Hamiltons proudly presented Cranium Architecture, an exhibition of photographs by legendary photographer Irving Penn. The largest exposition of this series for over two decades, the show offered the viewer a rare chance to see these extraordinary images en masse.
Cranium Architecture sees Penn create a beautiful, absorbing study of animal skulls from the collection of the Narodni National Museum in Prague. From gorilla to giraffe, the photographer treats each subject with fastidious equality - zooming in or moving away to ensure that all the skulls are the same size and placing them in a simple white background. Abstracting the objects in this manner is disorientating and challenges the viewer to look at them in a different way. As the series' title suggests we are encouraged to view each skull as a unique but familiar construction, created by the powerful yet sensitive hand of nature, to house the most precious of organs - that which defines and directs us, both physically and mentally.
To accompany the exhibition, a catalogue raisonné, including an essay by renowned photography critic Francis Hodgson, was published by Hamiltons Gallery, in collaboration with The Irving Penn Foundation.