Irving Penn: Portraits
National Portrait Gallery, London
Images of the clever, talented and famous continue to attract attention. The look of a person may reveal aspects of their character that inform us about the work they do, which might seem unlikely, but can happen. Sure, we can see the appearance of the sitter – their age, state of youth, wrinkled old age or suspicious glower – but a sharp, tenacious photographer waits to capture the decisive moment when suddenly a look or gesture tells us more about the sitter than maybe they intended to show.
Such is the case with the portraits by the American photographer Irving Penn, who started taking images in the 1940s and continued until his death last year at the age
of 92. Commissioned by magazines such as Vogue, Penn photographed major cultural figures, whether from the stage, film, visual arts and literature – no scientists or politicians are included in this selection. In contrast to his contemporaries, who often set up complex or dramatic sets or pictured the subjects in their working environment, Penn used a minimum of props – he preferred an almost empty studio – and perhaps a single light source, honing
his style to focus on the sitter rather than the setting.
For one series, he made use of a length of old plain carpet to dress the set, draping it across the knees of his subjects or using it as a chair covering. In some cases, he stood the sitter in a carefully composed corner. The Duchess of Windsor is seen, pencil-thin, tightly squeezed between two walls – a position suggesting she was trapped, reflecting, perhaps, her ambiguous and uncertain status within society.
From full-length figures, Penn began photographing his subjects in close-up, rarely showing a sitter below the waist, suggesting an intimacy that is almost unnerving. Picasso is portrayed, his face half obscured by the shadow of a wide-brimmed hat and partly wrapped in the folds of an overcoat, as a mysterious, bandit-like figure leaving only one eye to stare out of the frame. Rudolf Nureyev, pictured at the height of his success in the 1960s, gazes coquettishly out, again half his face in dark shadow. By contrast, Al Pacino’s worried, anxious look is questioning and doubtful.
Some of Penn’s most revealing portraits are of women – partly because they were writers, rather than models, who expressed clear and often trenchant views on the world. Colette is shown in old age, surrounded by a mass of fine, curly hair and chiffon – an image that suggests the complexity of her character. Simone de Beauvoir is more austere, altogether more sensible, a no-nonsense image of a leading radical thinker. Even Marlene Dietrich is shown, her back to the camera and her face turned round as if caught unawares. While avoiding the clichéd sultry look with which she came to be identified, the portrait still evokes sensuality and possible seduction.
Working in black and white and taking great care over the prints he produced, Penn, the consummate professional, defined a new, more austere style of photography in which artifice is accepted as part of the convention. This enjoyable exhibition avoids gimmicks and tricks. All the images are much the same size and there are no dramatic enlargements or dazzling colours – only the skill of the photographer and the lure of the personality.
Emmanuel Cooper
