Appreciation: The Photos of Irving Penn

Simone de Beauvoir, Paris, 1957
Writing about Penn's work for an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, the museum's then-Chief Curator of Photography, John Szarkowski wrote, "The grace, wit, and inventiveness of Penn's pattern-making, the lively and surprising elegance of his line, and his sensitivity to the character, the idiosyncratic humors, of light make Penn's pictures, even the slighter ones, a pleasure for our eyes."

• Irving Penn, An Appreciation