(June, 16 1917, New Jersey, USA – October, 7, 2009, NYC, USA

Irving Penn was an American fashion and portrait photographer.

He studied design at the Philadelphia Museum’s School of Industrial Arts, from which he graduated in 1938. His teacher was photographer Alexey Brodovitch, who would later be his colleague in Harper’s Bazaar magazine. He then traveled to Mexico, where he devoted himself to painting for a year.

His drawings were published in Harper’s Bazaar. His first job at Vogue magazine was as an assistant to artist Alexander Liberman. In 1943, he started working as a cover designer.

After World War II, Penn gained fame for his elegant and glamorous female portraits published on Vogue. In his photographs, the subject used to pose against a simple white or gray background, using simplicity more effectively than other photographers of the time.

In 1950, he married model Lisa Fonssagrives, with whom he had a son named Tom. Three years later, he founded his photo studio. He was widowed in 1992, when Fonssagrives was 80 years old.

He received the Hasselblad Prize in 1985, and two years later he was awarded the Culture Prize of the German Photography Association.

He published several books, including The astronomers plan a voyage to Earth (1999) and Photographs of Dahomey (2004), in addition to exhibitions of his work.

He died on October 7, 2009 at his Manhattan home at age 92.