Since it was established in 2022, the MOP Foundation in the relatively little-known city of A Coruña in Galicia, Spain, has hosted a surprisingly high-profile roster of photographic greats in its on-site gallery – among them, rare and expansive exhibitions of the work of Peter Lindbergh, Steven Meisel, and Helmut Newton, each best known for their fashion photography. And, as of this week, it is the turn of legendary American photographer Irving Penn, who is celebrated in what will be his first retrospective on Spanish soil (showing 23 November 2024 – 1 May 2025).

The new exhibition is titled ‘Irving Penn: Centennial’ and provides a broad survey of the 20th-century photographer’s work, which is at once classical and stripped back, meticulous without sign of effort, and always with an innate sense of grandeur and scale that recalls the great masters of art.

‘Irving Penn – for me, those two short words conjure a world of unparalleled photographic excellence,’ says Ortega Pérez of her decision for Penn to be the latest highlighted artist at the MOP Foundation. ‘From the perfectly pitched portraits of celebrities or of the tradespeople, street vendors and residents of Dahomey; New Guinea; Cuzco, or wherever else his restless egalitarian spirit led him. Each and every one of his photographs is made with the meticulous craftsmanship of an artist who once famously declared himself to be in awe of the camera.

The wide-ranging exhibition – which is organised by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in collaboration with The Irving Penn Foundation – spans several decades of Penn’s work, from the late 1930s to the early 2000s (Penn died in 2009, aged 92). Works on display include fashion editorial, portraiture, still-lifes, nudes and photographs taken on his far-reaching travels.

Photos by François Halard