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Lot Essay
'Sometime in 1948 I began photographing portraits in a small corner space made of two studio flats pushed together, the floor covered with a piece of old carpeting. A very rich series of pictures resulted.
This confinement, surprisingly, seemed to comfort people, soothing them. The walls were a surface to lean on or push against. For me the picture possibilities were interesting: limiting the subjects' movement seemed to relieve me of part of the problem of holding on to them.'
Irving Penn (Passage, Jonathan Cape, 1991, p. 50)
'A small, charming, finicky man, he came to be photographed wearing brand-new shoes, assumed this listening attitude when he was asked to imagine that there was a mouse across the room.'
Irving Penn (Moments Preserved, p. 139)
This confinement, surprisingly, seemed to comfort people, soothing them. The walls were a surface to lean on or push against. For me the picture possibilities were interesting: limiting the subjects' movement seemed to relieve me of part of the problem of holding on to them.'
Irving Penn (Passage, Jonathan Cape, 1991, p. 50)
'A small, charming, finicky man, he came to be photographed wearing brand-new shoes, assumed this listening attitude when he was asked to imagine that there was a mouse across the room.'
Irving Penn (Moments Preserved, p. 139)