Join us at ICP for a conversation with Audrey Sands, the Richard L. Menschel Associate Curator of Photography at the Harvard Art Museums, around the release of her latest publication, Lisette Model: The Jazz Pictures. (Eakins Press Foundation, $65.00) Sands will be joined in conversation by Sara Ickow, Associate Director of Exhibitions at ICP, followed by a signing in the ICP Shop.
This program is being offered both in person at ICP, located on NYC's Lower East Side, and online. Tickets to attend the conversation in person are $5 and include access to ICP’s galleries.
About the Book
Dizzy Gillespie, New York Jazz Festival, Randall’s Island Stadium, New York City, August 24-25, 1956 © Lisette Model Foundation, courtesy of Eakins Press Foundation/National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution,
Ella Fitzgerald, Newport Jazz Festival, Newport, Rhode Island, July 5-7, 1956 © Lisette Model Foundation, courtesy of Eakins Press Foundation/National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Street photographer Lisette Model spent more than 10 years documenting Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Percy Heath, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and countless other luminaries of America's jazz scene. From the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival to nightclub shows and raucous afterparties in cramped apartments, Model's images are effusive and full of empathy, celebrating jazz at a time when the genre was under increasing political and cultural scrutiny.
During the 1950s, the New York Photo League was investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee for purported connections to the Communist Party. Model was interviewed by the FBI and eventually placed on its National Security Watchlist. This mounting political pressure led publishers and funders to rescind support of Model, and ultimately caused her to shelve the book dedicated to her jazz pictures, which was to feature an essay by Langston Hughes.
Now, this clothbound book finally realizes Model's self-censored project, providing a fresh look at familiar faces who today signify the fight for freedom, equality and creative expression. Alongside Hughes' original essay, texts by author Audrey Sands and saxophonist Loren Schoenberg underscore the importance of this series and the revelatory insight it shines on jazz music, both onstage and off.
Lisette Model (1901–83) was born in Vienna. She moved to Manhattan in 1938 and two years later Model hosted her first solo exhibition with the New York Photo League. Following the group's dismantlement by the FBI, Model transitioned to teaching. Her most notable pupils included Diane Arbus, Helen Gee and John Gossage.
Distributed by Artbook | DAP.
About the Speakers
Audrey Sands is the Richard L. Menschel Associate Curator of Photography at the Harvard Art Museums. She has previously held curatorial positions at the National Gallery of Art and the Center for Creative Photography, and she holds a Ph.D. in Art History from Yale University. She specializes in twentieth-century photography in the United States, with a focus on political conditions, pedagogy, avant-garde practices, and image circulation. Sands has published extensively on the artist Lisette Model. Her exhibitions include Farewell Photography: The Hitachi Collection of Postwar Japanese Photographs, 1961–1989 (2022) and Freedom Must Be Lived: Marion Palfi’s America, 1940–1978 (2021).
Sara Ickow is the Associate Direcotor of Exhibitions and Collections at the International Center of Photography and manages exhibitions and special projects for Women Photograph. Previously, she worked as a curatorial assistant and collections manager with the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. She holds an MA in art history from NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts.
Header Image, Joe Williams, New York Jazz Festival, Randall’s Island Stadium, New York City, August 23-24, 1957 © Lisette Model Foundation, courtesy of Eakins Press Foundation/Lisette Model fonds, National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives [scanned from negative]
