Irving Penn: L'Essence du portrait

Thaddaeus Ropac Paris Marais presents Irving Penn: L’Essence du portrait, an exhibition devoted to the photographer’s mastery of portraiture, from his early, existential portrait of Marcel Duchamp to an exultant Elizabeth Peyton photographed in the last decade of his life. Penn played a decisive role in raising photography to the status of fine art, and his portraits rival painting in both technical command and emotional weight. The exhibition coincides with two other major Penn exhibitions in Paris: PENN & FASHION at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie and The World According to Penn at the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection. As the exhibition shows, much of the twentieth-century avant-garde looked straight into Penn’s lens. In one overhead shot, John Cage folds himself over a grand piano as if listening for the instrument’s heartbeat; in a close-up, a 79-year-old Willem de Kooning gazes out of the frame, utterly lost in thought. One of Penn’s most striking photographs captures Pablo Picasso with extraordinary psychological acuity. At first the painter pretended not to be at home in Cannes, and granted Penn just ten minutes after the photographer’s assistant had climbed the locked gate of his villa, La Californie. Picasso appeared in a grey sweatshirt before putting on a Spanish cape and hat. Undeterred by the costume, Penn moved closer and closer until he had captured Picasso’s starkly lit face, revealing a single, wide-open eye – carving the essence of the artist out of his playful evasions.