Lisette Model
1901–1983
After years of music training, Lisette Model took up photography before moving from Europe to the United States in 1938. Living in New York, she set out to capture the city’s bustling streets and nightlife. Like other street photographers who emerged during this period, Model took advantage of the recent invention of portable handheld cameras, pursuing what she called “the art of the split second.” With their candid, unaffected style, Model’s images evoke the qualities of a snapshot. She gravitated not to scenes of elegance and refinement, but to the operatic dramas and comedies of ordinary life, especially the seedy but alluring underbelly of nocturnal New York.
One of Model’s favorite locales was Sammy’s Bowery Follies, a nightclub located among the flophouses and missions of the Bowery in downtown Manhattan. Sammy’s featured colorful performers and attracted both downtown personalities and thrill-seeking members of the uptown elite—all of whom became targets of Model’s lens. In Sammy’s, New York, Model captures a private moment amid the club’s action. A sailor and a woman engage in an intense but mysterious exchange, the sexual heat between them accentuated by the low camera angle, dramatic lighting, and closely cropped composition. After this shot and others from Sammy’s were featured in Harper’s Bazaar, where Model worked from 1941 to 1955, her images of the nightclub became one of her best-known series.
Introduction
Lisette Model (born Elise Amelie Felicie Stern; November 10, 1901 – March 30, 1983) was an Austrian-born American photographer primarily known for the frank humanism of her street photography.
A prolific photographer in the 1940s and a member of the New-York cooperative Photo League, she was published in PM's Weekly, Harper's Bazaar, and US Camera before taking up teaching in 1949 through the intermediary of Ansel Adams. She continued to photograph and taught at the New School for Social Research in New York from 1951 until her death in 1983 with many notable students, the most famous of whom was Diane Arbus. Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions and resides in several permanent collections, including that of the National Gallery of Canada, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery.
Wikidata identifier
Q79067
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License . Accessed May 11, 2025.
Country of birth
Austria
Roles
Artist, photographer, teacher
ULAN identifier
500000242
Names
Lisette Model, Elisa Felicie Amelie Seybert, Elise Amelie Félicié Seybert, Elise Felic Amelie Seybert, Elise Amelie Félicié Stern, Élise Amélie Félice Stern, Elise Felice Amélie née Seybert
Information from the Getty Research Institute's Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License. Accessed May 11, 2025.
