In 1995, Irving Penn donated his professional archives to the Art Institute of Chicago, along with a set of prints representing his life’s work. This catalogue accompanied the exhibition of the same name and celebrates Penn’s gift to the museum.

The cover is a revealing example from the archival materials donated. This contact sheet assemblage, Unpublished Variants for the Christmas Cover of Vogue, November 15, 1949, demonstrates Penn’s working process. With its grease pencil markings, the image exposes not only the artist’s material practice but his visual thinking.