New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is marking the 100th anniversary of photographer Irving Penn’s birth with its new exhibition, Irving Penn: Centennial. This sweeping retrospective encompasses all aspects of Penn’s wide-ranging career and depicts how he managed to go beyond the mere idiom of fashion through photography.

Best known for his six decades of work at Vogue magazine, Penn was celebrated for his exquisite attention to detail and his mastery of modernism. In addition to his Vogue photography, the exhibit features celebrity portraits including Pablo Picasso, Marlene Dietrich and Truman Capote, as well as some of Penn’s more personal works. Lastly, it includes photos of his travels across the United States and South America alongside the physical mobile tent that served a...