Toni Frissell

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Toni Frissell, 1942
Underwater photograph at the source of the Weeki Wachee, Florida, USA, 1947
Portrait of US pilot Edward M. Thomas, March 1945
Jackie Kennedy at their wedding, 1953

Toni Frissell (born March 10, 1907 in Manhattan , New York City , † April 17, 1988 in Long Island ; actually: Antoinette Frissell Bacon ) was an American photographer . She is best known for her photos for magazines such as Vogue , Harper's Bazaar and Life and Sports Illustrated , but also for the images she photographed for the US military during WWII . She was the first photographer for Sports Illustrated.

Life

Antoinette Frissell was born in 1907 as the youngest of three children to doctor Lewis Fox Frissell and Antoinette Wood Montgomery. She was a great-granddaughter of the politician John S. Phelps and the granddaughter of Algernon Sydney Frissell, the founder of Fifth Avenue Bank .

In 1931 she was given a job by the then owner Condé Montrose Nast (1873-1942) as the author of descriptive texts for the fashion magazine Vogue. However, since she had difficulty spelling, she quickly lost the job. Carmel Snow (1887–1961), a fashion editor for the magazine, gave her a second chance as a photographer. Although Frissell had never studied photography, he learned a lot about photography from her brother, Varick Frissell (1903–1931), a filmmaker, and the two photographers Cecil Beaton and Edward Steichen . Her fashion photos caused a sensation as she also took pictures with evening wear outdoors instead of taking the photos in a studio, as was common at the time. Her fashion photography appeared on Vogue until 1942, after which she moved to Harper's Bazaar.

During the Second World War, she volunteered as a photographer for the American Red Cross in 1941 . She later also worked for the 8th Air Fleet and became an official photographer for the Women's Army Corps . As part of this activity, she was also twice on the European front. Her photos of women soldiers and African American pilots were used in a campaign by Franklin D. Roosevelt to improve the negative image of women in uniform and blacks in the military.

Their frequent absence in the service of the military and various magazines led to family friction. Frissell was married to the stockbroker Francis McNeil Bacon (1899-1982) and had a daughter, Sidney Bacon Stafford, and a son, Varick Bacon, who, however, were largely raised by nannies. Her father eventually got Toni Frissell to spend more time at home in the 1940s. During this time, several children's books were created which she illustrated.

In 1953 Toni Frissell was the official photographer of the wedding of Jacqueline Bouvier and John F. Kennedy .

In the early 1970s, Toni Frissell fell ill with Alzheimer's . She then donated all of her pictures, a collection of around 300,000 pictures, to the Library of Congress , and began working on a biography. She finally died on April 17, 1988 at the age of 81 in a nursing home in St. James, Long Island.

Works

  • Robert Louis Stevenson (Author), Toni Frissell (Illustrator): A child's garden of verses. US Camera Publishing Corporation, New York 1944.
  • Sally Lee Woodall (Author), Toni Frissell (Illustrator): Bermuda: The Happy Island. US Camera Publishing Corporation, New York 1946.
  • Toni Frissell's Mother Goose. Harper & Brothers, New York 1948.
  • Frank Goodwyn (Author), Toni Frissell (Illustrator): Life on the King Ranch. 1965. ISBN 978-0890965696

literature

  • George Plimpton, Sidney Stafford Frissell: Toni Frissell. Photographs 1933-1967. Doubleday, 1994. ISBN 978-0385471886

Web links

Commons : Toni Frissell  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b New York Times Photographer 'Plucked From Oblivion'
  2. ↑ ancestry.com: Entry on Antoinette Wood Frissell
  3. ^ Library of Congress: Women come to the front
personal data
SURNAME Frissell, Toni
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Frissell Bacon, Antoinette; Frissell, Antoinette Wood
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American photographer
DATE OF BIRTH March 10, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Manhattan
DATE OF DEATH April 17, 1988
Place of death long Island