Irving Penn In Cracked Mirror, Sheet A, New York

1986, printed July 2000

Irving Penn In Cracked Mirror, Sheet A, New York, 1986, printed July 2000. Irving Penn (American, 1917–2009). Gelatin silver print; paper: 59.7 x 45.7 cm (23 1/2 x 18 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift from the Collection of Mark Schwartz + Bettina Katz 2020.31 © The Irving Penn Foundation The contact sheet—a piece of photographic paper that 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.