Irving Penn CIGARETTES

In the early 1970s, respected and renowned fashion photographer, Irving Penn, shifted his interest from the printed page to the expressive and eloquent possibilities of the photographic print. No single series addresses this shift more directly than Penn’s series of platinum printed photographs of discarded cigarette butts. In this series there is an unspoken irony as Penn transforms what is commonly considered garbage into exquisite abstracted images, some which harken directly to his stunning fashion studies. “We may if we wish think of them as metaphors- as shards of ancient sculpture, or architecture fragments, or the discarded costumes of kings and jugglers- but it is important that we remember also their inconsequence, for otherwise their new nobility and eloquence, their classical rectitude, would not so deeply touch our hearts. (John Szarkowski)