Lisette Model

Opening Reception Friday 18 August at 5:30 pm

Vienna-born photographer Lisette Model’s bold and lively images of individuals and street life in Paris, New York and other cities profoundly affected a generation of photographers, including the notable American photographer Diane Arbus. This exhibition comprises fifty photographs, taken over a twenty-year period (from the 1930s to the 1950s) selected from the National Gallery of Canada’s collection of Model prints by their Curator of Photography Ann Thomas; it includes images from Paris, Nice (notably examples from her well-known Promenade des Anglais series), New York (including her famous “Coney Island bather”), San Francisco, and from the studio of painter Armando Reveron in Venezuela.

Special Lecture: Curator Ann Thomas will present a lecture titledLisette Model and Photography in the McCarthy Era on Thursday, 28 September at 8 pm. In this fascinating lecture, Dr. Thomas will trace the profound and debilitating effect of the McCarthy “witch-hunt” on the work of Model and her contemporaries.

Special Screening: the documentary film Off Limits (La rue zone interdite) by Gilbert Duclos (52 mins) will be presented onWednesday, 13 September at 12:30 pm and 8 pm. In 1988 the publication of a photograph of a young woman sitting on the sidewalk started a legal saga that reached the Supreme Court of Canada. The film follows the case and its consequences for documentary practice.