Obituary: Lisl Steiner

Born in Austria, the 95-year-old American Leica photographer passed away on June 7, 2023, in a hospital close to Pound Ridge, New York – her adopted home of many years.

Anyone who had the opportunity to meet Lisl Steiner will have retained a lasting impression. She was unusual in every sense of the word. Her curiosity, her affection, her incredible ability to tell lively and entertaining stories and, last but not least, her constantly extravagant appearance, with colourful gowns, countless rings, bracelets and necklaces. The way she always wore her Leica around her neck added a further playful touch. The full range of her creativity and, above all, the diversity of her photo-journalistic work are evident in the monograph Lisl Baby. Initially published in 1995 by Edition Lammerhuber – with a special, limited edition appearing in 2015 –, it has unfortunately been out of print for some time. It revealed her many encounters with the celebrities of her time: Armstrong, Borges, Carter, Castro, Casals, Davis, Gulda, Eisenhower, Ellington, JFK, Neruda, Niemeyer, Nixon, Pele, B. B. King, Martin Luther King, and Warhol – the list of prominent personalities she portrayed is endless. Her pictures were as unconventional as the way in which she approached her distinguished contemporaries.

Steiner was born in Vienna on November 19, 1927. Suffering from racist persecution, her parents took her and emigrated to Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1938. After studying art, she began working in the film industry and became involved in the production of documentaries. Then, she discovered photography. LIFE magazine printed her pictures of Argentinian President Pedro Eugenio Aramburu – launching her career. She moved to New York in 1960, where she worked freelance for the likes of TIME, Newsweek, The New York Times, LIFE and the Associated Press. In the early 1970s, she moved with her husband, psychiatrist Michael Meyer Monchek, to Pound Ridge, New York. There, she worked on a documentary film about her life, with her friends Ingrid Rockefeller and Vivian Winther; and there she lived until her death. She maintained close ties to her native city of Vienna: her birthday parties at the Blue Bar in the Hotel Sacher were legendary. Steiner donated a portion of her artistic and photographic work to the Austrian National Library in Vienna.

On the occasion of her 90th birthday, issue 8/2017 of LFI carried a portfolio of Steiner's work. Photography was at the core of her life: with her charm and her Leica, she always knew how to take spontaneous and sensitive portraits of the famous – and, at times, the infamous – of world and political history. However, to describe her simply as an experienced and well-travelled photojournalist would detract from her stunning and incomparable personality. As a collector, draughtswoman, poet, muse and, later, YouTube and Facebook star, she left strong impressions behind. She will be greatly missed, now that she is gone.