Hasta La Ideas

As followers of the UnBeige Twitter feed were among the first in the world to learn, photographer Irving Penn died yesterday at the age of 92. Whether capturing the artful drape of a Balenciaga gown, Saul Steinberg with a bag over his head (at left), an underwater welder ill at ease on land, or a piece of chewed gum on the sidewalk, Penn imparted his subjects with a distinctive, graphic grace that convinced the viewer to take a longer look. Among the lessons to glean from his New York Times obituary? Don’t be afraid to do it yourself! Writer Andy Grundberg explains:

Mr. Penn’s first assignment [as assistant to Vogue art director Alexander Liberman] was to supervise the design of Vogue‘s covers. Sketching several possible photographic scenes, he was unable to interest the staff photographers in taking them, so he took to the photo studio himself, at Liberman’s suggestion. The first result was a color still-life photograph of a glove, a pocketbook and other accessories, published as the cover of Vogue on Oct. 1, 1943. Mr. Penn’s photographs appeared on more than 150 Vogue covers over the next 50 years.

Another take-home message? The power of hugs!

In World War II Mr. Penn drove an ambulance in Italy. Arriving in Rome in 1944, he spied the artist Giorgio de Chirico carrying a shopping bag of vegetables home from the market. “I rushed up and embraced him,” Mr. Penn recalled in Passage. “To me he was the heroic de Chirico; to him I was a total stranger, probably demented. Still, he was moved and said, ‘Come home and have lunch with us.’ For two days he showed me his Rome.” During those two days Mr. Penn made his first black-and-white portraits, beginning what would become a celebrated archive of the leading artists, writers, and performers of the second half of the 20th century.

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Early last year, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles acquired an important collection of Irving Penn portraits taken in Paris, London, and New York in the early 1950s. Known as “The Small Trades,” the series of photos captures tradespeople ranging from firefighters and deep sea divers to a Parisian busboy and a pair of ballroom dancing instructors whose steely determination suggests they would have little patience for Dancing with the Stars. Now the Getty has put the portraits—all 252 of them—to work in a sizable exhibition that runs through January 10 at the Getty Center. The show explores Penn’s process, tracing his technique from the original silver prints made in 1950 and 1951 to the more tonally lush products of platinum/palladium printing, and highlights his way with composition as well as a distinct fascination with the crisply uniformed staff of Parisian restaurants. So where do milkmen and road sweepers meet models and trend-setting Vogue fashion spreads? Find out on Tuesday evening at the Getty Center, when Colin Westerbeck, director of the California Museum of Photography, will speak about Penn’s studies of working-class people in the context of his full career.

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A few years ago, cultural critics were the canaries in the print journalism coal mine. Today, photojournalists are the poster children for the tangible media crisis. The latest evidence of their plight? The bankruptcy of Gamma, the storied French photo agency that is now owned by Eyedea. A Paris court has given the parent company six months to reorganize, which will likely mean layoffs and fortifying the parent company’s profitable units, such as the one that produces celebrity photos. “The problem is that news photography is finished,” Eyedea spokesperson Olivia Riant told The New York Times. “Gamma wants to go back to magazines and newsmagazines. We will stop covering daily news events to more deeply cover issues.” [Cue the ghost of Robert Capa sobbing quietly into his Spanish Civil War portfolio.] Beyond the dearth of venues for photojournalism lurk that cantankerous old couple: supply and demand. Take it from Jonathan Klein, CEO of Getty Images, where 70 percent of revenue is derived from stock photography.

“Photojournalism means the photographers can tell the story themselves in pictures, and there were places where they could publish those photos,” Mr. Klein said. “In the print world, many, if not most, of those places have since disappeared.”

Still, he said, there are reasons to be optimistic, because “thanks to the Web, there are now billions of pages for photographers to show their work,” he added. That has led to more photos being used, he said, but at lower prices.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Even an imploring Paul Simon chorus couldn’t save it. Kodak is taking Kodachrome away. The company has announced that it will retire the world’s first commercially successful color film, which today accounts for “a fraction of one percent of Kodak’s total sales of still-picture films,” according to a press release. While Kodak remains the global leader in the dwindling film business, the company now derives about 70% of its revenues from commercial and consumer digital businesses.

You—or your parents, or their storage unit—probably have albums full of Kodachrome memories, but Kodak has arranged its own online slide show of “great Kodachrome moments” (best viewed with the aforementioned anthem playing, preferably on a record player). They include Steve McCurry‘s famed Afghan girl photo that ran on the cover of a 1985 issue of National Geographic. McCurry will shoot one of the last rolls of Kodachrome, and his photos will be donated to the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, New York. Meanwhile, there’s still time to stockpile Kodachrome, but you better act fast. Kodak estimates that current supplies will run out by early this fall at the current sales pace.

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(Photo: Helen Levitt, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Today the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened its renovated American Wing (First Lady Michelle Obama performed the ribbon-cutting honors) and tomorrow throws open the doors to its Francis Bacon retrospective, but should when you make it to the Met this summer, don’t miss the selection of Helen Levitt photographs that have just gone on view in the the museum’s Robert Wood Johnson, Jr. Gallery. The Met recently established an endowment fund and promised gift of artwork in memory of Levitt, the great American street photographer who died on March 29 at the age of 95. The fund, created through a planned gift of the artist’s sister-in-law, will support the Met’s acquisition of photographs by Levitt and other mid-20th-century American photographers working in her tradition. Twelve of Levitt’s photographs have also been promised as a gift to the museum, which already has 43 in its collection (including “New York,” the 1938 photo shown above).

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