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Irving Penn: Small Trades 11/24/2009 (Getty Museum)

Putting on your “Sunday Best” is a fascinating construct that has emerged out of a willingness to show devotion to one’s faith by casting aside the grubby clothes and accoutrements of one’s trade and “clean up” for worship. After all, religions are inundated with rules and restrictions on work, and in the eyes of their leadership, a place of worship is wholly separate from the venues of toil. Irving Penn [wiki], however, decided to flip these notions upside down in his “Small Trades” [Official Getty Site] body of work, currently on display at the Getty Museum. With a grungy, but otherwise neutral tarp as his cathedral, Penn zealously worshipped his subjects, portraying them with an emphatic sense of dignity; Penn’s world is one where a sewer cleaner occupies the same proud high-ground as the chief firefighter, and this sense of pride does not seem alien, but genuine. Next to their pride, their humanity also radiates through the prints, and the viewer gets the sense that in addition to respecting these people from all walks of life, Penn truly identified with, and understood them. By inviting these people into his studio along with the tools that so intimately connect the worker to their trade, Penn gave his “religious” icons their “relics,” which in addition to providing context to these often rough figures, crucially enabled them to feel more secure.

This concept of security ties into the psychology that is so integral to the suite; the subjects’ demeanor became an interesting facet to the project, and Penn wrote about the ways in which the different workers responded to his calls for subjects. Parisians were skeptics, questioning the project’s motives, the English were punctual and proud, and Americans thought this was their big break into the entertainment industry, often showing up in their “Sunday Best.” Beyond these written analyses, there are subtle reads into the attitudes of the subjects. In addition to the aforementioned pride demonstrated throughout the spectrum of trades and “stations of life,” the exhibit strategically grouped the professions according to location, enabling a viewer to see how a butcher looked and felt in Paris or New York versus London. In addition to variances in attire and tools, you could detect subtle differences in their countenances.

In addition to the more theoretical aspects of the exhibition, the images themselves are aesthetically stunning. In addition to his abilities as a photographer, marked by his command of light, and his excellent eye for making centrally composed images interesting (either by using dynamic poses, or artfully structuring the tools to draw visual interest to certain elements of the frame), the exhibit brilliantly emphasizes Penn’s virtuosic command of the printing of his images. Many casual examiners of photography lose sight of the fact that the printmaking element of photography is an art in itself. Throughout his career, Penn not only mastered silver halide printmaking, but he also dabbled with Selenium toning methods to bring the most out of his negatives. Perhaps his most important contribution to printing, though, were his experiments and advancement of Platinum/Palladium printing techniques. These methods, wherein the exposed image lies on the substrate surface, as opposed to being suspended in a medium, enabled Penn to get the highest possible tonal range in his prints, while also achieving a perfectly matte image. In comparing prints of the same negative with both printing methods, a stunning array of details emerge. While both prints have stunning values present, the Platinum process prints are truly unforgettable, and they seem to add an extra dimensionality to the hauntingly human portraits.
It was an absolute pleasure to visit this exhibition. I am sure that having been exposed to these images will ultimately inform my ads. Each one of these workers has a story, and their humanity would resonate well. I enthusiastically recommend paying the exhibit a visit before it closes January 10th, 2010.