Lisette Model facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Lisette Model
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| Born |
Elise Amelie Felicie Stern
November 10, 1901 Vienna, Austria-Hungary
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| Died | March 30, 1983 (aged 81) New York City, US
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| Occupation | Photographer |
Lisette Model (born Elise Amelie Felicie Stern; November 10, 1901 – March 30, 1983) was an American photographer. She was born in Austria. Lisette Model became famous for her honest and real street photography, which showed people as they truly were.
She took many photos in the 1940s. Her work appeared in magazines like Harper's Bazaar. In 1949, she started teaching photography, thanks to famous photographer Ansel Adams. Lisette Model taught at the New School for Social Research in New York from 1951 until she passed away in 1983. Many of her students became well-known photographers, including Diane Arbus. Her photos are still shown in exhibitions and are kept in museums around the world.
Contents
Lisette Model's Early Life and Learning
Lisette Model was born Elise Amelie Felicie Stern in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. Her father, Victor, was a doctor. Her mother, Felicie, was French and Catholic. Lisette was raised in her mother's faith. Her family changed their last name to Seybert in 1903.
She grew up in a well-off family and had private teachers. This meant she learned to speak Italian, German, and French very well. Even when her family faced money problems after World War I, she continued her private education. She often said her childhood was difficult.
At age 19, she began studying music with a famous composer named Arnold Schönberg. She felt he was her greatest teacher. Being part of Schönberg's group introduced her to the exciting art scene of the time. She saw works by leading avant-garde artists like Gustav Klimt. This early look at Expressionism might have made her interested in watching people, which later led to her photography.
In 1924, after her father died, Lisette moved to Paris with her mother and sister. She stayed in Paris to keep studying music. There, she met her future husband, Evsa Model (1901–1976), a painter. They married in 1937. In 1933, she stopped studying music and started focusing on visual art. She first learned painting from Andre Lhote, who also taught Henri Cartier-Bresson.
How Lisette Model Started Photography
Lisette Model bought her first camera and darkroom equipment when she visited Italy. She didn't plan to be a photographer at first. Her sister, Olga, taught her the basics of how to take pictures. Lisette was most interested in working in the darkroom to develop photos.
She started by taking pictures of her sister. Lisette once said, "I just picked up a camera without any kind of ambition to be good or bad." However, her friends said she always wanted to be excellent at whatever she did. Another photographer, Rogi André, taught her a key lesson: "Never photograph anything you are not passionately interested in." Lisette later changed this to her famous teaching motto: "Shoot from the gut." André also showed her how to use the Rolleiflex camera.
Lisette decided to become a professional photographer after talking with a friend in 1933 or 1934. He told her she needed to find a way to earn a living during a time of political trouble. In 1934, while visiting her mother in Nice, France, Lisette took her camera to the Promenade des Anglais. There, she took a series of portraits that became very famous. These photos were published in a magazine in 1935.
Her unique style was already clear in these pictures. She took close-up, honest photos of wealthy people, showing their feelings and sometimes their loneliness. Lisette often made her photos by enlarging and cropping her negatives in the darkroom. This helped her focus tightly on the person and remove distracting backgrounds. After these "Riviera" photos, Lisette continued her street photography in Paris, focusing on people who were poor.
Teaching and Special Awards
Lisette Model became a very active teacher later in her life. In 1949, she taught photography at the San Francisco Institute of Fine Arts. She went there partly for money reasons and because her friend Ansel Adams invited her to teach.
In 1951, Model was asked to teach at the New School for Social Research in New York City. Her friend Berenice Abbott also taught photography there. Lisette was known for her direct and unusual teaching style. She realized she was good at teaching. She often used children's art as an example to show that art is about exploring the world, not just copying it. She pushed her students to be creative and passionate. She did not like it when students didn't try their best.
She also gave private lessons with her husband, Evsa, from their apartment. Lisette Model's most famous student was Diane Arbus, who studied with her in 1957. Arbus learned a lot of her early photography skills from Model. Other notable students included Larry Fink and Eva Rubinstein. Lisette taught for twenty years, following the same principles. She continued teaching after her husband Evsa passed away in 1976. In 1981, she received an honorary degree from the New School.
In 1965, Lisette Model received a special award called the Guggenheim Fellowship. This award gave her money to work on her photography. In 1966, she traveled to Los Angeles and Las Vegas to photograph American culture. She also went to Italy, but had to return early due to sickness.
Lisette Model's Later Years
In the 1970s, Lisette Model developed rheumatism in her hands, which made it harder to use them. But she kept teaching and taking photos. The first book of her photographs was published in 1979. It included 52 photos taken between 1937 and 1970.
In the later part of her career, Lisette Model printed fewer photos. She still took pictures, but she didn't print them as much. People think this might have been because of her health, her focus on teaching, or money problems. Still, she continued to take photos and teach until she passed away. She especially loved taking pictures when she was away from home, like in Berkeley, Lucerne, and Venice. She even returned to Nice, France, where she took her first famous photos, but she didn't find the same inspiration there.
In 1976, her husband Evsa fell ill and passed away later that year. His death greatly affected Lisette.
Even in her final years, her work was shown in Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands. In 1982, she received a special medal from the City of Paris. Lisette Model passed away on March 30, 1983, in New York City.
After her death, a lot of information about Lisette Model became available. She was a very private person and didn't share much about her life. Her estate (her belongings and works) released 25,000 negatives (many unprinted), personal letters, and notes from her lectures. This helped people learn much more about her life and work.
Awards
- Guggenheim Fellowship, 1965
- American Association of Magazine Photographers Honorary Membership, 1968
- Creative Artists Public Service Program Award, 1973
- New School of Social Research Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, 1981
- Medal of the City of Paris, 1982
Permanent Collections
Lisette Model's photographs are part of the permanent collections in many important museums and galleries around the world, including:
- Academy Art Museum, Easton, MD
- Albertina, Vienna, Austria
- The Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ
- Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
- George Eastman House, Rochester, NY
- Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA
- The Jewish Museum, New York, NY
- Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
- The Menil Collection, Houston, TX
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
- Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI
- Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
- The Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA
- The National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia
- The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada
- de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara, CA
- San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.
- Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence KS
- Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Images for kids
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Lisette Model's self-portrait.
See also
In Spanish: Lisette Model para niños
