Renegade: Photography in the Life of Lisette Model

Arriving in New York in 1938, the Austrian photographer, Lisette Model, met with stunning success as her photographs graced the pages of renowned magazines and were soon exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art. Her mesmerising portrayal of ordinary Americans, captured in bars and nightclubs, or on the beach and in the streets, revolutionised the world of photography. Yet by 1950, Model had all but ceased to circulate her images, devoting herself instead to teaching a new generation of photographers. She gained the reputation, scandalous in business-like New York, of being 'difficult'. In a new interpretation of Model's photography, Duncan Forbes asks whether the artist's apparent obdurateness is not in fact the key to understanding her remarkable life and work.