Irving Penn - Photographs London Wednesday, May 17, 2017 | Phillips

Create your first list.

Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.

  • Provenance

    Hamiltons Gallery, London

    Christie's, New York, Photographs from the Collection of Gert Elfering, 10 April 2008, lot 125

  • Literature

    P. Weiss, 'The Return of the Curve,' Vogue US, July 1999, p. 193, variant crop
    S. Meisen, Gisele, Cologne: Taschen, 2015, cover, variant crop

  • Catalogue Essay

    In the late-1990s, Gisele Bündchen was just beginning her career, having moved to London two years earlier. Penn shot the Brazilian model for the Vogue article ‘The Return of the Curve’ by Philip Weiss, who argued that fashion, movies, and pop culture were once more embracing curvy women. Weiss celebrates Gisele as the end of the ‘waif’ era and Penn artfully uses light and shadow to accentuate the very curves that the article praises.

  • Artist Biography

    Irving Penn

    American • 1917 - 2009

    Arresting portraits, exquisite flowers, luscious food and glamorous models populate Irving Penn's meticulously rendered, masterful prints. Penn employed the elegant simplicity of a gray or white backdrop to pose his subjects, be it a model in the latest Parisian fashion, a famous subject or veiled women in Morocco.

    Irving Penn's distinct aesthetic transformed twentieth-century elegance and style, with each brilliant composition beautifully articulating his subjects. Working across several photographic mediums, Penn was a master printmaker. Regardless of the subject, each and every piece is rendered with supreme beauty. 

    View More Works

Property from a Private European Collection

30

Gisele, New York

1 April 1999
Selenium toned gelatin silver print.
39 x 39.1 cm (15 3/8 x 15 3/8 in.)
Signed, initialled, titled, dated in pencil, Condé Nast copyright credit reproduction limitation and edition stamps on the verso. One from an edition of 20.

Estimate
£70,000 - 90,000 

Sold for £106,250

Contact Specialist
Genevieve Janvrin
Co-Head of Photographs, Europe
+44 20 7901 7996

Yuka Yamaji
Co-Head of Photographs, Europe
+44 20 7318 4098

Photographs

London Auction 18 May 2017