5 📷

Lisa Fonssagrives

Also known as: Lisa Birgitta Bernstone

Lisa Fonssagrives alias list

Lisa Birgitta Bernstone (birth name)

⭐ -/10 8 votes

★ Click To Rate

n/a

No rank yet

Times Favorited

Lisa Fonssagrives Biography

Personal

Died: Tuesday 4th of February 1992 (age 80)

Born: Wednesday 17th of May 1911

Birthplace: Västra Götaland County, Sweden

Nationality: (Swedish)

Ethnicity: Caucasian

Professions: Model, Photographer, Supermodel

Sexuality: Straight

Body

Hair color: Blonde

Height: 5'7" (or 170 cm)

Body type: Slim

About Lisa Fonssagrives

While in Paris in 1936, the photographer Willy Maywald saw her in an elevator and asked her to model hats for him.[8] The photographs were then sent to Vogue, and the photographer Horst P. Horst took some test photographs of her. In July 1939, she appeared in the German illustrated weekly Der Stern and was photographed also by André Steiner.

Before Fonssagrives came to the United States in 1939, she was already a top model. Her image appeared on the cover of many magazines during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s including Town & Country, Life, Time, Vogue, and the original Vanity Fair. She was reported to be "the highest paid, highest praised, high fashion model in the business".

Fonssagrives worked with many noted fashion photographers, including George Hoyningen-Huene, Man Ray, Erwin Blumenfeld, George Platt Lynes, Richard Avedon, and Edgar de Evia. She married Parisian photographer Fernand Fonssagrives in 1935; they divorced in 1949. She married American photographer Irving Penn in 1950 and became his muse.

After her modeling career ended, she designed a leisurewear clothing line for Lord & Taylor. She went on to become a sculptor in the 1960s and was represented by the Marlborough Gallery in Manhattan.