During the 1940s and 1950s, the decades of her greatest visibility, Model established a signature of gritty, off-kilter urban imagery that marked many artists of the subsequent generation, from Garry Winogrand to her own student Diane Arbus.
Lisette Model (née Seybert, 1901-1983) turned abruptly to photography in 1933, after studying piano and voice in her native Vienna and later in France. Escaping the war, Model relocated from Paris to New York in 1938 and began a freelance career in magazine photography, as well as a complementary trajectory of exhibitions, principally at the Museum of Modern Art. During the 1940s and 1950s, the decades of her greatest visibility, Model established a signature of gritty, off-kilter urban imagery that marked many artists of the subsequent generation, from Garry Winogrand to her own student Diane Arbus.