IRVING PENN — Photographs in Platinum Metals: Images 1947–1975, Marlborough Fine Art, London, 1981

Published by Marlborough Fine Art, London, for the exhibition Irving Penn: Photographs in Platinum Metals, Images 1947–1975, held 20 May–20 June 1981. Text in English. ISBN 0-89797-004-7.

The catalogue brings together portraits, fashion photographs, nudes and found objects reprinted through Penn's sustained experiments with platinum and palladium. Penn began developing his platinum-palladium process during the 1960s, eventually constructing a dedicated laboratory on Long Island. The labour-intensive method involved brushing light-sensitive platinum and palladium salts directly onto paper before exposing the sheet in contact with a full-size negative. The resulting prints offered an unusually broad tonal range, deep surface detail and a material presence distinct from conventional photographic reproduction.

The selection crosses categories that Penn's commercial career had usually kept separate. A portrait of Cecil Beaton sits alongside a cropped nude, a Chanel suit, ceremonial dress and a deteriorated playing card recovered from the street. Fashion, body, personality and discarded matter receive the same controlled lighting and frontal attention. The exhibition moved easily between assignments made for magazines and images Penn had reclaimed as autonomous photographic works.

This is the distinct 1981 London edition, issued for Marlborough Fine Art and reduced to sixteen pages. It should not be confused with the related thirty-two-page Marlborough Gallery catalogue published in New York for the original 1977 exhibition. A short publication documenting the point at which Penn's magazine images and studio discipline were being repositioned through the physical authority of the handmade photographic print.

21 × 29 cm. 16 pages. Staple-bound exhibition catalogue in photographic wrappers; black-and-white reproductions; text in English. ISBN 0-89797-004-7. Published for Irving Penn: Photographs in Platinum Metals, Images 1947–1975, Marlborough Fine Art, London, 20 May–20 June 1981. Condition: good vintage condition. General age toning, rubbing and surface marks to the wrappers, with light creasing, edge wear and corner softening. Minor oxidation to the staples. Internally complete and generally clean.

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