In Photos: Lisette Model’s Street Photography

Fashion show at Hotel Pierre, New York, circa 1940-46

The Austrian-born photographer Lisette Model is credited with reinventing postwar documentary photography in the US with her shots of high society and everyday people.

Sammy’s, New York, circa 1940-44

Model came to photography via music, studying piano and compositional theory in Vienna under Schoenberg

International Refugee Organization auction, New York, 1948

She emigrated to Paris in the 1920s to pursue vocal studies, before giving up a career in music to focus on the visual arts