LISETTE MODEL
American
Lisette Model was born Elise Amelie Felicie Stern
(the family name was later changed to Seybert) to a
wealthy and cultured Jewish Viennese family. She
enjoyed a privileged private education and early asso-
ciations with Vienna’s artistic and intellectual com-
munity. Model studied piano and later became a
student of avant-garde composer Arnold Scho ̈enberg,
a fellow iconoclast. Through their friendship, Model
initially pursued a music career, beginning singing
lessons in Paris in the early 1920s. From her initial
days in Paris, Model associated with the artistic and
intellectual community including the Surrealists and
other free-spirited successful women in their circle. In
1926, her family left Vienna and moved to the south
of France, following the death of Model’s father.
During the early 1930s, Model abandoned music
and singing altogether to study drawing and paint-
ing. She subsequently turned to photography, influ-
enced in her career choice by her younger sister
Olga, a photographer in her own right, from
whom Model learned rudimentary darkroom proce-
dures, camera application, and materials. Shortly,
after being introduced to photography, she received
a demonstration on the use of the Rolleiflex from
Rogi Andre ́,Andre ́ Kerte ́sz’s first wife. The two
women spent time together walking the streets of
Paris while Andre ́pointed out photographic oppor-
tunities. Model’s first photographs were of family
and friends, including photographer Florence Henri
and her future husband Evsa Model.
The photographer Ergy Landau, in whose studio
Olga worked, played an equally important part in
advancing Model’s career. Through her association
with Landau, Model met Charles Rado of the Rapho
Agency, a photo distribution firm founded in 1933
by Landau in collaboration with Brassaı ̈and Rado.
Charles Rado, who was in charge of photo distribu-
tion, acted as an agent to promote Model’s work.
Model’s French period (1926–1938) is largely
shrouded in mystery. One of her first photography
projects was done in the summer of 1934 while she
was visiting her mother at their family home in Nice.
On the Promenade des Anglais, Model found poten-
tial subjects for her scrutinizing gaze, an assortment
of rich character types—wealthy French, American,
and Russian tourists. In February 1935, her photo-
graphic work of the materialist culture of the Coˆte
d’Azur graced the cover ofRegardsmagazine, an
AIZ-like publication supported by the Communist
Party. In addition to herPromenadeseries, Model’s
French work constitutes a poignant social documen-
tary of marginal personages—street vendors and the
homeless in Paris and Nice, old Nice, a few Parisian
street scenes, and the zoo in Vincennes.
On September 6, 1937, she married painter Evsa
Model; the couple immigrated to the United States
the following fall. Once established in America, in
1940 Model began working as a laboratory techni-
cian for a Long Island weekly magazine,PM.The
magazine’s picture editor Ralph Steiner recognized
the quality of Model’s work and in January 1941,
he published seven of her photographs, including
some from thePromenadeseries inPM’s Weekly,
under the heading, ‘‘Why France Fell.’’ Model
worked for Steiner from 1940–1941.
Through her association with Steiner, Model met
many of New York’s creative forces—Sid Grossman,
co-founder of the Photo League, and Alexey Brodo-
vitch, art director ofHarper’s Bazaar;sheenjoyedan
intimate association with both of them. In 1941,
Model began a 12-year freelance relationship with
Harper’s; her first assignment, to document people at
leisure on Coney Island, became one of her iconic
series. Model was an active contributor toHarper’s
during the 1940s and 1950s, preferring to work on a
non-assignment basis creating her photographic nar-
ratives on speculation. In addition to her work at
Harper’s, Model took on freelance assignments
between 1941–1953, working for popular magazine
publications,LookandLadies Home Journalamong
others. Model worked as an independent photogra-
pher in New York from 1953 until her death in 1983.
A regular member of the New York Photo Lea-
gue, whose leftist politics of the 1930s coincided
with her own, Model participated in the group’s
exhibitions, newsletter, lectures, and symposia.
Due to the conservative climate of America follow-
ing World War II, Model was reticent to discuss her
French period, in particular her association with the
Regardspublication. Even so, in 1947, the Photo
League was investigated, and its members fell under
the scrutiny of the McCarthy era and were black-MODEL, LISETTE