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Lot Essay
Lisette Model is at the same time one of the most influential and underrated artists in the last one hundred years of art history. Model was not only an artist, but a teacher, who influenced a number of photographers from the next generation, most notably, Diane Arbus.
As Ann Thomas points out in her catalogue for the Model retrospective at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa in 1990, pp. 146-47
'If Model's photographs exerted a powerful influence over a generation of photographers, Diane Arbus's photographs, which took a major element of Model's vision and pushed it to a logical conclusion, have probably had an even greater influence. ... Model and Arbus shared a similar stance;... They were each attracted to the risks that people took, and to the conquest of their own fears.'
Legendary art director Alexey Brodovitch said about Model that her 'particular genius was in photographing the bizarre quality of human beings and finding beauty in the grotesque. If she were asked to photograph a boy and a girl kissing she would be a complete failure but when photographing fat ladies on the beach she was wonderful. This is her style.' "Brodovitch on Photography," Popular Photography, December 1961, n.p.
Coney Island Bather, New York is considered to be one of Model's most important and influential images, and has been widely reproduced. Large format vintage prints of Model's work, such as the present lot, are exceedingly rare, and infrequently available for public sale.
As Ann Thomas points out in her catalogue for the Model retrospective at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa in 1990, pp. 146-47
'If Model's photographs exerted a powerful influence over a generation of photographers, Diane Arbus's photographs, which took a major element of Model's vision and pushed it to a logical conclusion, have probably had an even greater influence. ... Model and Arbus shared a similar stance;... They were each attracted to the risks that people took, and to the conquest of their own fears.'
Legendary art director Alexey Brodovitch said about Model that her 'particular genius was in photographing the bizarre quality of human beings and finding beauty in the grotesque. If she were asked to photograph a boy and a girl kissing she would be a complete failure but when photographing fat ladies on the beach she was wonderful. This is her style.' "Brodovitch on Photography," Popular Photography, December 1961, n.p.
Coney Island Bather, New York is considered to be one of Model's most important and influential images, and has been widely reproduced. Large format vintage prints of Model's work, such as the present lot, are exceedingly rare, and infrequently available for public sale.