going platinum; A new show, Dodie Kazanjian writes, reveals another side of Irving Penn.(Brief Article)

Byline: Dodie Kazanjian

No American photographer has been more obsessed with perfection than Irving Penn. In the early sixties, he began to experiment with platinum printing, a complex late-nineteenth-century technique using platinum and iron salts to register the photographic image. One of the pioneers of its revival, Penn, who spent years teaching himself the process, loves the tonal detail that platinum makes possible-shimmering silvers and velvety blacks he can't get any other way. Seeking to go "beyond fact into poetry," he made platinum prints of his work in all genres-still lifes, portraits, nudes, ethnographic studies, and fashion photographs.

Now a show at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., gives us the chance to see about 70 of them. What makes it a revelation is that it includes fifteen collage-like arrangements of Penn's test strips, the ...