Lisette Model, born Elise Amelie Felicie Stern in Vienna in 1901, studied with Arnold Schönberg before moving to Paris. She gave up music in 1933, and discovered photography through her sister Olga and her friend Rogi André, André Kertész's first wife. In 1938 she emigrated to New York, where she made her name as a photographer.
From Wikipedia:
Primarily known for the frank humanism of her street photography, exact details of Model's life remain unclear. What is known is that she was well known and respected in photographic communities during her life. She taught at the New School for Social Research in New York from 1951 up until her death in 1983 with many notable students, the most famous of which was Diane Arbus.
I think "frank humanism" here means, basically, that she took pictures of the odd and the ugly. Like her pupil Diane Arbus in fact. With a touch of Weegee.
Her best-known work consists of photographs she made with a 35-millimeter camera of people on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice and on the streets of New York's Lower East Side.
Promenade des Anglais, Nice, c. 1934.
French gambler, Promenade des Anglais, Nice, 1934.
Coney Island c. 1939.
Little man, Lower East Side, New York City 1939–42.
Singer at the Cafe Metropole, New York, 1946.
Sammy's, Bowery, New York, 1945.
Bowery, 1942.
Valeska Gert, New York, 1947.
The Camera is Cruel, a book on Model together with Diane Arbus and Nan Goldin, is just out.
Mick Hartley 
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