By 1950, Penn was a well-known Vogue portrait and fashion photographer, but had already made, privately, a major series of nudes—a personal but lesser known body of work. During the week, he photographed for the magazine models wearing fashionable clothes, but weekends and evenings he worked studying the female nude. The nudes were full-bodied and the photographs unorthodox, recalling the form and spirit of archaic fertility idols.

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