Tree Pruner
Artist
Irving Penn
(American, 1917-2009)
CultureAmerican
Date1951
MediumPlatinum-palladium print
DimensionsOverall, Image: 19 1/8 × 14 1/16 in. (48.6 × 35.7 cm)
Overall, Support: 25 15/16 × 22 in. (65.9 × 55.9 cm)
Overall, Mat: 30 × 24 in. (76.2 × 61 cm)
Overall, Support: 25 15/16 × 22 in. (65.9 × 55.9 cm)
Overall, Mat: 30 × 24 in. (76.2 × 61 cm)
Credit LinePurchase and National Endowment for the Arts
Object number89.98
Not on view
DescriptionThis is a platinum-palladium print photograph.Label TextIrving Penn American, 1917–2009 Tree Pruner, 1951 Platinum-palladium print Penn is perhaps best known for his high-fashion photography, chronicled in a sixty-year career with Vogue magazine. This image comes from his Small Trades series, which Penn worked on in New York, London, and Paris. Though similar in subject to the prints of Disfarmer, who often catalogued tradesmen, Penn’s tree pruner is equipped with all the tools of his profession and posed in an artful composition as a painter might depict an important figure. Purchase and National Endowment for the Arts 89.98Exhibition History"The Portrait in America," The Alice R. and Sol B. Frank Photography Galleries, The Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., Jan. 26 - April 8, 1990. "Silver Images: The Photography Collection at 25," Alice R. and Sol B. Frank Photo Galleries, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., November 5, 2003 - August 2004. "Portraying a Nation: American Portrait Photography, 1850-2010," Alice R. and Sol B. Frank Photo Galleries, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, August 25, 2010 - September 11, 2011. "Facing Ourselves: Mike Disfarmer and the American Portrait," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, December 16, 2022 - May 14, 2023.Published ReferencesBrooks Johnson, _The Portrait in America_, exh. cat., The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., 1990, 9, 54.
Adam Clark Vroman
