Photography is an oft-misunderstood art, and it is rare that somebody so thoroughly reinvents the field as Irving Penn, a true American icon. America has birthed some amazing artists, from Andrew Wyeth, to Norman Rockwell, to Annie Leibovitz, it’s almost been an embarrassment of riches, and no field has seen as much growth as photography. Seen as little more than a simple trade at the beginning of the 20th century, photographers have become artists and visionaries in their own right, and nobody did as much to refine and reinvent photography as much as Penn, whose groundbreaking work in still life and then fashion, turned photography into art.

Irving Penn’s beginnings were humble, born in New Jersey, and raised in Philadelphia. Penn graduated from public school, and eventually attended Philadelphia Musuem School of Industrial Arts as an advertising student under the supervision of celebrated photographer Alexey Brodovitch. Irving intended to become an ad man, and worked as an art director for some various companies in New York after graduation. He eventually quit America and moved to Mexico to become a painter, though he would return after a year. Though he did not think highly of himself as a painter, this experience helped to develop a truly remarkable curatorial eye and an appreciation for planning that would characterize his photography. Penn returned to New York in 1943 and was hired to work with Vogue as an art director. Photography would soon come calling however.

Conde Nast’s photographers kept flubbing a cover idea he had pitched, a simple still life piece. With the deadline looming, Penn was encouraged to shoot it himself. With a borrowed camera and a carefully planned shoot, Penn shot his first cover. He had never studied as a photographer, yet it was this outsider’s touch that freed Penn from established convention. His work was clear, crisp, and planned with the careful intent and vision of a painter. Penn’s work was carefully constructed, yet looked completely natural, with no trace of disingenuousness. These qualities were due to his strict control of his shooting environment, and because Penn would never shoot without carefully sketching his intended shot first. The cover was a success and Penn’s reputation grew as he moved from still lifes into portraiture. His portraits featured subjects as diverse as Peruvian peasants and artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe and Marcel Duchamp. He earned a reputation for being able to shoot even the most difficult subjects. When Marlene Dietrich tried to commandeer one of his shoots, he bluntly told her that she was the model and he was the photographer.

In 1950, Penn would expand his horizons again, when he was dispatched by Vogue to handle the shooting for Paris Fashion Week alone, despite being considered inexperienced as a fashion photographer. Before Penn, fashion photography was all soft-focus and artificiality. His shoot in Paris in 1950 was wildly successful, and Penn brought his sense of clarity and purpose into fashion as well. Shoots were carefully constructed and could last for hours, though he was also relaxed in his control, leaving room for what he called ‘acts of god’. His fashion photography became very popular very quickly, and his unique ability to accurately capture the true nature of his subject was unparalleled. That same year, he married fashion model Lisa Fonssagrives, one of his favorite subjects and a respected artist in her own right. Three years later, he opened his own studio, and his career would explode, with his work regarded as being the most aesthetically appealing and technically proficient in the world. Never resting on his laurels, Penn moved into printmaking in the 1960s, and constantly strove to expand his artistic horizons. Through the 1960s and 1970s, Penn documented the hippie movement, and later would find space in museums as his older pieces became respected as groundbreaking photography.

Penn continued to work well into his old age from his studio on Fifth Avenue in New York. Despite the death of his wife in 1992, Penn continued to work, drawing new admirers. Younger generations might know him as the enigmatic photographer behind Issey Miyake’s lookbooks, or the visionary behind Clinique’s colorful, dazzling cosmetics ads. His work has been shown in museums and galleries worldwide as shining examples of American photography, and celebrated for their effectiveness and simplicity. Irving Penn was a visionary, who changed the way photographers looked at their craft, turning them into both artists and technicians. ‘I recognize [the camera] for the instrument it is, part Stradivarius, part scalpel.’ Penn passed away on October 7th, 2009, but the honesty and unpretentiousness of his work is something that all photographers today still strive to emulate.