Lisa Fonssagrives (May 17, 1911 – February 4, 1992), born Lisa Birgitta Anderson. She was born in Uddevalla, Sweden. Her father, a dentist who also painted, changed the family name from Anderson, which he considered too commonplace, to Bernstone. Her mother made clothes and encouraged Lisa to study art and ballet. She was a supermodel, dancer, fashion designer, photographer and sculptor. She was described as ‘the highest paid, highest praised, high fashion model in the business’. Lisa Fonssagrives has been known as the first great supermodel. No model has surpassed her number of Vogue magazine covers. She appeared on over 200 Vogue covers. But her image appeared on the cover of many magazines during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s from Town & Country, Life and the original Vanity Fair. Her background in ballet was evident in the grace and poise for which she became famous as a model. Lisa Fonssagrives had amazing bones. Trained as a dancer, she knew how to move. She even moved from Sweden to Paris in the 1930s to train for ballet, but her 5 ft. 7 made her too tall for ballet. She became a model by accident. A photographer asked her to pose for him and the results were history. Although she described herself as simply a “good clothes hanger”, she became one of the most highly sought-after models in both Paris and New York. She married Parisian photographer Fernand Fonssagrives in 1935 but they divorced. She later married the renowned fashion photographer Irving Penn in 1950. She was an inspiration for many fashion photographers of her time. Dressed in exquisite gowns; long, sexy gloves and truly spectacular hats, Lisa posed for George Hoyningen-Huene, Man Ray, Horst, Erwin Blumenfeld, George Platt-Lynes, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Norman Parkinson, Richard Avedon and Irving Penn. Some photographers, best represented by Horst, use Fonssagrives as a key element in formal compositions. Others, notably Louise Dahl-Wolfe and Frances McLaughlin-Gill, portray her as an active woman in less studied environments. Erwin Blumenfeld exploits her dancer’s strength and agility by photographing her leaning out from the Eiffel Tower, her skirts billowing in the wind. Penn, her second husband, claimed she was his favorite subject; that she knew exactly what to do for the camera but, most importantly, she knew exactly what not to do. She had a cool easiness to her modeling, she was almost surreal. Asked how she maintained her figure and 17-inch waistline, 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. She was always eating something, but never anything much. She always carried a cloth tape measure which she handed to any who doubted this implausible measurement. Lisa Fonssagrives died at the age of 81, in 1992, survived by her second husband, Irving Penn and her two children, daughter, Mia Fonssagrives-Solow, a costume designer and her son, Tom Penn, a designer.