Appreciation: The Photos of Irving Penn

Irving Penn / Morgan Library & Museum

Marcel Duchamp, New York, 1948
Schooled in painting, Penn treated photography like both an art and a craft. He almost single-handedly revived a turn-of-the-century printing technique that relied more on platinum instead of the more conventional silver, a process that imbued greater permanence to the final product, but which required time-consuming preparation.

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