IRVING PENN (1917 2009) Pablo Picasso Cannes

Sale 2443 - Lot 96

Unsold

Estimate: $ 60,000 - $ 90,000

IRVING PENN (1917-2009)
Pablo Picasso, Cannes. Oversized silver print, the image measuring 22 3/4x22 1/2 inches (57.8x57.2 cm.), the mount approximately 27 1/2x28 1/2 inches (69.9x72.4 cm.), with Penn's signature and date, in ink, his hand stamp, and a typed label with his credit and copyright information, on mount verso. 1957; printed circa 1962

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Additional Details

A remarkable oversized print gifted by Penn, in 1962, to his friend and colleague Steve Frankfurt, who was president of Young & Rubicam; gifted by Frankfurt, that same year, to his brother, Michael.

John Szarkowski, who was director of photographs at the Museum of Modern Art from 1962-1991, wrote, "Penn has never changed his first idea of portraiture: he has merely simplified what at first seemed almost irreducibly simple, so that by the late 50s even the anonymous studios disappeared and there remained no environment at all, only a wordless conversation between the photographer and the sitter."

The negative date is 1957, the image was copyrighted 1960, and the print date is circa 1962.

Penn, Moments Preserved (Simon & Schuster), p. 39; Penn, Passage: A Work Record (Jonathan Cape), p. 125; Greenough, Irving Penn: Platinum Prints (National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.), p. vi & pl. 37.