Lisette Model. Coney Island Bather, 1939-41, Gelatin silver print
Recognized as an icon of 20th-century photography for her ability to transform seemingly average subjects into compelling art, Lisette Model continues to resonate with new audiences long after her death in 1983. An exhibition opening today at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, in partnership with the National Gallery of Canada, presents 71 photographs from a collection of 293 prints and includes several of Model’s iconic pieces.
“Photography is one medium in which women artists have long been well represented, especially compared to other art forms," the museum's senior curator, Kathleen Goncharov, says. She points to Julia Margaret Cameron as one major photographer of the early 19th Century, as well as Berenice Abbott, Dorothea Lange, and Margaret Bourke-White, who were contemporaries of Model’s.
Model was Diane Arbus’ photography teacher and a popular instructor at the New School for Social Research in New York by the time Arbus took her first class there in 1957. Both photographers shared an interest in elevating the seemingly average to something unexpected and intriguing, yet Model trained her lens on everyday situations, capturing quiet drama and often abandoning long-held conventions with her credo, "Shoot from the gut."
“Photography is one medium in which women artists have long been well represented, especially compared to other art forms," the museum's senior curator, Kathleen Goncharov, says. She points to Julia Margaret Cameron as one major photographer of the early 19th Century, as well as Berenice Abbott, Dorothea Lange, and Margaret Bourke-White, who were contemporaries of Model’s.
Model was Diane Arbus’ photography teacher and a popular instructor at the New School for Social Research in New York by the time Arbus took her first class there in 1957. Both photographers shared an interest in elevating the seemingly average to something unexpected and intriguing, yet Model trained her lens on everyday situations, capturing quiet drama and often abandoning long-held conventions with her credo, "Shoot from the gut."