A Notebook at Random

Rating:
Summary: Too much and not enough
Review: This is unusual because it has virtually no written text. Thus, it is not for those who don't know Irving Penn, unless they are adventurous students of photography. This is evidently a collection of random works which together form a map of Penn's artistic mind. It is like a conversation with him about some of his work.
It contains sketches and photographs presented un-pretentiously, one on a page. Each one is a key or entry point into Penn's work and a hinge between him and the world of art and culture of his time. If you are not fresh off the turnip truck this is a book that may take a year to read as you think about each image and the infinite connections it has. If you are serious about photography and don't know Penn and his influence, this book will last you a lifetime as you study his sketch of the tree of those who influenced him. Any of his contemporaries mentioned on the tree could easily have erased his own name and put Irving Penn in his place, I think.
My favorites are his messing with his portrait of John Marin, his unusual portrait of Barnett Newman, and other sketches and scribblings on or about some of his familiar work. I was struck by his photographs of the street, and some other subjects few of us have ever seen. This book is revealing in much the same way as Earthly Bodies.
If you just like great photographs, this is a thought provoking, warm and modest tribute to one of the architects of the medium. If you are an artist and can't imagine being 87 and able to produce a random notebook this rich, you have a lot of work to do.