Education
Studied art and dance
Studied art and dance
Lisa Bernstone went to France to pursue a ballet career but shortly after her arrival in Paris she began modelling. Her early training in ballet could not be mistaken in the grace and poise for which she was famous. In 1935 she met and married Fernand Fonssagrives.
While in Paris in 1936, photographer Willy Maywald discovered her in an elevator and asked her to model hats for him. The photographs were then sent to Vogue, and Vogue photographer Horst took some test photographs of her. From her first test shots with Horst Fonssagrives had studied the nuances of modelling. Then, with a discipline and dramatic flair learned from years of dance, she would stand in front of the camera and, as she once said, “concentrate my energy until I could sense it radiate into the lens”. She called the art of photography “still dancing”.
She was photographed by George Hoyningen-Huene, Man Ray, Horst, Erwin Blumenfeld, George Platt Lynes, Richard Avedon and Edgar de Evia, not to mention both of her husbands, Fernand Fonssagrives and Irving Penn.
In 1939, when the war broke out, Lisa moved to the United States with her husband where she worked both as a model and as a photographer. She continued both careers after her divorce and subsequent marriage with another famous photographer, Irvin Penn, in 1950. By the time of her marriage to Penn, Lisa was already a successful model and working with the best in the business. She was popular with the photographers because not only did she know what to do, she also knew what not to do. Lisa Fonssagrives had a more down-to-earth attitude to her contributions as a model. She was quoted in a 1949 article in Time magazine saying: "It is always the dress, it is never, never the girl. I'm just a good clothes hanger." She was at the height of her career in 1949 when Time put her on its cover. Fonssagrives was by then known to women nationwide as the face that sold them everything from hair dye to haute couture.
After she stopped modelling in the mid-50s, she designed clothes for about six years, at one point doing a collection of leisure wear for Lord & Taylor. In the 1960s, she devoted her time to sculpturing, working in marble, bronze and fiberglass. She was represented by the Marlborough Gallery.