Lisl Steiner

Lisl Steiner (November 19, 1927 – June 7, 2023) was an Austrian-born American photographer, photojournalist, and documentary filmmaker. She was known for her photographs of political and cultural figures of the 1950s and 60s, including Fidel Castro, Oscar Niemeyer, Louis Armstrong, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Richard Nixon, and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Early life and education Steiner was born in a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria, in 1927. Shortly after Adolf Hitler annexed Austria in 1938, she and her family emigrated to Buenos Aires, Argentina. She studied art at the University of Buenos Aires and the Fernando Fader School of Decorative Arts.

Career In her 20s, Steiner began working in documentary film. She helped produce some 50 documentaries for the foreign ministry of Argentina.

In 2000, the Leica Gallery in Manhattan held a retrospective of her work.

Steiner died on June 7, 2023, at age 95.

Personal life Steiner moved to Westchester County, New York, in the early 1970s. A longtime resident of Pound Ridge, she spent 24 years living with her husband, psychiatrist Meyer Monchek, who died in 1992.