he continued to employ during the next stage of his professional career, at Vogue.
Penn, admittedly ignorant of horticulture and unable to appreciate the rarity of his impressive bounty, was pleased to be able to 'react with simple pleasure just to form and color, without being diverted by considerations of rarity or tied to the convention that a flower must be photographed at its moment of unblemished, nubile perfection,' as he later confessed. This impulse to capture blemishes within the aging flowers underscores Penn’s lifelong devotion to exploring beauty within imperfections. To connect intimately with an object, each portion of the whole—and inevitably, each imperfection—was to be explored and honored equally. This guiding principle is evident throughout Penn’s oeuvre, which began over two decades before the flowers series was commissioned.
While a student at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art, where he pursued his passion for painting, Penn was acquainted with the man who would become his first mentor, Alexey Brodovitch. Recognizing Penn’s astute eye and undeniable talent, Brodovitch, an editor at Harper’s Bazaar at the time, took Penn under his wing, and soon thereafter, to the magazine’s offices. Penn would later consider Brodovitch his ‘spiritual, aesthetic father’ for having encouraged Penn to ‘give up the preciousness’ in his work and learn to appreciate beauty within the details of form, texture, materiality, color, and seemingly mundane details (Exhibition catalogue, Irving Penn Centennial, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2017, p. 11). This concept guided Penn’s approach to his subjects and became the hallmark of his work, one that he continued to employ during the next stage of his professional career, at Vogue.