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Model, muse, photographer, artist, war correspondent & gourmet chef.
Born: 23 April 1907, Poughkeepsie, New York, USA.
Died: 21 July 1977, Farley Farm House, Muddles Green, Chiddingly, East Sussex, England.
Lee MILLER first entered the world of photography in New York as a model to the great photographers of the day such as Edward STEICHEN, HOYNINGEN-HUENE and Arnold GENTHE.
In 1929 she went to Paris and worked with the well known Surrealist artist and photographer Man RAY, and succeeded in establishing her own studio. She became known as a portraitist and fashion photographer, but her most enduring body of work is that of her Surrealist images. She returned to New York in 1932, and again set up her own studio which ran for 2 years and was highly successful. It closed when she married a wealthy Egyptian businessman Aziz ELOUI BEY and went to live with him in Cairo, Egypt. She became fascinated by long range desert travel and photographed desert villages and ruins. During a visit to Paris in 1937 she met Roland PENROSE, the Surrealist artist who was to become her second husband, and travelled with him to Greece and Romania. In 1939 she left Egypt for London shortly before World War II broke out. She moved in with Roland PENROSE and defying orders from the US Embassy to return to America she took a job as a freelance photographer on Vogue.
In 1944 she became a correspondent accredited to the US Army, and teamed up with Time Life photographer David E. SCHERMAN. She followed the US troops overseas on D Day + 20. She was probably the only woman combat photo-journalist to cover the front line war in Europe and among her many exploits she witnessed the siege of St Malo, the Liberation of Paris, the fighting in Luxembourg and Alsace, the Russian/American link up at Torgau, the liberation of Buchenwald and Dachau. She billeted in both Hitler and Eva Brauns houses in Munich, and photographed Hitlers house Wachenfeld at Berchtesgaden in flames on the eve of Germanys surrender. Penetrating deep into Eastern Europe, she covered harrowing scenes of children dying in Vienna, peasant life in post war Hungary and finally the execution of Prime Minister Lazlo Bardossy.
After the war she continued to contribute to Vogue for a further 2 years, covering fashion and celebrities. In 1947 she married Roland PENROSE and contributed to his biographies of PICASSO, MIRÓ, Man RAY and TÀPIES. Some of her portraits of famous artists like PICASSO are the most powerful portraits of the individuals ever produced, but it is mainly for the witty Surrealist images which permeate all her work that she is best remembered.
Lee Miller died at Farley Farm House in 1977.
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Her photographs were amazing. They had some of her clothes and things too, but I could not get over the photographs. She photographed a lot of women doing different things during the war but she did things like photoshoots highlighting women with short hair...something not "fashionable" but necessary for many women working in factories who could get injured or killed if their hair was caught in machines. She did photo shoots about the super simplified practically rationed clothes people had to wear. Anyway, I had such a...relaxing isn't the word though not having all my kids there was more relaxing than if I didn't. I think it was intense. So so glad I went.
I looked around the rest of the museum too and they had some really interesting exhibits. One about spies, one about a typical family during WWII. But then came to the part about the evacuations of kids into the country out of London and then I had to be done. I watched some of the video footage of these masses of children just on their own and I felt physically sick and decided it was time to be done.
I was lucky enough to be able to meet Kelly for lunch at Wahaca right next to Waterloo as she was coming into the city for the evening. She's so fantastic. So another successful London outing. Go me.
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