Killer tobacco as an art form – unsubtle message in Irving Penn’s SF retrospective

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SAN FRANCISCO – DE YOUNG MUSEUM

Liz and Lee Heidhues 3.20.2024

We went to tour the just opened De Young Museum’s Irving Penn’s retrospective. https://www.famsf.org/exhibitions/irving-penn

Several rooms are packed with the famous Vogue Magazine and celebrity photographer Irving Penn’s work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Penn

But what indelibly stuck in our minds was a room whose only character was the most inert. Cigarette butts. When Irving Penn’s close friend and collaborator Alexey Brodovitch, a life long smoker, died of lung cancer the fashion photographer took to the streets. Cigarette butts were the subject of his unsubtle campaign to show what Big Tobacco really is. Ugly.

THESE FRAGILE REMNANTS OF MOMENTARY PLEASURES INTERNALIZE THE MISERIES OF THE AGE
Cigarette butts in Irving Penn’s artistic bullseye
The lips that smoke-Irving Penn. Mouth (for L’Oréal), New York, 1986. Dye transfer print. Image: 18 5/8 × 18 1/4 in. (47.3 × 46.4 cm). The Irving Penn Foundation. © The Irving Penn Foundation. Image: Courtesy of The Irving Penn Foundation
Liz amidst the cigarette butts
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Published by leeheidhues

I am a Green Party member, legal worker, walker, cyclist who follows politics, world events, 🌎 the literary world and 🎥 film

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