Writings by Elisabeth Model

Elisabeth (Lise) Model was born in Bayreuth into a family of artists in 1897, daughter of Isidor Dittmann (1854-1929) and Therese Dittmann (née Fleischer; 1865-1943). Isidor Dittmann owned a haberdashery. Elisabeth Model had four siblings: Alfred, Amalie, Julius, and her twin sister Julia (Meyer). In the 1920s, a common friend introduced her to Hermann Hesse, and they subsequently became friends.

Elisabeth studied sculpture in Munich under Professor Thor; in Paris under Moissi Kogan, and at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam under Professor Jurgens. She became a painter and a sculptor in her own right. While studying in Munich, she met her future husband Max Model, born February 3, 1895. Max was a banker for the Dresdner bank in Frankfurt and Mannheim. Elisabeth and Max Model got married on September 5, 1922, and they moved to Amsterdam, where they became Dutch citizens. They had two sons Wolfgang (Wolfe), born September 16, 1927, and Franz Peter Isidor Artur, born April 2, 1930, in Amsterdam.

Elisabeth, their two sons, and her sister Mali arrived in New York on June 21, 1941. Elisabeth’s mother, Therese, died in the Dutch Westerbork camp on June 22, 1942, and the children of Elisabeth’s brother, Heinz and Marion Dittmann, age 17 and 15 respectively, were sent to a labor camp and did not survive. Max Model died September 11, 1950. Elisabeth Model died November 12, 1993, New York, N.Y.