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[Opening Night, San Francisco Opera].

Creator

American Photographer · 1901–1983

Artist

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

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Date: 1949
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Culture: American
Department: Photographs
Institution: Getty Museum

Oblivious to the photographer, this well-appointed couple at the San Francisco Opera looks intently ahead, off to the left side of the photograph. Unidentified and relentlessly observed, they are reduced to types. The man's slender, angular, and youthful face is juxtaposed with the woman's older, fleshier countenance. His pert, upturned nose is no match for her long, formidable snout, while his crisp, white shirt and bow tie are a dramatic contrast to her dark, velvety folds. One white-gloved hand holds a cigarette aloft; the other clutches a beaded handbag. Lisette Model's camera with its harsh, flash lighting recorded every superb detail, from the goosebumps on her upper arm to the shadowy ear visible in the distance just below his chin.

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