Irving Penn’s “Worlds in a Small Room” is a monumental collection of portraits taken between 1948 and 1971. Penn traveled the globe with a portable, neutral-toned studio, stripping away geographic context to focus entirely on the human subject. This Penguin edition reproduces 74 black-and-white plates that highlight his mastery of natural light and geometric composition. Whether photographing mud-men in New Guinea or hippies in San Francisco, Penn used the “small room” of his studio to create a shared, dignified space where disparate cultures meet as equals.
