Drawings

Little known to followers of his publications and exhibitions, Irving Penn made drawings throughout his illustrious photography career. Many of the drawings collected here have not been shown before, and were done privately and intermittently. Following his studies under Alexey Brodovitch at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art, Penn continued drawing even after his photography career began. He drew both as a way of exploring ideas for photographs and for making complete drawings on their own. Penn made use of photographic transfer techniques as the base for complex painted images. Using pencil, ink, watercolor, and platinum, the drawings have remarkably rich surfaces and varieties of texture. Elegantly published on fine paper, printed in stochastic color and bound in linen, Drawings adds a further dimension to Irving Penn's distinguished body of work.