iphoto-graphic moleskine - 004

Truman Capote, New York, 1948 - Irving Penn

During the late ’40s Mr. Penn posed his subjects in austere, enclosed spaces created by movable walls and undulating sections of carpet. These backgrounds allowed him to create drama without resorting to easels, books and other props of the sort he had relied on earlier in the decade (Saul Steinberg with his sketchbook, John Cage leaning over a piano).
More important, the sense of physical confinement coaxed telling reactions from his subjects. Mr. Penn recalled in his 1991 book “Passage”: “This confinement, surprisingly, seemed to comfort people, soothing them. The walls were a surface to lean on or push against.” Truman Capote slouches solicitously in his corner; Duchamp strikes a suave, Cary Grant-like pose. Georgia O’Keeffe turns her face directly at the camera but leans ever so slightly to one side, a small gesture that destabilizes the whole picture.