Text and Colour Photographs : José Manuel Serrano Esparza
March 3, 2022. It´s 5 o´clock in the afternoon and a number of people are already inside the Hall Cub of Alicante University Museum.
They have arrived to attend live the lecture and photographic exhibition that
sponsored by the Alicante University
and the DORCAM Museum of Contemporary Art of Doral, Miami (a fundamental entity in the birth of this event, thanks to the efforts of its director Marcelo Llobell and the Vicepresident of its Board of Trustees Flor Mayoral, in synergy with Leónidas Spinelli, Director of Photoalicante) will be imparted by the acclaimed Austro-American photographer Lisl Steiner (who has come from New York), and whose beginning is scheduled for 18:00 pm within the Hall Cub of the Alicante Museum University.
Minutes go by slowly, because everybody wants Lisl Steiner to arrive as soon as posible.
People keep on steadily arriving and it´s no wonder, since her visit can bluntly be defined as a real treat, because she is one of the most important and influential women photographers in history, with an almost 68 years career as a photojournalist that she started in 1955 and throughout which she worked for such prestigious magazines like Life magazine, The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, Keystone Press Agency, O Cruzeiro and others, having photographed a raft of personalities from the scope of arts, music, politics, sport, cinema and so forth, like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Oscar Niemayer, Martin Luther King, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Louis Armstrong, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Ray Bradbury, Pelé, Robert Kennedy, Duke Ellington, Ingrid Bergman, Miles Davis, Leonard Bernstein, Cornell Capa, Carmen Amaya, Adlai Stevenson, Richard Nixon, Franz Beckenbauer, Rod Steiger, Pau Casals, Pablo Neruda, Nat King Cole, Sir Thomas Beecham, Dwight Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, Henry Kissinger, Andy Warhol, Erich Leinsdorf, Fidel Castro, Ronald Reagan, B.B.King, Norman Mailer, Jorge Luis Borges, Claire Yaffa, Friedrich Gulda and many more, in addition to having worked in TV productions for networks like NBC and PBS.
On the other hand, Lisl Steiner´s images have been displayed all over the world in museums and galleries like the Leica Gallery in New York, Westlicht Vienna, the Hall of the Cultural Austrian Forum in Bratislava, the Concrete Space Gallery of the Art Industry Movement in Miami, Faber Fotogalerie Vienna, etc.
But this time, what Lisl Steiner is going to offer to every attendee are not images of celebrities from sixties, seventies and eighties, but a lecture titled " The Intuitive Lens of Lisl Steiner ", after which she will inaugurate the photographic exhibition with more than forty images from her iconic photographic project " The Children of the Americas ", made between 1959 and seventies.
Coming from the Meliá Hotel in Alicante, Lisl Steiner, accompanied by Marcelo Llobell, Flor Mayoral and Carsten Loene, has just arrived at the surroundings of the Alicante University Museum, being pushed on her wheelchair by the latter.
Carsten Loene and Lisl Steiner begin going down the access ramp to the main entrance of the Alicante Museum University, beside which Leónidas Spinelli (Director of Photoalicante) is waiting for them, while Clemens Kneringer films the scene.
Lisl Steiner, Carsten Loene, Clemens Kneringer and Leónidas Spinelli (followed by Marcelo Llobell and Flor Mayoral, out of image) head towards the access door area of the Cub Hall of the Alicante University Museum, where both the lecture and the premiere of the aforementioned photographic exhibition are going to be held.
Clemens Kneringer records Lisl Steiner and Carsten Loene while they cross the main access door to the museum, followed by Flor Mayoral and Marcelo Llobell, while more and more visitors go on arriving to watch the event on the spot.
Lisl Steiner and Carsten Loene continue walking towards the University of Alicante Cub Hall access door, followed by Marcelo Llobell and Flor Mayoral.
Lisl Steiner, Marcelo Llobell (Director of the DORCAM Contemporary Art Museum in Doral, Miami) and Flor Mayoral (Vicepresident of the DORCAM Board of Trustees, Miami University Medicine Ph.D and a recognized photographer) are welcomed by Catalina Iliescu, Culture Vice Chancellor of Alicante University.
After advancing some more meters, Lisl Steiner goes into the facilities of the Alicante University Museum, followed by Marcelo Llobell and Flor Mayoral, being welcomed by Leónidas Spinelli (Director of PhotoAlicante and Curator of " The Intuitive Lens of Lisl Steiner " photographic exhibition " along with Marcelo Llobell).
A HISTORICAL LECTURE
Once Lisl Steiner is on her seat at the speakers´ table and with an utterly overcrowded hall, it´s time for the presentation speeches of Lisl Steiner by Catalina Iliescu and Leónidas Spinelli, sitting by her.
And it is now when the emotional intensity begins to skyrocket by leaps and bounds inside the Cub Hall of the Alicante University Museum,
with Lisl Steiner apparently touched and very thankful for the love she is being given by the host of attendees to the event, a heartelt endearment that will reach its high peaks within some minutes.
Because this has only just begun.
Catalina Iliescu pronounces a highly sensitive speech in which after sincerely thanking Lisl Steiner, Marcelo Llobell and Flor mayoral for having travelled from United States to Alicante, she focuses on Lisl Steiner´s gift as a photographer and her stratospheric stature as a human being, summing up the main milestones of her extensive biography (during which she photographed the most important international figures of arts, sports and politics, travelling all over the world) and the top-notch illustrated magazines in whose pages she published her pictures.
But the Alicante University Vice Chancellor´s words particularly elaborate on Lisl Steiner´s fascinating personality, her elegance and class, her well-known humbleness and the simplicity of her style getting pictures, greatly based on being at the adequate place and instant, approaching as much as possible to subjects and pressing the shutter release button of her camera at the best moment to capture decisive split seconds, a biotope of constant fight in the shortest distances to attain the best feasible photographs.
Catalina Iliescu explains that Lisl Steiner is not a photographer excelling in the technical perfection of her images, since in the realm of photojournalism the important thing is to get pictures oozing meaning, conveying messages and moving any observer.
And regarding such field, Lisl Steiner is a full-fledged master, featuring great experience, psychological insight and an unutterable ability to empathize with the persons she photographs, always in an unobtrusive and respectful way, trying to go unnoticed during the photographic act.
Therefore, Lisl Steiner´s pictures exude humanity and depiction of fleeting instants that she turned into timeless once and again.
Whatever it may be, Catalina Iliescu makes a point of expressing her conviction that it is in the sphere of children photography where Lisl Steiner reveals most powefully her true unselfish and generous nature as a human being, because she is a woman who always rose up against poverty, misery and social inequalities, specially suffered during childhood, the period in which people are more vulnerable and are acquiring their psychosomatic and personality traits that will mark their future.
All of it within the frame of a very personal photographing style, grounded on intuition, improvisation, not thinking too much, simply observing the situation and doing the things as you feel them to capture the most defining instants.
Alicante University Vice Chancellor is thrilled and has thoroughly prepared her speech. Almost thirty years after meeting Mario Benedeti for the first time during nineties, she is fully aware that today is a further turning point in her life, because Lisl Steiner is also an exceptional human being giving a life lesson every time she pronounces or writes a word.
Catalina Iliescu continues, visibly moved, and remembers how when being a child she saw her father in Romania delve into the black and white photography alchemy, developing his films and hanging the negatives from the clothes ropes for them to dry.
It is now when on arriving the turn of the welcoming speech to Lisl Steiner by the Photo Alicante Director, something unexpected happens, making every attendee understand, even more, the huge significance of Lisl Steiner visit to Alicante.
Leónidas Spinelli, great architect in the genesis of PhotoAlicante, Miguel Hernández University of Elche (Alicante) Art Ph.D with an extraordinary doctoral thesis in 2013 titled " The Noise and the Fury " : Photography as a Discursive, Aesthetic and Ideological Model in the Marginal Young Environments " , can´t speak because of an overwhelming emotion.
A great enthusiast of photography, in which he started in 1998 in the Argentinian School of Photography and Photojournalism in TEA (Attelier, School, Buenos Aires Agency) and a freelance photojournalist during subsequent years, he began his studies in Arts after settling in Spain in 2001, being able to develop his great teaching ability and his zeal for art and the different audiovisual media. He likewise knows that today is a very special day, since Lisl Steiner´s both photographic and human dimension are reference-class.
Leónidas Spinelli is about to weep and tries to contain tears, but he can´t.
There have been many years of struggle and strenuous effort to turn PhotoAlicante into a living and dynamic space able to go through initial conceptions to reach new territories of expression and photographic creativity, by dint of spending a lot of hours, plucking up courage and tons of illusion, managing to bring Alicante the works of national and international prestigious photographers like Chema Madoz, Joan Fontcuberta, Mayte Vieta, Bleda y Rosa, Eulalia Valldosera, Hannah Collins and so on, along with other authors imbued with new ways of grasping photography, taking risks both in format and content.
Tears continue to flow. Such is the emotional intensity of the moment spawning osmosis among the whole audience, bursting into applause to cheer Leónidas Spinelli, fully congnizant of the remarkable value of Lisl Stiener´s pictures as embodiment of the concept of image value as an element building sense and meaning, as well as inducing to reflection.
Perhaps he never thought that he could be a fundamental part in the presentation of an internationally recognized and historical photographer, with whom he is now deservedly sharing table, and in the organization of her lecture and photographic exhibition " The Intuitive Lens of Lisl Steiner " with a wisely chosen assortment of images belonging to her photographic project " The Children of the Americas ", together with other relevant pictures of her professional career as a photojournalist.
This way, the ongoing toil of so many years by Leónidas Spinelli, the arduous labour preparing his photographic exhibitions in cities like Alicante, Murcia, Jaén, Madrid, Bilbao, Buenos Aires, etc, the viewing of a myriad of portfolios and many more things, have paid off.
Already more relaxed and encouraged by the audience. Leónidas Spinelli pronounces a compelling speech welcoming Lisl Steiner, synthesizing in a masterful way the heap of circumstances which have branded for life the evolution of the Austrian-American photojournalist and how difficult is to ascribe her to a specific photographic genre, since her work is defined by a series of transformations and a hugely intense vital experience that placed her in different creative spaces, encompassing from the depiction of reality with the great expressive strength inherent to photojournalism to a versatile and uncommon creative ability having enabled her to strive after visualizing the invisible and changing the cultural context surrounding her.
Consequently, according to Photo Alicante Director, in Lisl Steiner´s photographic production it is possible to find both reality and fiction, and sometimes even illusion, always within the frame of the cultural context of each one of her stages as a photographer and artist and inextricably linked to the perceptive experience.
Leónidas Spinelli talking to Lisl Steiner shortly before the beginning of the lecture imparted by her.
Following it, Lisl Steiner starts her lecture titled " The Intuitive Lens of Lisl Steiner ", which is going to leave an indelible mark in every attendee.
The Austrian-American photographer describes how in 1938, being only ten years old, she had to flee Austria with her parents because of the invasion by Nazi troops, going to Trieste (Italy), where they embarked on a ship taking them to Buenos Aires (Argentina).
Lisl Steiner explains that it was there where she spent her adolescence and youth, working during fifties in the making of more than 50 documentary films, as well as integrating into the avant-garde group " MADI " and in the " FORUM " collective of the Argentinian capital.
But she tells that in mid fifties she realized that her true passion was photography, so she started since then to intensively devote to it, and after publishing in 1955 in Life magazine a picture she made of Argentinian president Aramburu fishing in Ushuaia (Patagonia), her work gained international fame, which was enhanced with her work as a photojournalist for other first-string illustrated publications like Time, Newsweek, The New York Times and others, in addition to being a correspondent for Keystone Press Agency.
All of it is reported by this unrepeatable woman in an unassuming way and in layman´s terms, with the humbleness featured by really great persons.
Lisl explains how the strong character of the Argentinian writer, a key figure of universal literature, made that more often than not treatment with him wasn´t easy, so sometimes you could only obtain images of him after insisting and persevering for many days, but effort and wait were worthy, because he was a fascinating man and a very interesting human being from a photographic viewpoint, to such an extent that this image was part of a three days session for Time magazine made in the Argentinian capital.
After this, a picture of a Jewish boy made by Lisl Steiner in a street of New York in 1963 appears in the screen.
It is a commendable image, captured by Lisl Steiner from a very near distance of roughly 2 meters, with her Leica M3 and Leitz Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 lens, choosing a vertical frame, which makes discretion more difficult during the photographic act, managing to capture the boy, engrossed in his thoughts, going unnoticed, in spite of being an utterly perpendicular shot with respect to the kid´s face.
Lisl recollects that he was a Hassidic boy surrounded by relatives during a demonstration in support of Lyndon Johnson as a candidate to President of United States, and that the key factor was being able to approach him to get the picture.
A few seconds later, a further image made by Lisl Steiner during mid fifties in Paraguay street of Buenos Aires is projected on the screen : it is a wall full of electoral advertisements, while the lower area of the frame shows a boy grabbing a toy pistol as an allegoric message to the prevailing violence of the time.
Lisl Steiner explains that specially at late fifties and decade of sixties, she travelled to many Latin American countries and could see live a lot of violence contexts, deep social inequalities, misery, etc, always taking a stand against it and trying to capture it with her camera.
She also comments that all those tremendous social contrasts seemed her very harmful and unfair at every level, and that she could see how it particularly affected the children, so she decided to start her photographic project " The Children of the Americas " in 1959, after getting up steam to achieve on August 15 of that year in Santiago de Chile, when at the behest of her, the most important presidents of Latin American countries signed a document in which they committed themselves to defend the rights of children in that area of the world.
At that moment, once more, the lecture " The Intuitive Lens of Lisl Steiner enters a new phase, when during some seconds the Austrian-American photojournalist countenance reflects her rage and wrath on stating that nowadays in many countries of Latin America a significant percentage of children keep on suffering misery, malnutrition, violence, labour exploitation and necessity of looking for things to sell inside garbage dumps to be able to survive.
Lisl explains that in the present international context wars, eagerness, vanity, selfishness, the everything running and so forth, prevail, and meanwhile, hundreds of children all over the world suffer from famine, thirst and misery.
Thereupon, she proclaims that the most significant goal of her visit to Alicante is to leverage her photographic project " The Children of the Americas " to give voice to those children she photographed in different Latin American countries between 1959 and seventies.
The attendees go on amazed listening to the speech delivered by Lisl Steiner, who is putting her soul in every word coming out of her mouth.
It´s a speech that makes and will keep on making ponder to every attendee, some of whom lower their heads in deep introspection.
Historical moments are being lived inside the Cub Hall of the Alicante University Museum, bringing about a massive collective enthusiasm stemming from the greatness of Lisl Steiner, a living myth in the history of photography, filling the hearts of the scores of attending people and begetting irrepressible feelings of admiration, in symbiosis with the tenderness inspired by this wonderful woman.
That´s why when Lisl finishes her speech and thanks the audience overcrowding the hall, all and sundry, both the sitting and the standing ones, clap intensely, immersed in a thunderous ovation,
who makes the 94 year old goddess feel really thrilled and strive upon holding her tears back.
But some of them flow.
These are instants of great happiness for Lisl Steiner, who perceives the sincere fondness and boundless love of the whole audience.
It is a goddess who has spoken to them and so is understood by the abundant attendees, who keep on bursting into applause for some minutes and utterly devoted to her.
Buenos Aires, Nueva York, Vienna, Bratislava, Linz, Cerro Muriano, etc, felt this before.
Now it is Alicante which gives itself up to her.
The applause and cheers continue to unceasingly resound inside the Cub Hall of Alicante University Museum, while Lisl Steiner (who has just signed in the honour visitors´ book) poses next to Flor Mayoral, Leónidas Spinelli, Marcelo Llobell and Catalina Iliescu, whose facial expressions show bliss and satisfaction for well done things.
ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITIONS OF ALL TIME
After Lisl Steiner´s lecture, it was time for the premiere of the photographic exhibition " The Intuitive Lens of Lisl Steiner ", with images of her photographic project The Children of the Americas, made between 1959 and seventies, together with some highly representative pictures of Lisl Steiner´s career as a photojournalist.
From left to right : Leónidas Spinelli, Catalina Iliescu, Marcelo Llobell, Flor Mayoral and Lisl Steiner posing for the cameras at the moment of presentation of the photographic exhibition with images of the Austrian-American photojournalist.
Catalina Iliescu during her presentation speech of the photographic exhibition, surrounded by Flor Mayoral, Leónidas Spinelli, Marcelo Llobell and Lisl Steiner.
Catalina Iliescu in another instant of her presentation speech, with a self portrait in the background of Lisl Steiner holding a rangefinder Leica M3 camera between her hands.
Far from going away after the previous lecture, the abundant attendees remained inside the facilities of the Alicante University Musem to watch the inauguration of the photographic exhibition " The Intuitive Lens of Lisl Steiner ", whose main course were the pictures of his photographic project " The Children of the Americas " .
Here we can see part of the audience listening to Catalina Iliescu´s speech.
Another moment of Catalina Iliescu´s speech, with Flor mayoral, Leónidas Spinelli, Marcelo Llobell and Lisl Steiner around her, while Clemens Kneringer shoots the scene.
The audience don´t get tired of seeing and hearing everything that is happening, and go on standing paying heed to Catalina Iliescu´s speech.
Another instant of the Alicante University Culture Vicepresident´s speech, while Marcelo Llobell and Lisl Steiner listen to her words with top attention.
Some minutes later, the attendees applaud just after Catalina Iliescu´s speech.
It´s now when one of the most important moments of the day arrives, with the inauguration speech of the photographic exhibition " The Intuitive Lens of Lisl Steiner " with images of her photographic project " The Children of the Americas " by Flor mayoral (Vice President of the Board of Trustees of DORCAM Museum in Doral, Miami, United States).
After thanking Lisl Steiner for her effort travelling from New York to Alicante, Flor Mayoral ( a recognized photographer, author among others of the exhibition " Transgressing Frontiers " , presented in 2015 in the Fototeca of Cuba, the international photographic project " Silence Project" which began in 2007 and of excellent portraits of Mario Vargas Llosa in silence, in addition to being a great expert in fostering the participation of the public to observe pictures and interpret the emotions of the photographed people, as a result of the implementation of a visual symphony of silence) delivers a far-reaching speech based on two fundamental core concepts : the pretty distinctive photographic eye of Lisl Steiner and her inexhaustible energy, not only creating images, but also in other fields of her life.
These two new concepts introduced by Flor Mayoral regarding the analysis of Lisl Steiner´s photographic production and her personality define define straight out a new tipping point in this historical photographic day inside the Alicante University Museum.
The Cuban photographer explains in detail that intuition and energy have always had a sway over the images created by Lisl Steiner since mid fifties hitherto.
Flor Mayoral explains that because of different circumstances, Lisl Steiner hadn´t been able to show her photographic project " The Children of the Americas " until now, and delves into the great humanity emanating from these images of human beings in their chilhood and most times living in very hard conditions, so Lisl Steiner also used her cameras as a weapon to express her firm protest against this situation and shed light on it, because the Austrian-American photojournalist has often stated her conviction that every child deserves a beautiful life and that they are the world future.
Flor Mayoral likewise insists passionately on Lisl Steiner´s fascinating and truly unique personality pervading everything she does and the way in which she interacts with people, who quickly detect that she is a very special person featuring awesome humanity and one-of-a-kind sense of humour.
The Cuban photographer and Vice President of the Board of Directors of the DORCAM Doral Contemporary Museum likewise expresses her certainty that Lisl Steiner always got her pictures with her heart and an uncanny improvisation ability.
After the end of Flor Mayoral´s speech,
the attendees fervently burst into applause and express their gratitude for the unforgettable and once in a lifetime moments that are being lived
and will undoubtedly increase their love for photography and art. It´s difficult to explain with words the collective frenzy which is being collectively experienced at the moment within the University of Alicante Museum.
It´s 20:00 pm.
An hour and forty minutes have elapsed since the beginning of the lecture inside the Cub Hall of the Alicante University Museum which took place prior to this photographic exhibition.
But people don´t want to go away. They wish to go on seeing Lisl Steiner live, as close as possible to her, so Marcelo Llobell and Flor Mayoral are going to need to push Lisl Steiner on her wheelchair during one more hour, since Lisl is very happy, surrounded by a lot of people who are expressing her their love and sincere affection, and she wants to explain them aspects, details and experiences of the pictures filling the walls of the hall where her exhibition is being held.
Lisl Steiner shows the audience the famous photograph she made at Times Square in New York on November 22, 1963 of a lot of sad people after reading newspapers in which was reported the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, President of the United States.
An impressive photograph in which Lisl Steiner previously configured her Leica M2 camera with Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 at f/11 to get maximum feasible depth of field, so the area of sharpness spreads from the lower area of the image to its upper zone, in such a way that the facial traits of every person inside the frame is discernible.
Lisl Steiner´s teaching prowess stuns all the attendees, who time and again and spontaneously start to passionately clapping.
Lisl remembers perfectly the moment when she made the picture and provides the audience with all kind of data and circumstances relative to this iconic image.
Lisl Steiner lavishly explains now a lot of sides of a picture she made of Pablo Neruda in Chile in 1959.
Lisl Steiner keeps on advancing inside the hall. Here she provides the attendees with information on a colour drawing she made in early sixties alluding to her photographic project " The Children of the Americas " that she had started in 1959.
It´s 20:30 h in the night and people don´t want to go away for having dinner. They crave for keeping on listening to Lisl Steiner, who remembers here the instant in which she got a colour picture of a very young Peruvian girl sitting on a grass ridge over the ruins of Macchu Pichu in April of 1969.
Lisl Steiner, Flor Mayoral and the attendees watch the picture made by Lisl Steiner in 1961 of a Yanomami child in the Mato Grosso Amazonic Jungle of Brazil caressing a jaguar cub.
Flor Mayoral helping Lisl Steiner while the Austrian-American photographer continues to explain details of her photographs to the abundant people attending the event.
Text of the Chilean poetess Gabriela Mistral referring to the need to help childen during their growing stage. It inspired Lisl Steiner in 1959 for the inception of her photographic project " The Children of the Americas ".
On August 15, 1959 Lisl Steiner made the presidents of Latin American countries sign a manifest supporting the photographic project " The Children of the Americas ", along with an exhibition with that aim which would have to be celebrated in November of that year.
One of the attendees to the photographic exhibition " The Intuitive Lens of Lisl Steiner " beholds another image of Lisl Steiner belonging to her photographic project " The Children of the Americas " in which appears an Argentinian girl that she photographed covering her face while she was playing hide-and-seek in Buenos Aires in 1957.
The interest aroused among visitors by this landmark photographic exhibition was huge.
Detail of one of the walls of the Exhibition Hall of Alicante University Museum with some photographs made by Lisl Steiner in different countries of Latin America and belonging to her photographic project " The Children of the Americas ".
Lisl Steiner showing the audience a picture she got in 1960, a few months after her arrival in United States, of two children eating a sandwich inside the Pennsylvania Station of New York, sitting on a bench beside their mothers.
© Lisl Steiner The Intuitive Lens
Child running inside a courtyard of dwellings in a poor neighbourhood of Montevideo (Uruguay). 1959. Lisl Steiner masterfully uses a Leica M2 coupled to a Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 lens Versión 1 SAWOM and configured by her at f/11 to obtain maximum depth of field.
It´s a very fast and instintive shot in which with astonishing skill, Lisl draws the full potential of a rangefinder camera configured to optimize sharpness through the efficient symbiosis between the great depth of field inherent to a wideangle lens and the extensive sharpness area attained with the camera in hyperfocal, encompassing from the lower zone of the image to its upper area beyond the last ropes with hanging clothes.
That´s to say, Lisl simply uses the photographic gear better fitting her photographing style, very fast and instinctive, knowing perfectly that there isn´t and there won´t be any electronic autofocus quicker than the natural AF of a rangefinder camera previously configured in hyperfocal, enabling to get the picture with utmost speed, to such an extent that she has captured the child visible on the right with both of his feet in the air, providing the image with a great feeling of motion, in stark contrast to the stillness of the filthy and very old abodes appearing in the left half of the image, the rather torn out stone accessing stairs to them, the clothes hanging from the ropes and the woman drying garments who can be glimpsed some meters behind the child.
The timing accuracy on pressing the shutter release button of her Leica M2 by Lisl Steiner, capturing the child running while staring something which draws his attention, is simply breathtaking and brings to light a huge natural talent for photography.
It´s what the historian of photography William Manchester called essential instinct for the capturing of great pictures, something that can´t be learnt, you are born with it, and rests above all in the possession of an intuitive gift to thoroughly know when pressing the shutter realease button of the camera, a scope in which there have been other prominent historical specialists like Henri Carier-Bresson, Marc Riboud, Werner Bischof, René Burri and so forth.
On the other hand, Lisl Steiner is successful attaining with this image her fundamental aim :
to use it as an expressive medium to protest against injustice and rampant misery in a number of Latin American countries of the time.
But simultaneously, the running child photographed in full flight conveys the message that in spite of the extreme poverty of his habitat, which is particularly visible in the very dirty and chipped floor under his feet, this child is free.
Lisl Steiner beholding a picture she made of a group of children in Cube during mid sixties, while the attendees wait expectantly for the explanations of the Austrian-American photojournalist.
The inauguration of the photographic exhibition The Intuitive Lens of Lisl Steiner with images of her photographic project " The Children of the Americas " turned at the same time into a venue in which a lot of conversations took place.
© Lisl Steiner The Intuitive Lens
Superb photograph made by Lisl Steiner in Chichicastenango (Guatemala) in 1957. The Austrian-American photojournalist makes an incredible shot, from a very near distance of approximately 3 meters and perpendicular to the young boy and his smaller sister whom he is taking on his shoulder, with her Leica M3 and Summicron-M 50 mm f/2, probably at f/4, slightly rendering the background of the image out of focus and highlighting the two main characters of the scene.
Doing this shot going unnoticed is something in the frontier of the impossible already with a horizontal framing, because both the boy and his small sister are just in front of Lisl Steiner at the moment of the photographic act.
But Lisl Steiner´s photographing style is, as has frequently been explained by Flor Mayoral, everything instinct, improvisation and inexhaustible energy, with abundant nuances of genius, and after realizing that the boy, apparently tired, is engrossed in his thoughts while kneeling to unload her sister (who, in her turn is looking towards one side, with her sight focused on something that is sparking her curiosity), Lisl decides to make a vertical shot, so not being detected is much more difficult than with a horizontal frame shooting with a 24 x 36 mm format camera or shooting with a 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 medium format one (as did Eileen Darby with her 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 square format Rolleiflex in late October of 1945, getting a totally frontal picture, almost at point blank range of the sailor Calvin Mathhews form the U.S.S Portland sitting on a terrace of Central Park, New York, drinking a glass with soda, and which made the cover of Life magazine on November 5, 1945), because she has to raise her arm upwards and fold it in an angle of roughly 90º.
Therefore, in spite of the huge dificulty to get the picture with an upright framing while she is just in front of both siblings, at a very near distance, Lisl Steiner manages to fulfill the dream of every good photojournalist : to become invisible during the photographic act, going unnoticed, creating an exceedingly beautiful image, full of spontaneity and admirably synthesizing the essence of an ancient culture and its fight for survival.
© Lisl Steiner The Intuitive Lens
Young Yanomami girl on a hammock inside the Amazon Jungle of Mato Grosso (Brazil) manufacturing an arrow in a handcrafted way. Lisl captures a magic moment, once more with great discretion and respect, going unnoticed, photographing the girl with a Leica M3 and Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 lens, probably at f/5.6 from a distance of approximately four meters.
Furthermore, Lisl perceives that the top quality natural light coming from the left falls upon the face, arms and hands of the girl ( absorbed in her labour), providing the image with volume and three dimensional character, resulting in a photograph sumptuosly revealing the extraordinary beauty of the native peoples of the Brazilian Amazon Basin and their way of life.
Marcelo Llobell hugging Leónidas Spinelli (Director of PhotoAlicante). Events like this already historical photographic exhibition are decisive, among many other things, to strengthen sincere friendships enduring the whole life.
At 20:45 h in the night, people kept on reluctant to go away and the lively and interesting chatting among the groups of visitors kept on, in the middle of a very special atmosphere revealing how good people felt at every moment during this historical day inside the Alicante University Museum.
© Lisl Steiner The Intuitive Lens
Little girl photographed by Lisl Steiner in the village of Río Cuarto (Argentine) in 1957.
A very hard photograph in which can be seen the girl downtrodden in an extreme poverty.
Her short sleeved jersey is literally tattered, very dirty and worn out, in the same way as her bedraggled hair, and she is taking with her a sack in which she introduces everything she can find to survive.
Once more, with a commendable vertical framing, Lisl Steiner approaches the girl and photographs her with great respect and unobtrusively, going unnoticed, making the most of a split second in which the girl looks at one side while using the fingers of her right hand to detach the very dirty jersey that is stuck to her skin by the sweat.
Probably these are the only clothes this girl has, and perhaps she has been for some days without being able to wash herself, so Lisl Steiner wants to convey with this image her protest and the concept that this is something unbearable and a shame for the world.
© Lisl Steiner The Intuitive Lens
Sublime portrait of a barefoot and dirty Aymara little girl beside a stone wall featuring an antiquity of many centuries in La Paz (Bolivia) in 1962.
As well as being a consummate expert in the creation of images with 24 x 36 mm rangefinder cameras that she used during her whole career as a professional photographer, Lisl Steiner also used often 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 medium format cameras, whose surface of negative four times larger than the standard 35 mm, made possible to obtain a superior image quality and better tonal range, as happens in this very nice picture in which she used a Rolleiflex 3.5F Model 3 with Carl Zeiss Jena Planar 75 mm f/3.5 at its widest aperture with Ektachrome E-2 ISO 25 film.
It is an image oozing great sensitivity before the beauty of the ancient cultures of Latin American and their evolution through time.
The wise use of the widest aperture of the lens by the photographer enables to highlight the exceedingly pretty little girl in her biotope, surrounded by big stones having been the architectonic gist of her forebears throughout many centuries.
Needless to say that the smart composition placing the little girl on the right half of the image, framed by different depth of field planes in which prevail the out of focus areas bringing about a very nice bokeh in synergy with an exquisite rendering of the tonal transitions, clearly reveal that Lisl Steiner is not only a great photojournalist and documentalist able to capture defining moments once and again, but also a great artist with outstanding flair to touch the heart and sensible fiber of each observer of her images, as a corollary of the universal language that photography is.
© Lisl Steiner The Intuitive Lens
Portrait of a child within his bedroom in Washington, D.C in mid sixties. Behind him there´s a poster in which can be read : " Due to technical difficulties, tomorrow has been postponed indefinitely ".
Once more, Lisl Steiner protests with this image against contexts making children suffer all kind of hardships throughout their infancy.
8:51 p.m. Conversations among the attending public go on without stopping inside the exhibition hall of the Alicante University Museum. Here we can see three visitors in lively chatter.
© Lisl Steiner The Intuitive Lens
Extraordinary picture made by Lisl Steiner in Dominican Republic in August 1968 of two boys playing baseball in the street.
Lisl Steiner uses masterfully her Leica M2 with Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 to capture with stunning precision the moment in which one of the boys performs as a pitcher and throws the ball ( two thirds of which are visible on the left border of the image) with great strength. The photographer has probably configured her camera at f/11 to get extensive depth of field, in such a way that the sharpness area spreads over the whole surface of the image, from the foreground to the wall visible in the right background.
Once more, Lisl Steiner takes advantage of the photographing gear better fitting the kind of pictures she makes, since rangefinder cameras lack any mirror and sport much more stability than reflex ones featuring a swivelling mirror, so handheld shots can be done up to approximately 1/8 s, unlike a reflex camera which needs faster shutter speeds to avoid trepidation.
Besides, when you get a picture with a rangefinder camera, there isn´t any blackout in the viewfinder on pressing the shutter release button.
The photographer has selected a slow shutter speed, capturing with great proficiency the moving right arm (which appears blurred) of the Dominican boy hurling the ball, bent in roughly 90º to be able to keep balance and with his right hand also blurred (in the same way as the left one), revealing the biceps of the boy, whose impressive athleticism and strength for his age is depicted in all of its splendour.
The context is of deep poverty, visible in both the chipped and very dirty wall in the right background and in the border of the sidewalk near them, without forgetting that both boys are barefoot.
Lisl Steiner manages to shape up an image exuding great dynamism by means of the majestic and incredibly accurate capturing of the boy movement just at the moment in which he powerfully throws the ball, bent forward because of the effort and in symbiosis with his mate, who appears paying great attention, waiting to see if the batter hits the ball or it is received by the catcher.
In addition, the photograph introduces a further highly symbolic element in the composition: the half-closed door visible on the left of the image, hinting the sporting option of future, diachronically embodied by great Dominican baseball players who were successful in United States like Juan Marichal, Sammy Sosa, Pedro Martínez, David Ortiz, Alberto Pujols, José Bautista, Robinson Cano, Vladimir Guerrero, Adrián Beltré and others.
Lisl Steiner during early seventies in New York, posing with two 24 x 36 mm format rangefinder cameras : a Contax IIa Stuttgart (made between 1954 and 1961) with Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 85 mm f/2 and a Leica M2 ( given away to her by Nat Fein, Pulitzer Photography Award in 1949) with Super Angulon-M 21 mm f/3.4 lens.
The photographer, featuring a very instinctive and improvised style on getting pictures, isn´t particularly interested in the technological aspects of cameras, but chooses them according to her needs and the kind of photography she does.
That´s why she acquired a Contax IIa camera in early seventies, knowing that aside from being a bang for the buck at the time, its vertically travelling planofocal metallic shutter had been very improved and was much more reliable than the one featured by its predecessor Contax II from 1936, could reach a shutter speed of 1/250 s and above all, its great length of RF effective base of 73 mm ( much larger than the 49.32 mm of her Leica M2) made possible to focus with far superior accuracy lenses between 75 and 135 mm, always understanding that Lisl Steiner made vast majority of her photographs throughout her professional career with 35 mm and 50 mm lenses.
© Lisl Steiner The Intuitive Lens
Pensive boy sitting and bent on the back of a chair at the Café Fígaro in Greenwich Village, New York, while a couple of adults behind him peruse the menu.
Lisl photographs the boy engrossed in his thoughts, approaching him as much as possible, with great stealth and going unnoticed, making a very fast shot with vertical framing, probably at f/4, rendering the background slightly out of focus.
Besides, the photographer obtains an outstanding three dimensional effect, making the most of the light coming from the left of the image.
© Lisl Steiner The Intuitive Lens
Image in which Lisl Steiner captures a mother and her daughter inside a New York subway wagon in early seventies.
The photographer approaches both of them as much as possible, unobtrusively, and makes a very praiseworthy frontal shot with respect to them, capturing the child being absent-minded and sitting with her legs stretch on the seat.
The photographer chooses to make a vertical framing with her Leica M2 and Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 lens, whose wideangle nature makes that she can´t get closer if she wants to go unnoticed, managing to attain it, in spite of the fact that the child is almost perpendicular to her.
Lisl, who has the camera configured to f/8 or f/11, makes a very quick and instinctive shot, just at the adequate moment, capturing the child in a meaningful instant, in addition to obtaining great depth of field and depicting the contrast between the static position of the child with her legs stretched and the mother who meanwhile is opening her handbag in a normal position, with her legs on the wagon floor.
With this image, Lisl joins a domain of photograph inside the New York subway that had been pioneered by a 19 years old Stanley Kubrick during two weeks in 1946 in the reportage he made with a 24 x 36 mm format Contax II for Look magazine with mostly horizontal pictures.
But doing this type of photographs with an upright framing is much more difficult and commendable, because chances to be detected increase very much and shooting stability is lower than with a horizontal shot leaning both arms on the body.
20:55 pm. Three visitors of the exhibition watch two of Lisl Steiner´s pictures : one made within the Amazonian Jungle of Mato Grosso (Brazil) in 1960 of a boy smoking next to large sugar cane plants, and another one made in a square of the city of Antigua, in the south of Guatemala, in 1957, of a little girl standing and clad in white garments beside a column, while she holds a bag with her right hand.
© Lisl Steiner The Intuitive Lens
Another fabulous photograph made by Lisl Steiner, capturing a group of deaf children during a visit to a pet shop in mid sixties.
True to form, the Austrian-American photographer makes an incredible frontal shot, perpendicular to the photographed persons and from an incredibly close distance, opting for a vertical framing, capturing the five children and the two women accompanying them unaware, so they don´t detect her presence.
It´s an exceedingly fast shot, made by Lisl with impressive accuracy in the timing on pressing the release button of the horizontal travelling planofocal shutter of her Leica M2 with Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 just at an instant in which all the characters of the image are looking at one of the pets of the shop with great illusion and joy.
Spectacular the capture of elation in the facial expressions of the children accomplished by the photographer, who makes a very close vertical framing delimitated by the awnings appearing in the upper area of the image.
It´s a picture conceptually linked to the string of photographs with children (most of them horizontal and some other ones being vertical) made by Alfred Eisenstaedt in 1963 capturing with his Leica their countenances during a performance of St John and the Dragon play at the Puppet Theatre of the Tuileries in Paris.
Lisl Steiner in her purest form, capturing the facial expression of a teenager inside a shop in Brazil in 1969.
It is another stratospheric shot, utterly frontal, with a horizontal framing, in which Lisl Steiner becomes invisible, manages to go unnoticed, in spite of being approximately only at approximately 2.5 m from the boy, and captures his countenance showing concern and uncertain future, in stark contrast to the slightly out of focus man on the left of the image, focused on his labour.
The use of a wide diaphragm, probably f/2.8, by the photographer makes that only the face and torso of the boy are in focus, while Kodachrome 25 film (whose use shooting handheld without trepidation has been possible thanks to the lack of swivelling mirror of the Leica M3 with Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 used) provides the image with a great realism.
However incredible it may seem, the main character of the image doesn´t perceive at any moment that is being photographed by Lisl and doesn´t see her either.
In my opinion, images like this are every bit as good as pictures made by the foremost photographers in the history of Magnum Agency and corroborate the aforism " The Picture Must Contain The Humanity of the Moment " couched by Robert Frank.
21:00 pm. Lisl Steiner, accompanied by Marcelo Llobell and Flor Mayoral, greets Dieter, German teacher of the director of DORCAM Museum in Doral, Miami.
Lisl Steiner signing a copy of the excellent exhibition catalogue, edited by Leónidas Spinelli, coordinated by the Observatory of Audiovisual Communication and Publicity UHM, with a superb quality of reproduction of the images on paper made from original negatives, and texts by Ingrid Rockefeller, Lisl Steiner, Leónidas Spinelli, Flor Mayoral and Marcelo Llobell.
Little girl photographed by Lisl Steiner during mid sixties in a square of the small city of Antigua, in the south of Guatemala.
With great sensitivity, the photographer captures the naivety and innocence of the absent-minded little girl, who is standing beside a column, while holding a large bag with her right hand.
Once and again, Lisl Steiner, with remarkable talent and intuition, manages to do exceedingly fast totally frontal shots with vertical framings, from a very near distance, going unnoticed, to such an extent that the little girl, immersed in her thoughts, doesn´t realize that Lisl (who probably uses f/4, rendering the background out of focus and framing the little girl between the two columns, to turn her as much as possible into the leading character of the scene) has just photographed her.
Lisl Steiner captures in this image the full integration with nature and fauna of the ancient native Amazonic cultures, frequently tainted by the unlimited eagerness of big corporations intensively exploiting natural resources, not hesitating about degrading them and destroying the biotope of these tribes if they get an economical benefit doing it, a dynamics against which Lisl Steiner constantly rose up.
Very nice image in which Lisl Steiner captured in April of 1969 a little Peruvian girl sitting on a small ridge over the ruins of the old city of Machu Pichu.
The photographer devises a composition pervaded by subtlety and symbology, with the little girl in focus on the left of the image and the remnants of Machu Pichu and the mountains surrounding it in the background, slightly out of focus, and shoots her Leica M2 with Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 Versión 1 SAWOM and Kodak Ektachrome E-2 ISO 160 colour film, probably at f/2.8.
It´s an image exuding love for roots and refers to the prevalence in time of the Inca civilization and one of its most famous strongholds, a true masterpiece of architecture and engineering, in addition to also portray the continuity in time of the indigenous peoples who have dwelt the area for many years.
Images like this one verify Eve Arnold´s keynote " It´s the photographer and not the camera the photographic instrument " set forth by her during sixties and Elliott Erwitt´s axiom " The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don´t have to explain things with words " .
21:10 p.m. Another attendee to Lisl Steiner´s exhibition beholds some of the pictures of her photographic project " The Children of the Americas " in one of the walls of the Exhibition hall of the Alicante University Museum.
21:12 p.m. Everybody wants to be photographed with Lisl Steiner and have a beautiful remembrance of this historical and unforgettable day. Here she is surrounded by Catalina Iliescu, Remedios Navarro, Sofía Martín, Rosa Cuadrado and many attendees to this milestone photographic exhibition.
People keep on without any desire to go away, and Lisl Steiner, who is already very tired, goes on signing exhibition catalogues and smiling everybody.
More and more people join the group photographs with Lisl Steiner, in the midst of an indescribable melting pot of emotions.
After a strenuous preparation toil of some months, they have been the main architects of both Lisl Steiner´s lecture that opened the day and the extraordinary photographic exhibition with her images.
Lisl Steiner posing before the cameras with Marcelo Llobell, Flor Mayoral and Carsten Loene, also a great friend of Lisl´s.
BEYOND DEATH
March 12, 1938. Hitler invades Austria and proclaims the Anchluss, fusing the country with Nazi Germany.
From that moment on, months elapse in the middle of great stress, with the Viennese population from Jewish descent increasingly suffering the antisemitism of Nazi Germany, until situation starts being unbearable.
The insight of Arnold Steiner, a 46 years old trader from Jewish descent, born in Raab (district of Schärding, Austria), who has a little ten years old daughter called Lisl Steiner, makes him realize that Nazis will try to exterminate the Jews of Vienna as soon as they can.
Therefore, Arnold Steiner visits different times, during July and August of 1938, the Central Office of Jewish Emigration in Vienna, until he gets the papers to be able to abandon Austria with his family.
In some of those visits and after waiting in unending queues of many hours, Arnold Steiner has walked at very few meters from the office of Adolf Eichmann, main driving force of the " Final Solution " that would be incepted four years later, on January 20, 1942, at the Wansee Conference in the outskirts of Berlin.
This way, Arnold Steiner flees Vienna On September 12, 1938, travelling by train with his 38 year old wife Katherina Steiner (likewise from Jewish descent, born in Goedin, Hungary) and her little 10 years old daughter Lisl Steiner (born in Vienna in 1928) towards Trieste (Italy), where they buy three tickets for the 19,500 tonnes ship
Oceania of Cosulich Line,
which leaves for Buenos Aires (Argentina) on September 19, 1938.
A seven days voyage in which they talk on board of the liner specially to Mendel Sternberg, Leo Neumann, Adele Neumann, Isak Eizig Schleider, Chane Schleider, Hans Bazar, Emma Bauer, Wilhelm Hift, Schja Schonfeld, Sure Schonfeld and Fritz Barak, and after doing stopovers at Spalato, Patras, Naples, Gibraltar, Pernambuco, Bahía, Rio do Janeiro, Santos, Río Grande do Sur and Montevideo, they arrive in Buenos Aires on September, 26 of that year.
Arnold Steiner, who always excelled at taking wise decisions, has managed to save from a sure dead not only himself, but also his wife Katherine and his daughter Lisl Steiner, because only three years later, between the autumn of 1941 and the spring of 1942, Adolf Eichmann will order the mass deportation of the 200,000 Viennese Jews to Riga, Kovno, Vilna and Minsk, where they will be assassinated by the Einsatzgruppen, Nazi mobile slaughtering teams, while some thousands more will be sent to the Lodz guetto and the Theresienstaedt concentration camp, where they all will be also assassinated.
84 years after that trip of Lisl Steiner with her parents from Trieste to Buenos Aires that saved her from death, and five years after the foundation of the DORCAM Museum of Contemporary Art in Doral (United States), the brilliant initiative implemented by Marcelo Llobell and Flor Mayoral ( two very experienced persons in the scope of arts and photography, as well as committed advocates of both the museistic integration of all kind of disciplines and the enhancement of the art in public spaces, something they deem fundamental) in symbiosis with Leónidas Spinelli, the Alicante University and the excellent material provided by Ingrid Rockefeller, have made possible to greatly rescue from oblivion the fascinating images of one of the most significant photographic projects in the History of Photography : " The Children of the Americas " by Lisl Steiner, within the exhibition The Intuitive Lens of Lisl Steiner.
A dream come true,
after many years of path.
Furthermore, this remarkable photographic display inaugurated inside the Alicante University Museum on March 3, 2021 and that will be open until April 3, 2022 has been very important because Lisl Steiner has felt first hand the huge love of both the persons who have been helping her for many years and the abundant attending audience who crammed the halls where the lecture and the photographic exhibition took place.
All of it will have undoubtedly mean a great morale boost for Lisl Steiner, in addition to having given her a lot of life, energy and desire to go on living and relishing photography, the travels, the people who are infatuated with her, the events with her images, the sincere love of audiences and so forth.
Because this exceptional woman will never die, since she transcends the concept of demise, and when she isn´t on earth any more, she will go on very alive in the hearts of every person who had the great luck of meeting her.
But probably Ingrid Rockefeller´s words are the ones better defining the context and very special aura of this wonderful woman :
" ... And so my life has been full and I have no regrets. " Lisl Steiner
I have known Lisl since 1970 and have been working on a film about her life and photography with Vivian Winther for the past twelve years as well as the archive of her negatives, prints, correspondence and ephemera. Lisl´s passion for chronicling all that surrounds her has led to her work receiving attention and acclaim. She made a living photographing politicians and musicians, but her true passion was found chronicling the lives, stories and plight of real people in their very real lives.
The Children of the America´s Project began in Santiago, Chile in 1959 and has been a focus for Lisl ever since. In her pictures of children, we see children in every walk of life, from all over the world. She believed that each child deserved the chance at a beautiful life, like herself who left Austria before the nazis descended. Lisl says, " My parents and I did not run from Europe. We walked. "
In her photographs, we see her through the eyes of her subjects as they respond to the incredible presence and personality of Lisl. She never asked for permission, she trusted her gut instinct. She is magnificent, authentic and truly a work of art herself. I have always absolutely loved Lisl; she told me to stop thinking too much, to trust myself. After over fifty years of friendship, it is an honour to call her mu friend, inspiration and mentor.
My wish is to share her with you ... for you to fall in love with her ... be surprised by her ... see the world through those beautiful eyes ... marvel at her courage and curiosity ... look at the photographs that will make you cry, laugh and dream. "
Ingrid Rockefeller
Lisl Steiner Intuitive Lens
