{ "data": { "id": 160299, "accession_number": "1998.177", "share_license_status": "Copyrighted", "tombstone": "Duchess of Windsor, New York, May 27, 1948, May 27, 1948. Irving Penn (American, 1917\u20132009). Gelatin silver print; image: 24.3 x 19.6 cm (9 9/16 x 7 11/16 in.); paper: 25.4 x 20.3 cm (10 x 8 in.); matted: 50.8 x 40.6 cm (20 x 16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund, 1998.177. \u00a9 Cond\u00e9 Nast Publications ", "current_location": null, "title": "Duchess of Windsor, New York, May 27, 1948", "creation_date": "May 27, 1948", "creation_date_earliest": 1948, "creation_date_latest": 1948, "artists_tags": [ "Jewish artists", "male" ], "culture": [ "America" ], "technique": "gelatin silver print", "support_materials": [], "department": "Photography", "collection": "PH - American 1900-1950", "type": "Photograph", "measurements": "Image: 24.3 x 19.6 cm (9 9/16 x 7 11/16 in.); Paper: 25.4 x 20.3 cm (10 x 8 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 40.6 cm (20 x 16 in.)", "dimensions": { "image": { "height": 0.243, "height_inch": 9, "height_inch_fraction": 0.5625, "width": 0.196, "width_inch": 7, "width_inch_fraction": 0.6875 }, "paper": { "height": 0.254, "height_inch": 10, "height_inch_fraction": 0.0, "width": 0.203, "width_inch": 8, "width_inch_fraction": 0.0 }, "matted": { "height": 0.508, "height_inch": 20, "height_inch_fraction": 0.0, "width": 0.406, "width_inch": 16, "width_inch_fraction": 0.0 } }, "state_of_the_work": null, "edition_of_the_work": "40", "copyright": "\u00a9 Cond\u00e9 Nast Publications ", "inscriptions": [ { "inscription": "written in pencil on verso: \"Duchess of Windsor/ New York May 27, 1948/ Irving Penn (signed); (early print) I.P.\"", "inscription_translation": null, "inscription_remark": null, "sortorder": null } ], "exhibitions": { "current": [ { "id": 194095, "title": "Icons of American Photography: A Century of Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art", "description": "Icons of American Photography: A Century of Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 24-September 16, 2007); Frick Art and Historical Center, Pittsburgh, PA (October 3, 2009-January 3, 2010).", "opening_date": "2007-06-24T00:00:00" } ], "legacy": [ { "description": "Washington, DC, National Museum of American Art and the National Portrait Gallery, March 30 - Aug. 19, 1990: \"Irving Penn: Master Images: The Collections of the National Museum of American Art and the National Portrait Gallery,\" exhibition catalogue no. 78.", "opening_date": "1990-03-30T00:00:00" }, { "description": "Art Institute of Chicago, Nov. 22, 1997 - Feb. 1, 1998: \"Irving Penn: A Career in Photography,\" exhibition catalogue", "opening_date": "1997-11-22T00:00:00" }, { "description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art (6/24/07 - 9/16/07) and Frick Art and Historical Center, Pittburgh, PA (10/3/2009 - 1/3/2010); \"Icons of American Photography: A Century of Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art\", no exhibition catalogue.", "opening_date": "2007-06-24T00:00:00" } ] }, "provenance": [], "find_spot": null, "related_works": [], "former_accession_numbers": [], "did_you_know": null, "early_education_description": null, "artlens_description": null, "description": "Irving Penn's portraits from the late 1940s are the foundation of his reputation as one of the major portraitists of the post-World War II era. His distinctive approach involves the elimination of all unnecessary distractions in order to emphasize the sitter alone by concentrating on the face, gesture, posture, and attire. In the \"corner portraits,\" commissioned by Vogue in 1948, Penn placed his subjects in the center of a narrow triangular space he created in his studio. To a great degree, the subjects posed themselves. The portraits reflect his sitters' responses to the psychological and physical consequences of being confined. In this remarkable image the Duchess of Windsor appears to be stepping out of the pages of Vogue. She stands confidently, eyes focused on the camera, her posture and facial expression powerfully conveying a sense of dignified grandeur.", "external_resources": { "wikidata": [ "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79981271" ], "internet_archive": [] }, "citations": [ { "citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, \u201cNew Cleveland Indian Arrives at the CMA,\u201d November 27, 1998, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.", "page_number": null, "url": "https://archive.org/details/cmapr4223" } ], "url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1998.177", "images": {}, "alternate_images": [], "creditline": "Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund", "image_credit": null, "sketchfab_id": null, "sketchfab_url": null, "gallery_donor_text": null, "athena_id": 160299, "creators": [ { "id": 17957, "description": "Irving Penn (American, 1917\u20132009)", "extent": null, "qualifier": null, "role": "artist", "biography": "Irving Penn American, 1917- Irving Penn (born in Plainfield, New Jersey) is one of this country's best known fashion and advertising photographers. He studied at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art, attending design classes taught by Alexey Brodovitch, the influential art director for Harper's Bazaar. After graduating in 1938, Penn worked as a graphic artist and designer in New York, then spent a year painting in Mexico. In 1943 he returned to New York and began designing photographic covers for Vogue. Soon he was photographing the covers himself, as well as producing fashion and still-life images for the magazine. He began making portraits for Vogue in 1946 and over the years photographed numerous celebrities. It was his revolutionary series of photographs of the 1950 Paris collections for Vogue, however, that brought Penn his first great success. Avoiding the usual elaborate settings, he placed his models instead in a bare studio against a plain backdrop, focusing great care on pose and gesture. About this time Penn also began a major personal project photographing nudes and experimenting with photographic printmaking. Since the early 1950s Penn has produced advertising photographs for American and international clients in addition to his Vogue assignments and the yearly photographic essays he began in 1961 for Look magazine (1961-67). Among his most recent personal photographs are platinum prints of animal skulls. Penn's work has been featured in one-person exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1961, 1975, 1984), the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (1963), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1977), and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1991), as well as in many group shows. He lives in New York. M.M.", "name_in_original_language": null, "birth_year": "1917", "death_year": "2009", "use_in_caption": true, "include_extent": false, "weight": 1 } ], "legal_status": "accessioned", "accession_date": "1998-11-23T00:00:00", "sortable_date": 1948, "date_added_to_oa": null, "date_text": "May 27, 1948", "collapse_artists": false, "on_loan": false, "recently_acquired": false, "record_type": "object", "conservation_statement": null, "has_conservation_images": false, "cover_accession_number": null, "is_nazi_era_provenance": false, "impression": null, "alternate_titles": [], "is_highlight": false, "updated_at": "2026-05-01 06:52:10.220000" } }