2col (requested email 4-20 sandra) dss wanted 3 cuts, their agreement with penn says 1 photo per publication

2col

Irving Penn (b 1917), “Pablo Picasso (A), Cannes, France, 1957,” gelatin silver print from an edition of 30, print made in 2000, 26¾ by 26¾ inches, The Pierpont Morgan Library; purchased as the gift of Richard L. Menschel, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, and The Margaret T. Morris Foundation; copyright 1960 by Irving Penn.

MUST RUN 5-11

MORGAN LIBRARY & MUSEUM ACQUIRES IRVING PENN PHOTOGRAPHS w/3 cuts

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NEW YORK CITY — The Morgan Library & Museum announced recently that it is acquiring a collection of 67 portraits of artists by famed photographer Irving Penn.

Thirty-five of the works are a gift of Penn, and the remaining 32 were purchased through income from endowed funds. The acquisition was made possible through the efforts of Morgan director Charles E. Pierce, Jr; Morgan trustee and vice president, Richard L. Menschel; and Peter MacGill, president of Pace/MacGill Gallery, who has represented Penn for many years.

The collection includes portraits of painters and sculptors as well as literary and musical artists from World War II to the present and constitutes fine photographic records of some of the greatest creative minds of the period. Included among the visual artists are Pablo Picasso, Georgia O’Keeffe, Salvador Dali, Giorgio De Chirico, and Albert Giacometti. Among the authors represented are Edward Albee, T.S. Eliot, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. Musical figures such as Aaron Copland and Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II are also included. The photographs span from 1944 to 2006.

“These remarkable works vividly capture the individual behind the art as only Mr Penn can.” said Charles E. Pierce, Jr, director of The Morgan Library & Museum. “The Morgan is deeply grateful to him for his gift and to Morgan trustee Richard Menschel, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and The Margaret T. Morris Foundation for their extraordinary generosity.”

Pierce said the works are particularly apt for the Morgan as they depict so many of the artists represented in the institution’s Twentieth Century collections. These holdings have recently been greatly enhanced by the acquisition of the Carter Burden Collection of American Literature, the archives of The Paris Review and The Pierre Matisse Gallery Archives.

“As we look to the future,” Pierce said, “I would hope that we might add other examples of modern photography if the opportunities arise and the work is of the quality the Morgan is noted for throughout all of its collections.”

Penn was born in Plainfield, N.J., in 1917 and studied design at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art. After moving to New York, Mr Penn worked under Vogue magazine art director, Alexander Liberman, who encouraged Penn to take his first color photography — a still life — which ultimately became the October 1, 1943, cover of Vogue.

Penn’s close collaboration with Vogue continues to the present day, and he is a contributor to other magazines and commercial clients in America and abroad. He has published 11 books, and has had exhibitions at a number of major museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and the National Gallery of Art. His photographs are included in the permanent collections of these institutions.

“Irving Penn has long admired The Morgan Library & Museum, and he finds it a fitting place to give these photographic portraits of some of the iconic artists of the Twentieth Century,” said Peter MacGill, of Pace/MacGill Gallery. “It has been especially gratifying to work with Mr Penn and the Morgan’s director and curators to select the photographs that would best suit the institution.”

“It is truly inspiring to see Mr Penn’s sensibility at work in these photographs,” said Morgan trustee Richard Menschel, in discussing the gift. “It is especially pleasing to me that we have been able to make this addition to the Morgan where, so many original works by these artists are part of the permanent collection.”

Pierce said the Morgan is planning an exhibition of the Penn photographs in early 2008.

The Morgan Library & Museum is at 225 Madison Avenue, at 36th Street. For information, 212-685-0008 or www.themorgan.org.