Background

Toni Frissell was born on March 10, 1907 in Manhattan, New York, United States to Lewis Fox Frissell and Antoinette Wood Montgomery.

Education

When Toni Frissell was younger, she was passionate about theater, but after two roles in Max Reinhardt productions, she realized it was not for her. In her early 20s, she started taking pictures in part because of her brother, Varick Frissell, a filmmaker and photographer who taught her the basics of photography.

Career

At the beginning of her career, Toni Frissell worked briefly for Vogue, making captions and writing a bit for the magazine. She was fired because of her poor spelling, but was encouraged by Vogue’s fashion editor Carmel Snow to take up photography. She took up photography to cope with the illness of her mother, the death of her brother Varick Frissell, and the end of her engagement to Count Serge Orloff-Davidoff. Her first published picture was in Town and Country. After this, she advocated for herself and got a contract with Vogue. She apprenticed with Cecil Beaton.

Toni Frissell worked with many other famous photographers of the day. Her first photography job, as a fashion photographer for Vogue in 1931, was due to Condé Montrose Nast. She later took photographs for Harper's Bazaar. Her fashion photos, even of evening gowns and such, were often notable for their outdoor settings, emphasizing active women. She was one of the first photographers to move outside of the studio for fashion photography, setting a trend in the field.

In 1941, Toni Frissell volunteered her photographic services to the American Red Cross. Later she worked for the Eighth Army Air Force and became the official photographer of the Women's Army Corps. On their behalf, she took thousands of images of nurses, front-line soldiers, WACs, African-American airmen, and orphaned children.

She traveled to the European front twice. Her first picture to be published in Life magazine was of bombed out London in 1942. Her moving photographs of military women and African American fighter pilots in the elite 332d Fighter Group (the "Tuskegee Airmen") were used to encourage public support for women and African Americans in the military.

During the War Toni Frissell produced a series of photographs of children that were used in an edition of Robert Louis Stevenson's much-published A child's garden of verses which were an early example of the successful use of photography in illustration of children's literature.

In the 1950s, Toni Frissell took informal portraits of the famous and powerful in the United States and Europe, including Winston Churchill, Eleanor Roosevelt, the Vanderbilts, architect Stanford White and John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy, and worked for Sports Illustrated and Life magazines. Throughout her photographic career, she worked at home and abroad for these large publications.

When she grew tired of fashion photography and fluctuating between contracts with Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, she continued her interest in active women and sports and was hired as the first woman on the staff of Sports Illustrated in 1953, and continued to be one of very few female sport photographers for several decades.

In later work Toni Frissell concentrated on photographing women from all walks of life, often as a commentary on the human condition. Her iconic 1944 photograph previously used for book illustration, My Shadow, of a boy with outstretched arms admiring his long shadow on the sea sand, was selected by Edward Steichen for the world-touring exhibition The Family of Man at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, that was seen by 9 million visitors. In 1957 the photograph was used for the cover of a popular psychology text. In 1963 an entire feature in Life magazine was devoted to photographs of "The Loving Embrace" from across her career.

In the early 1970s, Toni Frissell began to have trouble with her memory. To counteract this, she began to write a memoir, one that turned into almost a thousand-page manuscript. Her memoir recounts the times from her childhood to her later life, detailing her privileged upbringing, exploration of Europe, parties in her 20s, youth romances, and adoration for the richer way of life. This early fascination with the privileged life influenced the choice in subjects of her photographs, and the more privileged sports, such as skiing and golf, that she went on to photograph for Sports Illustrated.

Toni Frissell died of Alzheimer's disease on April 17, 1988, in a Long Island nursing home. Her husband, Francis M. Bacon 3rd, of Bacon, Stevenson & Company, predeceased her.

She was survived by her daughter Sidney, and her son Varick.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Sun Valley Idaho : A Portfolio of Photographs by Toni Frissell

    (Portfolio of photographs commissioned by the Union Pacifi...)

    1940
  • The King Ranch, 1939-1944: A photographic essay 1975
  • St. Paul's School: Pictorial Admissions Booklet 1969

• photography

  • Weeki Wachee, Florida

    (This image was later used as the cover for the album Unde...)

    1947

  • Frida Kahlo for Vogue

    1937

  • Portrait of Tuskegee airman Edward M. Thomas

    1945

  • Model in one piece swimsuit on beach

  • photography

    1941

  • Elizabeth Blair wearing a Bradley swimsuit

    1934

  • photography

  • photography

    1945

  • Woman in tennis outfit

    1947

  • photography

Personality

Toni Frissell had a passion for skiing.

Connections

Toni Frissell was married to Francis "Mac" Bacon on September 9, 1932, after a few months of the couple’s romance. Toni and her husband purchased a large, white house on Long Island at Saint James called "Sherrewogue" on the water of Stony Brook Harbor where the couple and their family lived for nearly 50 years.

Father:

Lewis Fox Frissell

Mother:

Antoinette Wood Montgomery

Spouse:

Francis M. Bacon III

Brother:

Phelps Montgomery Frissell

Grandfather:

Algernon Sydney Frissell

Great-grandаfather:

John S. Phelps

Brother:

Varick Frissell

Lewis Varick Frissell (1903 - March 15, 1931) was an American documentary filmmaker. His last film, The Viking, set in Newfoundland, involved the largest loss of life of the film production crew in film history. This film was also "the first film to record sound and dialogue on location".

Great-grandmother:

Mary Whitney Phelps

References

• Toni Frissell: Photographs 1933 - 1967 A collection of the work of the photojournalist who revolutionized fashion photography and was the first female staff photographer for Sports Illustrated.
  1994