WARMLY INSCRIBED BY WILLIAM PENN

(PENN, Irving) SZARKOWSKI, John. Irving Penn. New York: Museum of Modern Art, (1984). Large square quarto, original ivory linen, original photographic dust jacket. $1400.

First edition of Penn’s “first comprehensive” retrospective, inscribed by him in the year of publication on the half title, "For dear dear Mary, with love, P," followed by Penn’s characteristic circled flourish, “Irving Penn, New York, 1984,” featuring 156 duotone and color plates.

"Irving Penn reinvented the classic daylight studio portrait… heightening its potential as a revealing performance" (Roth, 158). Edited by acclaimed MoMA curator John Szarkowski, this splendid retrospective honors the famed photographer who "has in his time staged a one-man revolution in fashion photography." The plates (21 in color) of Penn's portraits, fashion photography and still-lives encompass Penn's distinctive artistry of "isolating subjects from their context and raising them to one kind of graphic perfection or another" (New York Times). With introductory essay by Szarkowski. See Open Book, 300. Reportedly inscribed by Penn to his close friend and assistant, artist Mary Faulconer, who had studied with Alexey Brodovitch and was an Art Director at Harper's Bazaar and Mademoiselle.

A fine inscribed copy.