After which there are the nonetheless lives—oh, these nonetheless lives! With their witty, jarring, and wholly unique preparations of the natural and the inanimate, they’re as masterly and timeless as something from Seventeenth-century Holland. (They have been additionally fertile floor for a ton of nice tales, a few of that are documented by legendary Vogue editor Phyllis Posnick, a longtime collaborator of Mr. Penn’s, in her terrific e-book Stoppers.)
“What has been extraordinary for me to see,” says Rosenheim, “is how with every iteration of the exhibition the story modified. He was a extremely lauded artist in his lifetime. He did a number of initiatives. He traveled the world. In actual fact, the 1967 photos are a part of an prolonged sequence of worldwide investigations of, if you’ll, cultures from wherever they have been.” The Summer season of Love photographs are an excellent instance of that: Mr. Penn decamped to San Francisco, establishing a makeshift studio and welcoming within the denizens of town to sit down for him. “Though he was older when he took these—he was born in 1917, so he’d be in his 50s at that time—he’s very delicate to the rigor inside these communities, of their types and messages. And that comes via within the photos. There’s an authenticity of their performances, of their cultures.”
