George Balanchine, New York

1971

George Balanchine, New York, 1971. Irving Penn (American, 1917–2009). Gelatin silver print, ferrotyped; paper: 25.4 x 20.5 cm (10 x 8 1/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift from the Collection of Mark Schwartz + Bettina Katz 2020.14 © The Irving Penn Foundation The contact sheet—a piece of photographic paper which contains positive prints of some or all of the negatives on a roll of film—was necessitated by the advent of roll film, which produced small negatives, and rendered obsolete with the advent of digital photography. Having access to a photographer’s contact reveals the artist's thoughts and working processes. The contact sheet is a twentieth-century phenomenon.