12 Hands of Miles Davis and His Trumpet, New York

1986, printed 1999

12 Hands of Miles Davis and His Trumpet, New York, 1986, printed 1999. Irving Penn (American, 1917–2009). Gelatin silver print, selenium toned; paper: 60.3 x 47.1 cm (23 3/4 x 18 9/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift from the Collection of Mark Schwartz + Bettina Katz 2020.38 © 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.