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The Arts Intel Report

Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn: Fashion Icon

Irving Penn, Lisa Fonssagrives, Hamlet Hairstyle, 1949.

Feb 28 – May 26, 2024
5/7 Rue de Fourcy, 75004 Paris, France

Lisa Fonssagrives didn’t begin modeling until 1936, when she traveled from Sweden to Paris for a ballet competition. In the French capital, the photographer Willy Maywald caught sight of her in an elevator and asked if she would model hats for him. The pictures landed on Vogue’s doorstep, and soon enough Horst P. Horst was testing her. At the time, she was married to the photographer Fernand Fonssagrives; she would continue to sit for him as well as for George Hoyningen-Huene, George Platt Lynes, and Erwin Blumenfeld, who photographed her hanging from the Eiffel Tower. Irving Penn became her second husband, in 1950, and the pair collaborated on his greatest photographs. This exhibition celebrates Fonssagrives, the 20th century’s first supermodel. —Elena Clavarino

Photo courtesy of the Tom Penn Archive/© Condé Nast