Toni Frisell

Antoinette Frissell was born in 1907 in Manhattan, but took photos under the name Toni Frissell, even after her marriage to Manhattan socialite Francis M. Bacon. She worked with many famous photographers of the day, as an apprentice to Cecil Beaton, and with advice from Edward Steichen. Her initial job, as a fashion photographer for Vogue in 1931, was due to Condé Montrose Nast personally. She later took photographs for Harper's Bazaar. Her fashion photos, even of evening gowns and such, were often notable for their outdoor settings, emphasizing active women.

Though she is remembered today for her high-fashion photography for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, Frissell volunteered her photographic services to the American Red Cross, Women's Army Corps, and Eighth Army Air Force during WWII. On their behalf, she produced thousands of images of nurses, front-line soldiers, WACs, African-American airmen, and orphaned children.

Frissell's leap from fashion photography into war reportage echoed the desires of earlier generations of newswomen to move from "soft news" of fashion and society pages into the "hard news" of the front page. On volunteering for the American Red Cross in 1941, Frissell said:

"I became so frustrated with fashions that I wanted to prove to myself that I could do a real reporting job."

Using her connections with high-profile society matrons, Frissell aggressively pursued wartime assignments at home and abroad, often over her family's objections.

Frissell's work usually involved creating images to support the publicity objectives of her subjects. Her photographs of WACs in training and under review by President Franklin Roosevelt fit into a media campaign devised to counter negative public perception of women in uniform. Likewise, Frissell's images of the African American fighter pilots of the elite 332nd Fighter Group were intended to encourage positive public attitudes about the fitness of blacks to handle demanding military jobs.

In the 1950's, she took informal portraits of the famous and powerful in the United States and Europe, including Winston Churchill, Eleanor Roosevelt, and John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy, and worked for Sports Illustrated and Life magazines. Continuing her interest in active women and sports, she was the first woman on the staff of Sports Illustrated in 1953, and continued to be one of very few female sport photographers for several decades.

In later work she concentrated on photographing women from all walks of life, often as a commentary on the human condition.


Opinion

Frisell is very much a pioneer for the women of today. If she had not insisted upon moving outside the realm of fashion there would probably be fewer female photographers.

Due to her unique experience in the fashion industry she had a different way of seeing the world. This veiwpoint allowed the artist to create images with meaning on more than one front. Images of nurses, front-line soldiers, WACs, and African-American airmen helped paint positive images of the people representing the United States while reinforcing minority rights. At the same time, images of orphaned children shared the cost of the war to the people farthest from the battle field painting a reason for the country to keep fighting (to make tomorrow better for the children and their children).