Lisette Model

Born: 1901

Death: 1983

Biography:

Lisette Model was an Austrian-born American photographer. Primarily known for the frank humanism of her street photography, exact details of Model's life remain unclear. What is known is that she was well known and respected in photographic communities during her life. She taught at the New School for Social Research in New York from 1951 up until her death in 1983 with many notable students, the most famous of which was Diane Arbus. Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions and still resides in several permanent collections, including that of the National Gallery of Canada and the J. Paul Getty Museum.
Lisette Model was born Elise Amelie Felicie Stern in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. Her father, Victor, was an Italian/Austrian doctor of Jewish descent attached to the Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal Army and, later, to the International Red Cross; her mother Felicie was French and Roman Catholic, and Model was baptised into her mother's faith. She had a brother, Salvatór, who was older by one year. Two years after her birth, her parents changed their family name to Seybert, and six years later, her younger sister Olga was born. According to interview testimony from her older brother, she was sexually molested by her father, though the full extent of his abuse remains unclear.
She was primarily educated by a series of private tutors, achieving fluency in three languages. At age 19, she began studying music with composer (and father of her childhood friend Gertrude ) Arnold Schönberg, and was familiar to members of his circle. "If ever in my life I had one teacher and one great influence, it was Schönberg," she said.
Model left Vienna for Paris after her father's death in 1924 to study voice with Polish soprano Marya Freund. It was during this period that she met her future husband, the Jewish, Russian-born painter Evsa Model (1901–1976), whom she went on to marry in 1937. In 1933, she gave up music and recommitted herself to studying visual art, at first taking up painting as a student of Andre Lhote (whose other students included Henri Cartier-Bresson and George Hoyningen-Huene).
Model bought her first enlarger and camera when she went to Italy. She had little training or interest in photography initially; it was Olga who taught her the basics of photographic technique. Model was most interested in the darkroom process, and wanted to become a darkroom technician. She used her sister as a subject to start her photography. Rogi André later showed Model how to use the Rolleiflex, expanding her practice.
Visiting her mother in Nice in 1934 (she and Olga had emigrated from Vienna several years prior), Model took her camera out on the Promenade des Anglais and made a series of portraits – published in 1935 in the leftist magazine Regards – which are still among her most widely reproduced and exhibited images. These close-cropped, often clandestine portraits of the local privileged class already bore what would become her signature style: close-up, unsentimental and unretouched expositions of vanity, insecurity and loneliness. Model's compositions and closeness to her subjects were achieved by enlarging and cropping her negatives in the darkroom. Additionally, her use of a 2 1/4 inch square negative and larger print size were stylistic choices considered unique at a time when a proliferation of street photographers were embracing what was called the minicam. Later examination of her negatives by archivists reveals that the uncropped images include much of the subjects' physical surroundings. Model's edits in the darkroom eliminate those distractions, tightening the focus on the person and excluding extraneous background information. After the publication of the Promenade des Anglais images, or the "Riviera" series, Model resumed her Paris street photography practice, this time focusing on the poor.
After emigrating to Manhattan in 1937 with her husband, Model worked as a photographer for PM magazine and was regularly published in Harper's Bazaar by editors Carmel Snow and Alexey Brodovitch. She was captivated by the energy of New York City, which she expressed through her separate series Reflections and Running Legs. She also took particular interest in distinct areas of the city, specifically the Lower East Side and Coney Island, where she made hundreds of photographs depicting ordinary American people. Model eventually became a member of the New York Photo League and studied with Sid Grossman until the League's demise in 1951. During its existence, Model was an active League member and served as a judge in membership print competitions. In 1941, the League hosted her first solo exhibition. From 1941 to 1953, she was a freelance photographer and contributed to many publications including Harper's Bazaar, Look, and Ladies' Home Journal.
Model's involvement with the New York Photo League became the cause of much strife for her during the McCarthy Era of the 1950s, when the organization came under scrutiny by the House Un-American Activities Committee for suspected connections to the Communist Party. The League was eventually classified as a communist organization by the FBI, who interviewed Model personally in 1954 and attempted to recruit her as an informant. She refused to cooperate with the Bureau, leading to her name being placed on the National Security Watchlist. Because many clients were reluctant to hire somebody who was under FBI suspicion, Model encountered increased difficulty finding opportunities to work, which played a role in her focus shift towards teaching.

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