![[Fifth Avenue, New York]](/api/proxy-image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.getty.edu%2Fiiif%2Fimage%2Fc834b875-b6da-48b8-b8b6-0b252fbb69d8%2Ffull%2F808%2C%2F0%2Fdefault.jpg)
Getty Museum
[Fifth Avenue, New York]
Creator
Lisette ModelAmerican Photographer · 1901–1983
All works by this person →Lisette Model began her creative life as a student of music. Through avant-garde composer Arnold Schönberg, with whom she studied piano, she became exposed to the Expressionist painters of early twentieth-century Vienna. She never formally studied photography but took it up in the 1930s while living in Paris. An early piece of advice received from a colleague--"Never photograph anything you are no
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- about 1945
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Culture
- American
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
- Object ID
- 7dd61012-a8c9-429f-99dd-2537b7fd3192
Lisette Model's photographs of wealthy men and women are frequently unflattering and often brutal indictments of the pernicious excesses of privilege. This portrait of an unidentified woman walking down the street in New York is no exception. Her scowling face stands in glaring contrast to the finery of her garments, which seem to indicate a life of comfort and ease. Yet there is anything but ease in the exchange between the subject and the photographer who stood directly in front of her, almost blocking her on the street. As a sobering metaphor for the social ills of the nation, the image's close-up, unrelenting framing presents a visual paradox that describes and measures class and cultural distinctions.
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