Product Description

Photographer Irving Penn (b. 1917) is renowned for his innovative contributions to portrait, still life, and fashion photography, and a career that has spanned more than six decades at Vogue magazine. In 1950, Vogue assigned Penn to photograph workers in Paris, and thus his monumental work The Small Trades began. Created in 1950 and 1951 in Paris, London, and New York, The Small Trades consists of portraits of skilled trades people dressed in their work clothes and carrying the tools of their respective trades. Capturing the humble coal heaver and the crisply dressed waiter with equal directness, Penn's arresting portraits also underscore fascinating cultural differences.
The Small Trades was Penn's most extensive body of work, and he returned to it over many decades, producing ever more exacting prints. Two hundred and six unique images from the series are flawlessly reproduced in this book. In addition, the introductory essay describes the history and context of The Small Trades series and its importance to Penn's career and the history of photography. An interview with Edmonde Charles-Roux, the chief editor for French Vogue from 1952 to 1966, who assisted him on the assignment in Paris, provides fascinating insights of the Paris sittings. An exhibition of the series will be on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum from September 9, 2009, through January 10, 2010.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37725 in Books
• Published on: 2009-10-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

About the Author

Virginia A. Heckert and Anne Lacoste are associate curator and assistant curator, respectively, in the Department of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Customer Reviews

In Praise of the Common Man
Irving Penn is an established giant in the field of photography having supplied the editors of Vogue Magazine with his elegant fashion photography for over fifty years. While many would question such a famous glamour photographer's interest in the beauty of the common man, in this excellent volume, a catalogue from the current J. Paul Getty Museum exhibition curated by Virginia A. Heckert and Anne Lacoste, evidence is presented and takes a memory trip back to the years 1950 and 1951 when Penn focused his considerable talent on photographing the people who do the daily jobs considered less than glamorous in the cities of New York, London and Paris.

Using the studio setting in much the way his fashion images were created, Penn uses for each of these portraits a textured wall that captures an array of light and shadow in subtle ways and in front of this backdrop he invited bakers, cleaners, maids, and craftsmen of all trades to pose, face forward, alone and in pairs, and gives these simple 'models' the same treatment of dramatic light and shadow eloquence that had made him famous. The results are an embarrassment of riches of capturing the most genteel vision of 'Small Trades' available in one collection. This is a book of beautiful art as well as an appreciation of the people who make our lives work smoothly. A fine reminder of Irving Penn's enormous talent. Grady Harp, November 09

Irving Penn - Small Trades
I own virtually every Penn book published and I must say that this book has the finest reproductions yet of this group.

One of my most valued books....

...even though I only received it this afternoon. Penn extracts the small-trade practitioners from their environment into a stark but not sterile studio with no reference to their lives except uniforms and tools of their trade. The photos are full length, very contrasty (I am not sure it was a stylistic or technical reason - I found them unpleasantly high in contrast). The lighting is a classic natural light studio (I wish I had access to one here in the Boston area). Penn depicts the subjects in a dignified, respectful way and you feel a close relationship between the photographer and subject; closer than Avedon's American West images or August Sander's even more emotionless characters (*), for instance. Penn also selected an ideal camera angle, which produces subtly flattering images. The subjects, though rarely smiling, have a warm expression. They obviously feel welcome to the photo session.

Several years ago I saw a photograph of a young couple (appeared to be cooks because the man holds a cooking pan in his hand) in a setting very similar to Penn's. It was on the wall in our favorite pasta shop. The shop owner could not tell me where the photo came from nor who took it. The image stayed with me for years and now I think it may be one of Irvin Penn's small trade people series (though not in the book).

You must own this collection if you like long lasting photographs of people.

(*) from a very different period and culture.