Chazen Acquires Important Gift of Irving Penn Photographs

Gift from The Irving Penn Foundation commemorates John Szarkowski’s centennial; UW alumnus was eminent curator of photography.

December 18, 2025 – The Chazen Museum of Art is delighted to announce a generous gift of twenty-eight photographs by celebrated photographer Irving Penn (1917–2009) from The Irving Penn Foundation in honor of John Szarkowski (1925–2007), a UW–Madison alumnus and former photography curator at the Museum of Modern Art.

The group of photographic prints curated by Van Vleck Curator of Works on Paper James R. Wehn, PhD, in collaboration with the foundation, represents a major addition to the Chazen’s collection, where it will augment existing holdings of photographs across multiple genres from the late 1930s to the turn of the twentieth century. The gift surveys Penn’s practice, from his earliest photographs to projects undertaken for Vogue magazine and his independent studio work.

“The Chazen is thrilled to receive this generous gift of photographs from The Irving Penn Foundation,” said Amy Gilman, Senior Director for the Arts and Media, Director of the Chazen Museum of Art. “It is precisely these types of deeply meaningful gifts which have transformed the museum’s collection time and time again, and we are honored to continue John Szarkowski’s legacy of sharing the brilliance of Irving Penn’s work. “

Szarkowski graduated from the UW in 1947 with a B.A. in art history. As Director of the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, 1962–1991, he played an influential role in establishing Penn as a fine art photographer, most notably in a major retrospective exhibition at MoMA in 1984.

“John Szarkowski looms large in the past century’s pantheon of photography figures, and today—on what would have been the esteemed curator’s 100th birthday—the foundation is pleased to announce this donation of Irving Penn works to the Chazen,” said Tom Penn, Executive Director of the foundation and the artist’s son. “Considering Szarkowski’s lifelong vocation as an educator and his ties to Wisconsin, we feel strongly that placing this group of my father’s photographs in the didactic collection of a teaching museum is an especially fitting way to commemorate the occasion. We’re delighted to partner with the Chazen in honoring Szarkowski, a pivotal champion of Penn’s artistic legacy.”

“These photographs will offer visitors and students insights into Penn’s career and artistic practice,” said Wehn. “Because many of these photographs relate to Penn’s commercial work for Vogue, they reflect aspects of twentieth-century American popular history and related visual culture. They also show Penn’s deep interest in mastering darkroom techniques that produced stunningly beautiful results.”

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born in Plainfield, NJ, Irving Penn attended the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Arts (later University of the Arts), where he studied advertising design. In 1938, he purchased his first camera with earnings from drawings published in Harper’s Bazaar. After working in various art director jobs, Penn traveled in the American south and in Mexico, taking photographs while briefly aspiring to become a painter. In 1943, he took a position at Vogue magazine, where he worked as a photographer for seven decades. Throughout his career, Penn consistently redefined the photographic medium, blending artistic vision with technical mastery in fashion, portraiture, travel, and still life. Keenly interested in printing photographs, Penn experimented with methods that produced certain aesthetic effects or offered greater control over tonal variations, ultimately developing complex techniques for printing with palladium and platinum metals. He applied these innovations in bodies of work that leveraged his editorial and advertising skills while also advancing photography as a fine art.

ABOUT THE IRVING PENN FOUNDATION

The Irving Penn Foundation was established to promote knowledge and understanding of the artistic legacy of Irving Penn, including the diversity of techniques, mediums, and subject matter the artist explored.

In furtherance of this mission, the foundation’s objectives include preserving in excellent condition those works by Penn that are owned by the foundation; placing representative selections of Penn’s work in the permanent collections of major institutions around the world; serving as a resource for reliable and comprehensive information about the artist’s life and work; fostering high standards of quality in those publications that are authorized to reproduce the artist’s work; and encouraging individuals and institutions whose artistic and scholarly endeavors uphold Penn’s values and advance the mission of the foundation.

A SELECTION OF IMAGES GIVEN TO THE CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART

All by Irving Penn, all a gift of The Irving Penn Foundation in celebration of the centennial of UW–Madison alumnus John Szarkowski.