Irving Penn: Small Trades, Hamiltons Gallery/ Portraits, NPG | reviews, news & interviews
Irving Penn: Small Trades, Hamiltons Gallery/ Portraits, NPG
Irving Penn: Small Trades, Hamiltons Gallery/ Portraits, NPG
Penn photographed tradesman with as much care as he portrayed celebrities
Thursday, 11 March 2010
Irving Penn's Le Chevrier 'holds his box as proudly as an artist with his paints'The Irving Penn Foundation
This week I discovered Irving Penn’s little-known portraits of anonymous street traders, taken in Paris, London and New York between 1950 and 1951. Previously unseen in the UK, they are now appearing at Hamiltons’ Mayfair gallery: 33 examples from a series of almost 252 full-length portraits collectively titled Small Trades. While they lack the instant glamour of the celebrity Portraits currently showing at the National Portrait Gallery, these sensitive depictions of skilled street traders – including a Parisian cheese-seller, a London house painter, a New York flower delivery man - are refreshingly different from the refined quality of the celebrity prints.
This week I discovered Irving Penn’s little-known portraits of anonymous street traders, taken in Paris, London and New York between 1950 and 1951. Previously unseen in the UK, they are now appearing at Hamiltons’ Mayfair gallery: 33 examples from a series of almost 252 full-length portraits collectively titled Small Trades. While they lack the instant glamour of the celebrity Portraits currently showing at the National Portrait Gallery, these sensitive depictions of skilled street traders – including a Parisian cheese-seller, a London house painter, a New York flower delivery man - are refreshingly different from the refined quality of the celebrity prints.
They carried with them the smells from the streets where they worked amongst traffic, trains, machinery and hordes of people
Share this article
more Visual arts
Jane Harris: Ellipse, Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA, Bordeaux review - ovals to the fore
Persistence and conviction in the works of the late English painter
Sargent and Fashion, Tate Britain review - portraiture as a performance
London’s elite posing dressed up to the nines
Zineb Sedira: Dreams Have No Titles, Whitechapel Gallery review - a disorientating mix of fact and fiction
An exhibition that begs the question 'What and where is home?'
Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind, Tate Modern review - a fitting celebration of the early years
Acknowledgement as a major avant garde artist comes at 90
Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, Barbican review - the fabric of dissent
An ambitious exploration of a neglected medium
When Forms Come Alive, Hayward Gallery review - how to reduce good art to family fun
Seriously good sculptures presented as little more than playthings or jokes
Entangled Pasts 1768-now, Royal Academy review - an institution exploring its racist past
After a long, slow journey from invisibility to agency, black people finally get a look in
Barbara Kruger, Serpentine Gallery review - clever, funny and chilling installations
Exploring the lies, deceptions and hyperbole used to cajole, bully and manipulate us
Richard Dorment: Warhol After Warhol review - beyond criticism
A venerable art critic reflects on the darkest hearts of our aesthetic market
Dineo Seshee Raisibe Bopape: (ka) pheko ye / the dream to come, Kiasma, Helsinki review - psychic archaeology
The South African artist evokes the Finnish landscape in a multisensory installation
Paul Cocksedge: Coalescence, Old Royal Naval College review - all that glitters
An installation explores the origins of a Baroque masterpiece
Issy Wood, Study for No, Lafayette Anticipations, Paris review - too close for comfort?
One of Britain's most captivating young artists makes a big splash in Paris
Add comment