Miles’ hands 💫

 

“The Hands of Miles Davis,” photographed by Irving Penn in 1986 during the cover shoot for Tutu.

When Penn arrived for the session, Miles greeted him with characteristic skepticism.

“I bet you want me to take this shirt off,” Miles said.

“Yep,” Penn replied.

“I bet you want me to take all these gold chains off, too?”

“Yep.”

The two spent the next hour working together. As the shoot wrapped, Miles surprised Penn with a kiss on the mouth before leaving. Reflecting on the encounter years later, Penn said that once he came to know Miles’ music, it struck him as “visual art of a most profound kind.”

Among the photographs Penn created that day was a remarkable series focused solely on Miles’ left hand. Set against a plain background, the images capture his fingers in various positions, as if pressing the valves of an invisible trumpet. Simple yet powerful, the photographs distilled Miles’ artistry into the very instrument through which he changed music.

Photos by The Irving Penn Foundation