Irving Penn Archives

Irving Penn (b.1917) is an internationally known fine art, commercial, fashion, and portrait photographer. The collection contains Penn’s complete studio archives, including business and personal correspondence, accounting ledgers, darkroom diaries, contracts, travel diaries and other travel records, manuscripts of published and unpublished writings, and a complete tearsheet record of his work for Condé Nast. It is intimately related to his photographic archive of prints, negatives and proof sheets accessioned in the Art Institute’s Department of Photography. Both collections were essential to the Art Institute’s 1997 exhibition Irving Penn: a Career in Photography. Portions of this collection are closed to researchers until fifteen years after Penn’s death. View finding aid.View selected images from this collection. Collection access:Collections may be accessed in the Franke Reading Room of the Research Center at The Art Institute of Chicago, by appointment only. For further information, consult the FAQ. Finding aids by subjectBrowse all finding aidsBrowse images and mediaOral histories Contact the Ryerson and Burnham Art and Architecture Archives:archives@artic.edu