Richard Avedon, New York

1985

Richard Avedon, New York, 1985. Irving Penn (American, 1917–2009). Gelatin silver print; image: 25.7 x 19.7 cm (10 1/8 x 7 3/4 in.); paper: 27.9 x 21.6 cm (11 x 8 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift from the Collection of Mark Schwartz + Bettina Katz 2020.30 © 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 artists’ thoughts and working processes. The contact sheet is a twentieth-century phenomenon.