Appreciation: The Photos of Irving Penn

Pablo Picasso, Cannes, France, 1957
From the very start of his career, Penn put aside the overstuffed manner of much pre-war fashion photography and developed in its stead a stark, simplified graphic style that perfectly suited a new era. In the late fifties he started to pose his subjects in close-up against a bare grey background, finding insights of character in many of mid-century's great figures, like Marlene Dietrich, Joe Louis, and Pablo Picasso.

• Irving Penn, An Appreciation