Aspiring Artist
Irving Penn: Platinum Prints , currently at the National Gallery of Art in Washington until October 2, 2005, is a surprisingly impoverished show despite its literal use of precious metals. Penn is best known for his work for fashion magazines such as Vogue , some of which is included here, but this exhibition makes it clear he wasn’t satisfied solely with a reputation in the trades; having spent many a season in commerce, he was determined to be recognized as an artist as well. Despite these loftier ambitions, however, Penn’s work fails to excite the imagination, and, surprisingly, neither does his technique, laboriously executed and dutifully recorded in some of his notebooks that accompany the work. Walking around this exhibition one finds numerous clues as to the identities of those artists, not just photographers, who inspired Penn. Diane Arbus and August Sander clearly made an impression as did Nadar, Cecil Beaton and Bill Brandt; but so, too, did nearly the entir...