Irving Penn, 'Grand Master of American Fashion Photography'

“Photography is a mass medium available to anyone. A few geniuses, like Irving Penn, redeem it,” said Colin Westerbeck, a former photography curator at the Art Institute of Chicago. He spoke to The Times in 2003 for the obituary on Penn that Mary Rourke, who often covered fashion and style for the paper, wrote in advance of his death.

He was “a grand master of American fashion photography,” Rourke wrote, and “one of the first commercial photographers to cross the chasm that separated commercial art and photography.” Some of his most famous photographs — the ad campaign for Clinique that he had worked on since 1968 — were also some of his most anonymous.

Whatever he photographed, he isolated his subject, whether it was a cigarette butt or veiled Moroccan women, and employed an elaborate printing process. Many of his photos became famous and are exhibited in museums; the exhibit in Los Angeles at the J. Paul Getty Museum, “Irving Penn: Small Trades,” runs through Jan. 10.

At Vogue magazine, his career stretched from October 1943 to August 1999, beginning and ending with still-lifes. The first was an austere composition of fashion accessories that made the cover; the last was of blackening banana slices, to illustrate the subtler signs of aging.

To those who worked with the reclusive photographer, he was simply “Penn,” according to a Vogue blog.

Penn, 92, died Oct. 7 in his New York City apartment.

-- Valerie J. Nelson

Left photo: One of Irving Penn's most famous photos for Vogue magazine appeared on the cover in 1950. Credit: Irving Penn/Conde Nast Archive

Right photo: Irving Penn in the 1960s. Credit: Bert Stern/Irving Penn Studio Inc.

Photographer Irving Penn's work is on view in L.A.

Photographer Irving Penn, who died Wednesday in New York City, is featured in a current exhibit at the Getty Museum called "Small Trades."

Museum director Michael Brand issued this statement after the news of Penn's death broke:

"Irving Penn was one of the most influential photographers of our time.

"His iconic images helped define 20th-century photography.

"The news of his death today greatly saddens all of us at the Getty who worked with him in the past, and more recently over the course of putting together the 'Small Trades' exhibition and publication.

"We offer our condolences to his family, and to colleagues at his studio whom we have come to know over the course of the past year.

"Mr. Penn’s death transforms our current exhibition of his work into a poignant testimony of his contribution to the field of photography — one that we are privileged and honored to share with our visitors."

—Claire Noland

Photo: Irving Penn in the 1960s.

Credit: Bert Stern / Irving Penn Studio Inc.

Joanne Jordan and 'Profits and Lassies'

For the Sept. 24 obituary on Joanne Jordan, a top spokesmodel of the 1950s, we came across a grainy photo of six of the industry's best-paid female product pitchers that ran in December 1956 in TV Guide. The headline said "Profits and Lassies" (ouch!), but the caption positively screams Eisenhower era:

With some of America’s top corporations, the story is no longer one of profits and losses, but profits and lassies. And while they’re doing man-size sales jobs in pulling profits into corporate tills, salesgirls like these are looking for purses to hold queen-size salaries: (l. to r.) Joanne Jordan (Hazel Bishop) earns $50,000 a year; Julia Meade (Lincoln, Richard Hudnut), $100,000; Mary Costa (Chrysler), $50,000; Barbara Britton (Revlon), $50,000; Betty Furness (Westinghouse), $100,000; Bess Myerson (Colgate-Palmolive, Frigidaire), $150,000.”

-- Valerie J. Nelson

Photo: Joanne Jordan does a live Star-Kist tuna commercial on KTLA-TV Channel 5, where she broke into TV about 1950.