Lisa Fonssagrives (May 17, 1911 – February 4, 1992), born Lisa Anderson in Sweden, was a supermodel, dancer, fashion designer, photographer and sculptor. She brought qualities from each of these talents to her modeling creating a persona at once earthly and larger than life.

Biography

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Many people consider Fonssagrives to be the first supermodel, and no model has surpassed her number of Vogue covers. The relationship between her image on these Vogue covers and her name recognition led to the future importance of the magazine in shaping future supermodels. As shown on the cover to the right, Fonssagrives at the height of her career could be both sophisticated and yet a cook which every American woman could identify. Her image appeared on cover of every fashion magazine during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s from Town & Country, Life and Vogue to the original Vanity Fair, but little is known about this Swedish beauty's early life. Fonssagrives' early training in ballet added to her evident grace and poise. Photographers George Hoyningen-Huene, Man Ray, Horst, Erwin Blumenfeld, George Platt Lynes, Richard Avedon, and Edgar de Evia, and both of her husbands, Fernand Fonssagrives and Irving Penn, photographed Fonssagrives during her modeling career.

Fonssagrives once described herself as simply a "good clothes hanger," but she was so much more. She was "the highest paid, highest praised, high fashion model in the business". She moved from Sweden to Paris to train for ballet and she would say that modeling was simply "still-dancing". She was both muse and inspiration to the cream of fashion photographers, with her 17-inch waistline. Married first to Parisian photographer Fernand Fonssagrives in 1935, they divorced and in 1950 she married Irving Penn. Asked how she maintained her figure, she always insisted on the importance of eating in small quantities. She would at times consume as many as ten tiny meals a day. To her a tiny meal might mean only six grapes, a single slice of cheese, one cracker and half a glass of wine. Always eating, but never anything much, was her motto.

She went on to become a sculptor and was represented by the Marlborough Gallery in Manhattan.

The Elton John photo auction held by Christies on October 15, 2004 sold a 1950 Irving Penn photograph of his wife for $57,360.

She died at the age of 81, survived by her second husband Irving Penn, her daughter Mia Fonssagrives-Solow, who is a costume designer, and her first husband, photographer Ferdinand Fonssagrives.

Bibliography

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• Gross, Michael: Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women, New York: W. Morrow, 1995, ISBN 0688126596
• Seidner, David (ed): Lisa Fonssagrives: Three Decades of Classic Fashion Photography, New York: Vendome Press, 1996, ISBN 0865659788

1911 births | 1992 deaths | Swedish models | Ballerinas | Fashion design