Did a teacher's pedagogical talent, artistic ability and a pupil or a combination thereof, but in 1937, Irwin Penn student drawings were flashed on the pages «Harper's Bazaar». After studying for some time he worked as art editor of the journal «Junior League», then moved to a similar position in a large department store «Saks Fifth Avenue». In 25 years he took an unexpected decision: quit his job and took more than their modest savings, went to Mexico City, where devoted himself to painting. How good was his work, we will never know - a year later, he destroyed all his creations, and returned to the United States.

Arriving in New York Irving Penn settled as an assistant to Alexander Liberman, who was then acting editor of Arts «Vogue». Lieberman - almost legendary figure in the world of glossy magazines, painter, sculptor, photographer, designer - has managed to teach many lessons to his young colleague. The first time Penn's primary responsibility was the selection of images for the cover of the magazine. He was just filled with a variety of designs, but a staff photographer «Vogue» in no hurry to implement his ideas into practice. I think the issue here is not so much incompetence of employees, but in demanding a new leader, but at the same time and in a rare "contradiction" of his character. He once told a journalist recalled Irvine Pennu that Lieberman spoke of him as a man with whom it is very difficult to work. "Yes I am, do not see" - smiled in response to a photographer - "I was very resistant to anything. If Lieberman told me: "Why do not you take pictures of these flowers?" I would have replied: "Yes, I do not care for flowers." He would have said: "Just take a photo of them, then I would have lost:" It's just a waste of time, but if you want to make sure my powerlessness - all right, let's. " ...». One can imagine that his subordinates were no less complex relations.

Perhaps it is these traits have played a decisive role in his future career: the inability to agree with a picture made by the young designer's own take on the camera, and already 1 October 1943 on the cover of «Vogue» published his first picture. This date may be considered the second birthday of Irwin, Penn, soon showed its extraordinary ability in many areas of photography and became one of the most famous photographers of XX century.

For photos Penna characterized using a variety peeped or invented his own techniques, collection of which he is constantly replenished. For example, place his victim in the construction of theatrical devices emitting angle of the closed space. Some models behaved as if nothing had happened, others were clearly worried, represented himself in a trap or a prison cell. The models include the "angular time" was a lot of celebrities, artists such as Noel Coward and Spencer Tracy, the artists Marcel Duchamp, and Georgia O'Keefe, the Duchess of Windsor and many others.

Sometimes Penn used various items of furniture or equipment, for example, putting the model on the bed, seated on a motorcycle, forced to take up a musical instrument and so on and so forth. Once he got in a nearby shop and an old carpet for a few months using it as a background - different parts of the mat differed in tone and patterns, so that the photographer can select for each model a specific piece of background. Among its areas of the carpet were the philosopher John Dewey, and director Alfred Hitchcock.
Great success brought Penn a series of photographs from a trip to Peru in 1948. He spent several days in the Andes waiting airplane and that time is not wasted rented from a local photographer's studio, which looked more than exotic: the floors of stone tiles, wall paintings, some strange little table on which the lean model posing. Photographer done in this studio, about 200 local residents, including the famous "Children from the city of Cusco» ( «Cuzco Children»). It is interesting to trace the rise in prices for this picture: in 1948 it cost about 10 dollars, in 1978, its price shot up to 3000, and in another ten years amounted to 35000. On the eve of the XXI century for the image requested is 175000, and, finally, April 11, 2008 platinum print 48.6 * 50.2 square centimeters by photographer in 1971, was sold for 529,000 dollars!

Above the least known project of «Small Trades» photographer worked in the years 1950-1951 in New York, Paris and London. He photographed people from various professions, accusations of uniforms and attributes of their profession in their hands. In the end, got the biggest series of masters, consisting of 252 photographs.

In 1952, Lieberman said Pennu that the leadership of «Vogue» ceased to like his work - they said that his pictures literally "burn page. "Then I realized that they wanted from me, nice, sweet, neat pictures with pretty girls. I began to do and I started to print - 200-300 pages per year "- recalled the photographer. And he added with undisguised bitterness, - "Until I tried to take photos, then I began to produce consumer goods." Fortunately, this shift has touched only the commercial and advertising photography, shooting for the fashion industry and so forth. As for portrait photography, in 1950, and later he continued to develop his skills and made many photos included in the treasury of world photography, say, a famous portrait by Pablo Picasso, 1957.

Very interesting reminiscences of the Penn-known portrait painter left anthropologist Lionel Tiger, which Penn photographed in the early 1980's. "I remember feeling that I give more than I have, at that moment I was more than I actually did not tell his story and much more ..." - described their feelings of Tiger. It will be hard to find another photographer capable of causing such feelings! This photographer himself felt that he must satisfy either portrayed or customer, and the audience: "Many photographers feel that their client - is someone taking pictures of them" - Penn shared the secret of his success in 1991 - "My client is - a woman in Kansas reading "Vogue". I try to intrigue, excite, to please her.

Until now, it was about Irvine Penne as a portrait photographer who works almost exclusively with celebrities, that certainly does not reflect the full breadth of his photographic interests. He has very successfully worked with nudity, paid much attention to his still lifes: "Shooting a cake can also be art" - he said, and proved it in practice during his very long career of the photographer. Penn was very fond of the so-called "ethnographic research", photographs of the Papuans of New Guinea in national costumes, other representatives of the so-called primitive peoples: "They are not primitive," - he broke off a particularly troublesome reporter - "Primitive people live in New York."

In 1958 the American magazine «Popular Photography» called the 10 best photographers of our time. Six of them - Eugene Smith, Philippe Halsman, Ansel Adams, Gen Miles, Alfred Eyzenshtedt and Ernst Haas - away from us in the XX century, recently joined by Yousuf Karsh, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Richard Avedon. Sad to say, but at the beginning of 2009 91-year-old Irving Penn was the only one of the "great scores.
He died Oct. 7, 2009 at the age of 92 at his home in Manhattan.