Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn : Icône De La Mode - Fashion Icon

Exhibition at the MEP, Paris, 28 February - 26 May 2024

Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn (1911-1992) was a dancer, photographer, stylist and sculptor, but above all one of the most emblematic models in the world of twentieth-century fashion. She worked with some of the greatest fashion photographers of her era from 1935 to 1955: Richard Avedon, Erwin Blumenfeld, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Fernand Fonssagrives, Toni Frissel, Horst P. Horst, for whom she was the favourite model, George Hoyningen-Huene, Frances Mclaughlin-Gill, Irving Penn, Georges Platt-Lynes, John Rowlings, and others. Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn was the first model to appear on the cover of Time magazine in September 1949. Wife of Irving Penn from 1950 until his death in 1992, she was, according to Alexander Liberman, artistic director of Vogue magazine, the subject of his greatest photographs.

This exhibition catalogue brings together around 150 original vintage prints from Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn's personal collection. Some of these images were published in Vogue France, Vogue US or Harper's Bazaar, and many are previously unpublished, including a large number of photos of Fernand Fonssagrives, her first husband, and more private portraits taken by Irving Penn.