Photos | San Francisco’s de Young Museum features exhibit on photographer Irving Penn

The subjects in a quartet of portraits by iconic American fashion and portrait photographer Irving Penn look out from photographs now on display at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Penn was one of the 20th century’s great photographers, known for his arresting images and masterful printmaking. Although he was celebrated as one of Vogue magazine’s top photographers for more than 60 years, according to the Irving Penn Foundation website, “Penn was an intensely private man who avoided the limelight and pursued his work with quiet and relentless dedication. At a time when photography was primarily understood as a means of communication, he approached it with an artist’s eye and expanded the creative potential of the medium, both in his professional and personal work.” The exhibit of Penn’s images at the de Young runs through July 21. To see more photographs, go to Sentinel staff photographer Shmuel Thaler’s Weekly Photographer’s Eye feature/A3 (Shmuel Thaler – Santa Cruz Sentinel)

Film and fashion icon Audrey Hepburn’s shining continence looks out from a photograph by Irving Penn in the de Young’s Herbst Exhibition Galleries. (Shmuel Thaler – Santa Cruz Sentinel)

Lee Mingwei’s Ritual of Care exhibit created a space to encourage visitors to write letters to their loved ones. Mingwei is a Taiwanese-American artist living and working in Paris and New York. The exhibit closed on July 7. (Shmuel Thaler – Santa Cruz Sentinel)

Visitors to the de Young Museum in San Francisco stand recently in front of posters detailing the museum’s programs and exhibits. (Shmuel Thaler – Santa Cruz Sentinel)

A bronze statue of Venus created in 1931 by sculptor Boris Lovet-Lorski dominates a gallery at the de Young Museum. (Shmuel Thaler – Santa Cruz Sentinel)

The Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron created the de Young Museum with attention to light, flow and design. (Shmuel Thaler – Santa Cruz Sentinel)