Though a more elusive artist than some of her students, photography teacher Lisette Model’s own work had a voice. “Their audacity, their humanity and humor are what make her images live on into our time. I believe these qualities were also some of the strengths she brought to her teaching — ‘shoot from the gut’ and so on,” Ann Thomas, senior curator of photography at the Canadian Photography Institute, who also wrote an extensive biography about Model, told In Sight.
Lisette Model, Coney Island Bather, New York (Reclining), 1939-41, Gelatin silver print.
Thomas curated a show of 71 photographs from the collection of 293 prints from the Canadian Photography Institute of the National Gallery of Canada, comprising Model’s early street photographs in Paris, emboldened portraits along the Promenade des Anglais, as well as her better-known images of Coney Island, Sammy’s Bar in New York and the Running Legs series. The exhibition, “Lisette Model: Photographs from the Canadian Photography Institute of the National Gallery of Canada,” is on view at the Boca Raton Museum of Art from April 24 through Oct. 21.
