Nudes by Irving Penn in New York

Two new York exhibitions focus on a less well known branch of the work of this great photographer now in his mid-eighties: nudes. Better known to the general public for his portraits, still life and fashion work, Penn made his most important nudes over fifty years ago when he collaborated with artists’ models in a series of sittings which made a kind of "antidote" to the superficial world of stylish ladies who populated the magazines of the time.

A series of nudes which were highly unorthodox for the mid twentieth century: bodies which were folded, twisted and stretched, rounded hips and prominent bellies, all charged with a strong physical and sexual energy. These great nudes from 1949-1950 are on exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art whilst those he made in 1999 at the age of 82, a study of light, movement and time are on show at the Whitney Museum of American Art, organised in collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston which in 2000 held an exhibition entitled "Irving Penn, A Career in Photography".

Until 21 April 2002
Earthly Bodies:
Irving Penn's Nudes, 1949–50
Metropolitan, Museum of Art New York
http://www.metmuseum.org/home.asp

Until 12 May 2002
Dancer: 1999 Nudes by Irving Penn
Whitney Museum of American Art http://www.whitney.org/index.shtml

Nudes by Irving Penn in New York

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