Yesterday marked the four years since the legendary photographer Irving Penn’s passing at the age of 92. To commemorate Penn Sang Bleu have chosen a selection of our favourite photographs. It is really quite incredible how one persons work could be so consistently diverse but also be simultaneously so progressive. Best known as a fashion photographer his world also scoped celebrity portraiture, still life and ethnographic documentation. Penn covered and became an innovator in most fields of photography right up until his death which is really remarkable if you think that the image below (Mascara Wars) was made by a man in his 80s. However he is best known for his high contrast images of cultural icons but some of the examples below seem equally as important in their strength and originality not only for their time in fashion photography but also in the context of Penn’s career.

Mascara Wars, 2001

naomi campbell by irving penn
us vogue, march 1992

Cult Creams, Vogue US, June 1996

Issey Miyake sunglasses, 1995

Vogue US

Extreme Beauty, 2009