Lisette Model e la sua scuola. Fotografie 1937 - 2002

It was said of Lisette Model that she used her whole body to take a photograph. Although her career began by chance, she helped make the history of photography and the passion and charisma she brought to her craft influenced generations of equally prominent photographers such as Diane Arbus, Peter Hujar, Bruce Weber and Eva Rubinstein to name but a few. The “Lisette Model and school. Photographs from 1937 – 2002” travelling exhibition, that has its Italian preview in the Museum of Rome in Trastevere features the work of this talented artist and her successors.

Lisette Model (1901–1983) was thirty when she first started to explore the world of photography, adopting a very personal and ironic style from the word go, capturing life first in France and later, in the second half of the 20th century, in America, from the public beaches on Coney Island, to New York's jazz clubs and from the idle rich who frequented Fifth Avenue to the simplicity of popular neighbourhood haunts. Her photos were unusual and perspicacious and yet at times they were almost so grotesque they were almost caricatures.
Her ability to “portray people at their most intimate”, as another great 20th century photographer, Berenice Abbott once wrote of her is what connects her so strongly to her successors. And, for that reason, in addition to 21 of Model's own photographs, there are more than 100 others taken by fellow artists that she inspired: Diane Arbus, Bruce Cratsley, Elaine Ellman, Larry Fink, Peter Hujar, Raymond Jacobs, Ruth Kaplan, Leon Levinstein, Eva Rubinstein, Gary Schneider, Rosalind Solomon and Bruce Weber.

Diane Arbus is without a doubt the most famous of her pupils. Her portraits of ordinary people and those considered outsiders remain impressed in the minds of those who see them because of the way they are so exaggeratedly realistic. The photographs of Bruce Cratsley, on the other hand, reveal his intensely inward approach to his art. Lisette Model also exercised a strong influence on Elaine Ellmen who owes her success to her ability to combine creativity and intuition in the same measure. Larry Fink, who was Model's pupil from 1958 – 1962, has 22 photographs in the exhibition, all intense portrayals of moments normally hidden from others. Peter Hujar's 8 photographs, by contrast, exude a tremendous sense of loneliness and fragile mortality. When Lisette Model saw Raymond Jacobs' photographs for the first time, she said, “You are a photographer. You must become a photographer”. His are the the two photographs of Louis Armstrong alongside ordinary people included in the display.

Several of Ruth Kaplan's most famous works, depicting the hedonistic, decadent and sensual atmosphere of the public baths can also been seen, fine examples of her talent for revealing people's true characters as expressed through their bodies. Leon Levinstein's work is also well represented. He is one of the greatest street photographers of all, capturing faces, shadows, legs in what are ephemeral moments that do not contain a shred of sentimentality, following Model's teaching to the letter. Eva Rubenstein however, whose interest lay in an itinerant life-style, preferred taking photographs of people and empty spaces. She started out as a ballerina and actress which is perhaps why she believed that each photograph she took was one of herself as seen through the eyes of others.

Gary Schneider's preference was for semi-naked bodies that demonstrated his interest in the link between science and art and that reached its peak with his “Genetic Self-Portrait” collection. 17 photographs by Rosalind Solomon also feature.. Her time with Lisette Model allowed her to refine her poetic side so that rather than document reality she was able to overcome the conventions and align beauty with great ugliness. The final 4 photographs of the exhibition are by Bruce Weber, known, perhaps unwittingly, to the public at large for his publicity campaigns for Versace, Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren, and whose undoubted success is due to his talent for combining a classical style with a visceral and sensual attitude.

As host of the “Lisette Model and School. Photographs from 1937 – 2002”, the Museum of Rome in Trastevere reconfirms its interest in the world of photography, and gives Italians the opportunity to admire the work of some of the greatest photographers of 20th century New York under one roof.