Moments Preserved by Irving Penn

This is a very rare signed first edition, first printing of the Irving Penn’s first and most famous photobook “Moments Preserved” published by Simon and Schuster, New York, in 1960. Subtitled “Eight Essays in Photographs and Words”, “Moments Preserved” gathers Penn’s vast variety of enthusiasm – mostly for the vast variety of humanity – and slots them into categories by nationality: the French, the Italians, the English, and the Americans. Though most of these sections include fashion studies, still lifes, and the impressionist scents, they have in common the photographer’s deftly understated portraits, printed here in subtlest gravure. Penn reinvented the classic daylight studio portrait for a more casual time, undercutting its formality but heightening its potential as a revealing performance. (Vince Aletti from “The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century”)