yesterday's muse #9 - lisa fonssagrives-penn

Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn is yet another muse who is famed as 'the first super model'. born in Sweden in 1911, Lisa moved to Paris to train as a ballerina and there began a modelling career that would span the 30s to the 50s. in 1935, Lisa Bernstone, as she was then called, married Parisian photographer Fernand Fonssagrives, whom she later divorced. in 1950, she married another photographer, Irving Penn, and was the subject of much of his work.

Lisa posed for the most famous photographers of her age. in the late 1940's, when most models were paid $10-$25 an hour, Lisa was earning $40 an hour. and though most models' careers ended before their 30th birthdays, Lisa continued to model into her 40s.



Lisa kept a down-to-earth attitude throughout her career as a model. in a 1949 article in Time magazine, she was quoted as saying: "It is always the dress, it is never, never the girl. I'm just a good clothes hanger."
in the mid-50's, Lisa traded modelling for fashion design, which she did for about 6 six years. in the 1960's, she devoted her time to sculpture, working in marble, bronze and fiberglass. Lisa's two children are sculptor's and artists in their own right.


Fonssagrive-Penn lived to be 80 years old. in February of 1992, she died in the hospital of pneumonia.