Elizabeth "Lee" Miller, Lady Penrose (April 23, 1907 – July 21, 1977), was an American photographer and photojournalist. She was a fashion model in New York City in the 1920s before going to Paris, where she became a
fashion
Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion in ...
and fine art photographer. During the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, she was a war correspondent for ''
Vogue
Vogue may refer to:
Business
* ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine
** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Australia'', an Australian fashion magazine
** ''Vogue China'', ...
'', covering events such as the
London Blitz
The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'.
The Germa ...
, the
liberation of Paris
The liberation of Paris (french: Libération de Paris) was a military battle that took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the German garrison surrendered the French capital on 25 August 1944. Paris had been occupied by Nazi Germ ...
, and the
concentration camps
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
at
Buchenwald
Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...
and
Dachau
,
, commandant = List of commandants
, known for =
, location = Upper Bavaria, Southern Germany
, built by = Germany
, operated by = ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS)
, original use = Political prison
, construction ...
.
Early life
Miller was born on April 23, 1907, in
Poughkeepsie, New York
Poughkeepsie ( ), officially the City of Poughkeepsie, separate from the Town of Poughkeepsie around it) is a city in the U.S. state of New York. It is the county seat of Dutchess County, with a 2020 census population of 31,577. Poughkeepsi ...
. Her parents were Theodore and Florence Miller (née MacDonald). Her father was of German descent, and her mother was of Scottish and Irish descent. She had a younger brother named Erik, and her older brother was the aviator
Johnny Miller
John Laurence Miller (born April 29, 1947) is an American former professional golfer. He was one of the top players in the world during the mid-1970s. He was the first to shoot 63 in a major championship to win the 1973 U.S. Open, and he ra ...
. Theodore always favored Lee, and often used her as a model for his amateur photography.
When she was seven years old, Lee was raped while staying with a family friend in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
and was infected with
gonorrhea
Gonorrhea, colloquially known as the clap, is a sexually transmitted infection (STI) caused by the bacterium '' Neisseria gonorrhoeae''. Infection may involve the genitals, mouth, or rectum. Infected men may experience pain or burning with ...
.
In her childhood, Miller experienced issues in her formal education, being expelled from almost every school she attended while living in the Poughkeepsie area.
In 1925, at 18, Miller moved to Paris where she studied lighting, costume, and design at the
Ladislas Medgyes' School of Stagecraft.
She returned to New York in 1926 and joined an experimental drama programme at
Vassar College
Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely follo ...
, taught by
Hallie Flanagan
Hallie Flanagan Davis (August 27, 1889 in Redfield, South Dakota – June 23, 1969 in Old Tappan, New Jersey) was an American theatrical producer and director, playwright, and author, best known as director of the Federal Theatre Project, a pa ...
, a pioneer of "experimental theatre".
Soon after, Miller left home at 19 to enroll in the
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists.
Although artists may stu ...
in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
to study life drawing and painting.
Career
Modeling
Miller's father introduced her and her brothers to photography at an early age. She was his model – he took many
stereoscopic photographs of his nude teenage daughter – and showed her technical aspects of the art.
At 19 she nearly stepped in front of a car on a Manhattan street but was prevented by
Condé Nast
Condé Nast () is a global mass media company founded in 1909 by Condé Montrose Nast, and owned by Advance Publications. Its headquarters are located at One World Trade Center in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan.
The company's media ...
, the publisher of
''Vogue''.
This incident helped launch her modeling career; she appeared in a blue hat and pearls in a drawing by on the cover of ''Vogue'' on March 15, 1927.
[Cunningham, Erin. " 'Lee Miller in Fashion': A Look at the Famed War Photographer's More Unknown Work", '']The Daily Beast
''The Daily Beast'' is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. It was founded in 2008.
It has been characterized as a "high-end tabloid" by Noah Shachtman, the site's editor-in-chief from 2018 to 2021. In a 20 ...
''. October 7, 2013, ProQuest. March 2, 2017 Miller's look was what ''Vogues then editor-in-chief
Edna Woolman Chase
Edna Woolman Chase (; March 14, 1877 — March 21, 1957) was an American who served as editor-in-chief of ''Vogue'' magazine from 1914 to 1952.
Early life
Chase was born on March 14, 1877 in Asbury Park, New Jersey. She was the daughter of Fra ...
was looking for to represent the emerging idea of the "modern girl".
For the next two years, Miller was one of the most sought-after models in New York, photographed by leading fashion photographers, including
Edward Steichen
Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography.
Steichen was credited with tr ...
,
Arnold Genthe
Arnold Genthe (8 January 1869 – 9 August 1942) was a German-American photographer, best known for his photographs of San Francisco's Chinatown, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and his portraits of noted people, from politicians and socialite ...
,
Nickolas Muray
Nickolas Muray (born Miklós Mandl; 15 February 1892 – 2 November 1965) was a Hungarian-born American photographer and Olympic saber fencer.
Early and personal life
Muray was born in Szeged, Hungary, and was History of the Jews in Hungary, Je ...
, and
George Hoyningen-Huene
Baron George Hoyningen-Huene (September 4, 1900 – September 12, 1968) was a fashion photographer of the 1920s and 1930s. He was born in the Russian Empire to Baltic German and American parents and spent his working life in France, England and t ...
.
Kotex
Kotex is an American brand of menstrual hygiene products, which includes the Kotex maxi, thin and ultra thin pads, the Security tampons, and the Lightdays pantiliners. Most recently, the company has added U by Kotex to its line of menstrual hy ...
used a photograph of Miller by Steichen to advertise their menstrual pads without her consent, effectively ending her career as a fashion model. She was hired by a fashion designer in 1929 to make drawings of fashion details in
Renaissance paintings
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
but, in time, grew tired of this and found photography more efficient.
Photography
In 1929, Miller traveled to Paris intending to apprentice with the
surrealist
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...
artist and photographer
Man Ray
Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, although his t ...
. Although, at first, he insisted that he did not take students, Miller soon became his model and collaborator (announcing to him, "I'm your new student"), as well as his lover and muse.
[Giovanni, Janine D. "What's a Girl to Do When a Battle Lands in Her Lap?" '']The New York Times Magazine
''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine Supplement (publishing), supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted man ...
'', Winter 2007: 68–71. ProQuest. March 2, 2017 While in Paris, she began her own photographic studio, often taking over Man Ray's fashion assignments to enable him to concentrate on his painting. They collaborated so closely in this period that some photographs taken by Miller are credited to Man Ray. Together with Man Ray, she rediscovered the photographic technique of
solarisation
The Sabatier effect, also known as pseudo-solarization (or pseudo-solarisation) and erroneously referred to as the Sabattier effect, is a phenomenon in photography in which the image recorded on a negative or on a photographic print is wholly o ...
through an accident variously described; one of Miller's accounts involved a mouse running over her foot, causing her to switch on the light in mid-development.
The couple made the technique a distinctive visual signature, examples being Man Ray's solarised portrait of Miller taken in Paris circa 1930, and Miller's portraits of fellow surrealist
Meret Oppenheim
In Egyptian mythology, Meret (also spelled Mert) was a goddess who was strongly associated with rejoicing, such as singing and dancing.
In myth
Meret was a token wife occasionally given to Hapy, the god of the Nile. Her name being a reference ...
(1930), Miller's friend Dorothy Hill (1933), and the silent film star
Lilian Harvey
Lilian Harvey (born Helene Lilian Muriel Pape; 19 January 1906 – 27 July 1968) was an Anglo-German actress and singer, long based in Germany, where she is best known for her role as Christel Weinzinger in Erik Charell's 1931 film ''Der Kongre ...
(1933).
Solarisation fits the
surrealist
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...
principle of the unconscious accident being integral to art and evokes the style's appeal to the irrational or paradoxical in combining opposites of positive and negative.
Mark Haworth-Booth
Mark Haworth-Booth (born 20 August 1944) is a British academic and historian of photography. He was a curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London from 1970 to 2004. describes solarisation as "a perfect surrealist medium in which positive and negative occur simultaneously, as if in a dream".
Among Miller's friends were
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
and fellow surrealists
Paul Éluard
Paul Éluard (), born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel (; 14 December 1895 – 18 November 1952), was a French poet and one of the founders of the Surrealist movement.
In 1916, he chose the name Paul Éluard, a matronymic borrowed from his maternal ...
and
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (, , ; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the su ...
. Cocteau was so mesmerized by Miller's beauty that he transformed her into a plaster cast of a classical statue for his film, ''
The Blood of a Poet
''The Blood of a Poet'' (french: Le sang d'un poète) (1930) is an avant-garde film directed by Jean Cocteau, financed by Charles de Noailles and starring Enrique Riveros, a Chilean actor who had a successful career in European films. Photograp ...
'' (1930).
[Bukhari, Nuzhat, and Amir Feshareki. "Lee Miller's Ariadne Aesthetics", ''Modernism/Modernity'' 14.1 (2007): 147–152. ProQuest. March 2, 2017] During a dispute with Man Ray regarding the attribution of their co-produced work, Man Ray is said to have slashed an image of Miller's neck with a razor.
After leaving Man Ray and Paris in 1932, she returned to New York City. She established a portrait and commercial photography studio (with $10,000 worth of backing from Christian Holmes II and Cliff Smith) with her brother Erik (who had worked for the fashion photographer Toni von Horn) as her darkroom assistant. Miller rented two apartments in a building one block from
Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue and Theater (structure), theater at 1260 Sixth Avenue (Manhattan), Avenue of the Americas, within Rockefeller Center, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Nicknamed "The Showplac ...
. One of the apartments became her home, while the other became the Lee Miller Studio.
Clients of the Lee Miller Studio included
BBDO
BBDO is a worldwide advertising agency network, with its headquarters in New York City. The agency originated in 1891 with the George Batten Company, and in 1928, through a merger with Barton, Durstine & Osborn (BDO), the agency became Batten, B ...
, Henry Sell,
Elizabeth Arden
Elizabeth Arden (born Florence Nightingale Graham; December 31, 1881 – October 18, 1966) was a Canadian-American businesswoman who founded what is now Elizabeth Arden, Inc., and built a cosmetics empire in the United States. By 1929, s ...
,
Helena Rubinstein
Helena Rubinstein (born Chaja Rubinstein; December 25, 1870 – April 1, 1965) was a Polish and American businesswoman, art collector, and philanthropist. A cosmetics entrepreneur, she was the founder and eponym of Helena Rubinstein Incorporate ...
,
Saks Fifth Avenue
Saks Fifth Avenue (originally Saks & Company; Colloquialism, colloquially Saks) is an American Luxury goods, luxury department store chain headquartered in New York City and founded by Andrew Saks. The original store opened in the F Street and ...
,
I. Magnin
I. Magnin & Company was a San Francisco, California-based high fashion and specialty goods luxury department store. Over the course of its existence, it expanded across the West into Southern California and the adjoining states of Arizona, Oregon, ...
and Co., and Jay Thorpe.
During 1932 Miller was included in the ''Modern European Photography'' exhibition at the
Julien Levy Gallery
Julien Levy (1906–1981) was an art dealer and owner of Julien Levy Gallery in New York City, important as a venue for Surrealists, avant-garde artists, and American photographers in the 1930s and 1940s.
Biography
Levy was born in New York. Aft ...
in New York and the
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...
's exhibition ''International Photographers'' with
László Moholy-Nagy
László Moholy-Nagy (; ; born László Weisz; July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the i ...
,
Cecil Beaton
Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton, (14 January 1904 – 18 January 1980) was a British fashion, portrait and war photographer, diarist, painter, and interior designer, as well as an Oscar–winning stage and costume designer for films and the theat ...
,
Margaret Bourke-White
Margaret Bourke-White (; June 14, 1904 – August 27, 1971), an American list of photographers, photographer and documentary photography, documentary photographer, became arguably best known as the first foreign photographer permitted to take p ...
,
Tina Modotti
Tina Modotti (born Assunta Adelaide Luigia Modotti Mondini, August 16/17, 1896 – January 5, 1942) was an Italian American photographer, model, actor, and revolutionary political activist for the Comintern. She left Italy in 1913 and moved to ...
,
Charles Sheeler
Charles Sheeler (July 16, 1883 – May 7, 1965) was an American artist known for his Precisionist paintings, commercial photography, and the avant-garde film, ''Manhatta'', which he made in collaboration with Paul Strand. Sheeler is recognized ...
, Man Ray, and
Edward Weston
Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958) was a 20th-century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers..." and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." ...
.
In response to the exhibition, Katherine Grant Sterne wrote a review in ''Parnassus'' in March 1932, noting that Miller "has retained more of her American character in the Paris milieu. The very beautiful ''Bird Cages'' at Brooklyn; the study of a pink-nailed hand embedded in curly blond hair which is included in both the Brooklyn and the Julien Levy show; and the brilliant print of a white statue against a black drop, illumine the fact rather than distort it."
In 1933, Julien Levy gave Miller the only solo exhibition of her life. Among her portrait clients were the surrealist artist
Joseph Cornell
Joseph Cornell (December 24, 1903 – December 29, 1972) was an American visual artist and film-maker, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of Assemblage (art), assemblage. Influenced by the Surrealists, he was also an avant-garde e ...
, actresses
Lilian Harvey
Lilian Harvey (born Helene Lilian Muriel Pape; 19 January 1906 – 27 July 1968) was an Anglo-German actress and singer, long based in Germany, where she is best known for her role as Christel Weinzinger in Erik Charell's 1931 film ''Der Kongre ...
and
Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence (4 July 1898 – 6 September 1952) was an English actress, singer, dancer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End of London and on Broadway in New York.
Early life
Lawrence was born Gertr ...
, and the African-American cast of the
Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989) was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist, a neoromantic, a neoclassic ...
–
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris ...
opera ''
Four Saints in Three Acts
''Four Saints in Three Acts'' is an opera composed in 1928 by Virgil Thomson, setting a libretto written in 1927 by Gertrude Stein. It contains about 20 saints and is in at least four acts. It was groundbreaking in form, content, and for its all-b ...
'' (1934).
In 1934, Miller abandoned her studio to marry the Egyptian businessman and engineer Aziz Eloui Bey, who had come to New York City to buy equipment for the
Egyptian National Railways
Egyptian National Railways (ENR; ar, السكك الحديدية المصرية, Al-Sikak al-Ḥadīdiyyah al-Miṣriyyah) is the national railway of Egypt and managed by the parastatal Egyptian Railway Authority (ERA; ar, الهيئة الق ...
. Although she did not work as a professional photographer during this period, the photographs she took while living in Egypt with Eloui, including ''Portrait of Space'', are regarded as some of her most striking surrealist images. In Cairo, Miller took a photograph of the desert near Siwa that
Magritte saw and used as inspiration for his 1938 painting ''Le Baiser''.
Miller also contributed an object to the ''Surrealist Objects and Poems'' exhibition at the London Gallery in 1934.
By 1937, Miller had grown bored with her life in Cairo. She returned to Paris, where she met the British surrealist painter and curator
Roland Penrose
Sir Roland Algernon Penrose (14 October 1900 – 23 April 1984) was an English artist, historian and poet. He was a major promoter and collector of modern art and an associate of the surrealists in the United Kingdom. During the Second World W ...
.
Four of her photographs ("Egypt" (1939), "Roumania" (1938), "Libya" (1939), and "Sinai" (1939)) were displayed at the
Zwemmer Gallery's 1940 exhibition, ''Surrealism To-Day''. The
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
(MoMA) included her work in the exhibition ''Britain at War'' in New York City in 1941.
/sup> Another exhibition would not include her photographs until 1955 when she was included in the renowned ''The Family of Man'' exhibition curated by Edward Steichen
Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography.
Steichen was credited with tr ...
, director of the MoMA Department of Photography.
World War II
At the outbreak of World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Miller was living at Downshire Hill
Downshire Hill is a street in Hampstead, London, in the London Borough of Camden. The street has always been a preferred residential address, in which the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the actress Peggy Ashcroft as well as the scientist J. D. ...
in Hampstead
Hampstead () is an area in London, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from Watling Street, the A5 road (Roman Watling Street) to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the Lon ...
in London with Penrose when the bombing of the city began. Ignoring pleas from friends and family to return to the US, Miller embarked on a new career in photojournalism
Photojournalism is journalism that uses images to tell a news story. It usually only refers to still images, but can also refer to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (such ...
as the official war photographer
''War Photographer'' is a documentary by Christian Frei about the photographer James Nachtwey. As well as telling the story of an iconic man in the field of war photography, the film addresses the broader scope of ideas common to all those inv ...
for ''Vogue'', documenting the Blitz
The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'.
The Germa ...
. She was accredited with the U.S. Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
as a war correspondent for Condé Nast Publications
Condé is a French place name and personal name. It is ultimately derived from a Celtic word, "Condate", meaning "confluence" (of two rivers) - from which was derived the Romanised form "Condatum", in use during the Roman period, and thence to t ...
from December 1942.
Miller's first article for British ''Vogue'' was on nurses
Nursing is a profession within the health care sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses may be differentiated from other health ca ...
at an army base in Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
. Miller took portraits of nurses across Europe, including those on the front lines and prisoners of war.
She teamed up with the American photographer David E. Scherman, a ''Life'' correspondent, on many assignments. She traveled to France less than a month after D-Day
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...
and recorded the first use of napalm
Napalm is an incendiary mixture of a gelling agent and a volatile petrochemical (usually gasoline (petrol) or diesel fuel). The name is a portmanteau of two of the constituents of the original thickening and gelling agents: coprecipitated al ...
at the siege of St. Malo, as well as the liberation of Paris
The liberation of Paris (french: Libération de Paris) was a military battle that took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the German garrison surrendered the French capital on 25 August 1944. Paris had been occupied by Nazi Germ ...
, the Battle of Alsace
The Battle of Alsace was a military campaign between the Allies and the Germans in Alsace, eastern France, from 20 November 1944 to 19 March 1945.
References
See also
* Lorraine campaign
* Operation Nordwind
Alsace
Alsace
Alsace ...
, and the horror of the Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
concentration camp
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
s at Buchenwald
Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...
and Dachau
,
, commandant = List of commandants
, known for =
, location = Upper Bavaria, Southern Germany
, built by = Germany
, operated by = ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS)
, original use = Political prison
, construction ...
. Scherman's photograph of Millerin the bathtub of Adolf Hitler's apartment in Munich, with its shower hose looped in the center behind her head and the dust of Dachau on her boots deliberately dirtying Hitler's bathroom, is one of the most iconic images from the Miller–Scherman partnership, and occurred on April 30, 1945, coincidentally the same day as Hitler's suicide. Being one of the first to arrive at Hitler's secret apartments, Miller admits, "I had his address in my pocket for years." After taking the bathtub picture, Miller took a bath in the tub and slept in Hitler's bed.
During this period, Miller photographed dying children in a Vienna hospital, peasant life in post-war Hungary, corpses of Nazi officers and their families, and finally, the execution of Prime Minister László Bárdossy
László Bárdossy de Bárdos (10 December 1890 – 10 January 1946) was a Hungarian diplomat and politician who served as Prime Minister of Hungary from April 1941 to March 1942. He was one of the chief architects of Hungary's involvement in ...
. After the war, she continued working for Vogue for another two years, covering fashion and celebrities.
During Miller's work with ''Vogue'' in World War II, it became her goal to "document war as historical evidence".[Hilditch, L., 2018. BELIEVE IT! Lee Miller's Second World War Photographs as Modern Memorials. Journal of War & Culture Studies, July 3, 11(3), pp. 209 – 222.] The effect of her work was to provide "context for events". Her work was very specific and surrealist, like her previous publications and modelling with ''Vogue''. She spent time composing her photographs, famously framing them from inside the cattle trains. Miller's work with ''Vogue'' during wartime was often a combination of journalism and art, often manipulated to evoke emotion.
At the war's end, Miller's work as a wartime photojournalist continued as she sent telegrams back to the British ''Vogue'' editor, Audrey Withers, urging her to publish photographs from the camps. She did this following a CBS broadcast from Buchenwald by Edward R. Murrow
Edward Roscoe Murrow (born Egbert Roscoe Murrow; April 25, 1908 – April 27, 1965) was an American broadcast journalist and war correspondent. He first gained prominence during World War II with a series of live radio broadcasts from Europe fo ...
, and Richard Dimbleby
Frederick Richard Dimbleby (25 May 1913 – 22 December 1965) was an English journalist and broadcaster, who became the BBC's first war correspondent, and then its leading TV news commentator.
As host of the long-running current affairs ...
's BBC broadcast from inside Bergen-Belsen
Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concentrati ...
. This was a consequence of people's disbelief at such atrocities. These broadcasters used photographers to do what they could to show the public what they saw. During World War II, Miller's work was used predominantly to "provide an eye-witness account" of the casualties of war.
Life in Britain
After returning to Britain from central Europe, Miller suffered severe episodes of clinical depression
Major depressive disorder (MDD), also known as clinical depression, is a mental disorder characterized by at least two weeks of pervasive low mood, low self-esteem, and loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities. Introdu ...
and what later became known as post-traumatic stress disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on ...
(PTSD). She began to drink heavily and became uncertain about her future.
In November 1946, she was commissioned by British ''Vogue'' to illustrate the article "When James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...
Lived in Dublin" by Joyce's old friend and confidant Constantine Curran. Following a list given to her by Curran, Miller photographed numerous places and people in Dublin, many with a connection to Joyce. The article and photographs appeared in American ''Vogue'' in May 1947 and British ''Vogue'' in 1950. The pictures provide a remarkable record of Joyce's hometown and Dublin during that time. In 1946, she travelled with Penrose to the United States, where she visited Man Ray in California. After she discovered she was pregnant by Penrose with her only son, she divorced Bey and, on May 3, 1947, married Penrose. Their son, Antony Penrose
Antony William Roland Penrose (born 9 September 1947) is a British photographer. The son of Sir Roland Penrose and Lee Miller, Penrose is director of the Lee Miller Archive and Penrose Collection at his parents' former home, Farley Farm House. ...
, was born in September 1947.
In 1949, the couple bought Farley Farm House in Chiddingly
Chiddingly ( ) is an English village and civil parish in the Wealden District of the administrative county of East Sussex, within historic Sussex, some five miles (8 km) northwest of Hailsham.
The parish is rural in character: it inc ...
, East Sussex. During the 1950s and 1960s, Farley Farm became a sort of artistic Mecca for visiting artists such as Picasso, Man Ray, Henry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi- abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. As well as sculpture, Moore produced ...
, Eileen Agar
Eileen Forrester Agar (1 December 1899 – 17 November 1991) was a British-Argentinian painter and photographer associated with the Surrealist movement.
Biography
Agar was born in Buenos Aires, to a Scottish father and American mother. Her fat ...
, Jean Dubuffet
Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet (31 July 1901 – 12 May 1985) was a French Painting, painter and sculpture, sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so-called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what ...
, Dorothea Tanning
Dorothea Margaret Tanning (25 August 1910 – 31 January 2012) was an American painter, printmaker, sculptor, writer, and poet. Her early work was influenced by Surrealism.
Biography
Dorothea Tanning was born and raised in Galesburg, Illin ...
, and Max Ernst
Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German (naturalised American in 1948 and French in 1958) painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealism ...
. While Miller continued to do the occasional photo shoot for ''Vogue'', she soon discarded the darkroom for the kitchen, becoming a gourmet cook. According to her housekeeper Patsy, she specialized in "historical food" like roast suckling pig
A suckling pig is a piglet fed on its mother's milk (i.e., a piglet which is still a " suckling"). In culinary contexts, a suckling pig is slaughtered between the ages of two and six weeks. It is traditionally cooked whole, often roasted, in ...
as well as treats such as marshmallows in a cola sauce (especially made to annoy English critic Cyril Connolly
Cyril Vernon Connolly CBE (10 September 1903 – 26 November 1974) was an English literary critic and writer. He was the editor of the influential literary magazine ''Horizon'' (1940–49) and wrote '' Enemies of Promise'' (1938), which combin ...
who told her Americans didn't know how to cook). She also provided photographs for her husband's biographies of Picasso and Antoni Tàpies
Antoni Tàpies i Puig, 1st Marquess of Tápies (; 13 December 1923 – 6 February 2012) was a Catalan People, Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist, who became one of the most famous European artists of his generation.
Life
The son of Jo ...
. However, images from the war, especially the concentration camps, continued to haunt her, and she started on what her son later described as a "downward spiral". Her depression may have been accelerated by her husband's long affair with the trapeze artist Diane Deriaz.
Miller was investigated by the British security service MI5
The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Go ...
during the 1940s and 1950s, on suspicion of being a Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
spy.
In October 1969, Miller was asked in an interview with a ''New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' reporter what drew her to photography. Her response was that it was "a matter of getting out on a damn limb and sawing it off behind you".
Death
Miller died of cancer at Farley Farm House in 1977, aged 70. She was cremated, and her ashes were spread through her herb garden at Farley.
Legacy
Miller's work has served as inspiration for Gucci's Frida Giannini
Frida Giannini (born in Rome, 1972) is an Italian fashion designer. She was the creative director of the Italian fashion house Gucci from 2006 to 2014.
Education
Giannini studied fashion design at Rome's Fashion Academy.
Career
After brief stint ...
, Ann Demeulemeester
Ann Verhelst (born 29 December 1959), known professionally as Ann Demeulemeester, is a Belgian fashion designer whose label, Ann Demeulemeester, is mainly showcased at the annual Paris Fashion Week. She is known as one of the Antwerp Six in the ...
, and Alexander McQueen
Lee Alexander McQueen CBE (17 March 1969 – 11 February 2010) was a British fashion designer and couturier. He founded his own Alexander McQueen label in 1992, and was chief designer at Givenchy from 1996 to 2001. His achievements in fashion ...
. Playwright David Hare David Hare may refer to:
*David Hare (philanthropist) (1775–1842), Scottish philanthropist
*David Hare (artist) (1917–1992), American sculptor and photographer
*David Hare (playwright) (born 1947), English playwright and theatre and film direc ...
comments, "Today, when the mark of a successful iconographer is to offer craven worship of wealth, or yet more craven worship of power and celebrity, it is impossible to imagine an artist of Lee's subtlety and humanity commanding the resources of a mass-market magazine." Mark Haworth-Booth
Mark Haworth-Booth (born 20 August 1944) is a British academic and historian of photography. He was a curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London from 1970 to 2004. , curator of ''The Art of Lee Miller'', has said "her photographs shocked people out of their comfort zone" and that "she had a chip of ice in her heart...she got very close to things...Margaret Bourke-White
Margaret Bourke-White (; June 14, 1904 – August 27, 1971), an American list of photographers, photographer and documentary photography, documentary photographer, became arguably best known as the first foreign photographer permitted to take p ...
was far away from the fighting, but Lee was close. That's what makes the difference--Lee was prepared to shock."
In 1932, for the ''Poughkeepsie Evening Star'', Miller stated that photography was "perfectly suited to women as a profession...it seems to me that women have a bigger chance at success in photography than men...women are quicker and more adaptable than men. And I think they have an intuition that helps them understand personalities more quickly than men."
Throughout her life, Miller did very little to promote her photographic work. That Miller's work is known today is mainly due to the efforts of her son, Antony Penrose, who has been studying, conserving, and promoting his mother's work since the early 1980s. He discovered sixty thousand or so photographs, negatives, documents, journals, cameras, love letters, and souvenirs in cardboard boxes and trunks in Farley Farm's attic after his mother's death. He owns the house and offers tours of the works of Miller and Penrose. The house is home to the private collections of Miller and Penrose, their work, and some of their favourite art pieces. In the dining room, the fireplace was decorated in vivid colours by Penrose. Her pictures are accessible at the ''Lee Miller Archive''.
In 1985, Penrose published the first biography of Miller, entitled ''The Lives of Lee Miller''. Since then, a number of books, mostly accompanying exhibitions of her photographs, have been written by art historians and writers such as Jane Livingstone, Richard Calvocoressi, and Haworth-Booth. Penrose and David Scherman
David E. Scherman (1916 – May 5, 1997) was an American photojournalist and editor.
Born in Manhattan to a Jewish family, he grew up in New Rochelle, New York and then attended Dartmouth College. He graduated in 1936 and became a photograp ...
collaborated on the book ''Lee Miller's War: Photographer and Correspondent With the Allies in Europe 1944–45'', in 1992. Interviews with Penrose form the core of the 1995 documentary ''Lee Miller: Through the Mirror'', made with Scherman and writer-director Sylvain Roumette. The audiobook ''Surrealism Reviewed'' was published in 2002, and a 1946 radio interview with Miller can be heard on it.
A blue plaque
A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term i ...
was attached to Miller's and Penrose's residence at 21 Downshire Hill
Downshire Hill is a street in Hampstead, London, in the London Borough of Camden. The street has always been a preferred residential address, in which the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the actress Peggy Ashcroft as well as the scientist J. D. ...
, Hampstead, London.
In 2005, Miller's life story was turned into a musical, ''Six Pictures of Lee Miller'', with music and lyrics by British composer Jason Carr
Jason ( ; ) was an ancient Greek mythological hero and leader of the Argonauts, whose quest for the Golden Fleece featured in Greek literature. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcos. He was married to the sorceress Medea. He was ...
. It premiered at the Chichester Festival Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre is a theatre and Grade II* listed building situated in Oaklands Park in the city of Chichester, West Sussex, England. Designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya
John Hidalgo Moya (5 May 1920 – 3 August 1994), ...
, West Sussex
West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ar ...
. Also in 2005, Carolyn Burke
Carolyn Burke (born March 29, 1940) is an Australian-born American writer, translator, and author of four biographies. Her first was a life of the English poet Mina Loy, published in 1996 and reprinted in 2021. She has also written books about the ...
's substantial biography, ''Lee Miller, A Life'', was published.
In 2007, ''Traces of Lee Miller: Echoes from St. Malo'', an interactive CD and DVD about Miller's war photography in St. Malo, was released with the support of Hand Productions and Sussex University
, mottoeng = Be Still and Know
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £14.4 million (2020)
, budget = £319.6 million (2019–20)
, chancellor = Sanjeev Bhaskar
, vice_chancellor = Sasha Roseneil
, ...
.
In 2015, an exhibition of Miller's photographs at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery
The Scottish National Portrait Gallery is an art museum on Queen Street, Edinburgh. The gallery holds the national collections of portraits, all of which are of, but not necessarily by, Scots. It also holds the Scottish National Photography Co ...
, ''Lee Miller and Picasso'', focussed "on the relationship between Lee Miller, Roland Penrose and Pablo Picasso". In the same year, a work of historical fiction, ''The Woman in the Photograph'', by Dana Gynther, was published. It builds its story around Miller's affair with Man Ray in Paris circa 1930.
In 2019, a work of historical fiction, ''The Age of Light'', by Whitney Scharer, was published. It tells the story of Miller's life, work, and relationship with Man Ray.
Penrose's 1985 biography will be the basis for a film by Ellen Kuras
Ellen Kuras (born July 10, 1959) is an American cinematographer whose body of work includes narrative and documentary films, music videos and commercials in both the studio and independent worlds. One of few female members of the American Socie ...
, ''Lee
Lee may refer to:
Name
Given name
* Lee (given name), a given name in English
Surname
* Chinese surnames romanized as Li or Lee:
** Li (surname 李) or Lee (Hanzi ), a common Chinese surname
** Li (surname 利) or Lee (Hanzi ), a Chinese ...
'', to be released in 2023, featuring Kate Winslet
Kate Elizabeth Winslet (; born 5 October 1975) is an English actress. Known for her work in independent films, particularly period dramas, and for her portrayals of headstrong and complicated women, she has received numerous accolades, incl ...
as Lee Miller.
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
Lee Miller Archives official site
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
Farleys House and Gallery official site
by Jason Carr, about the musical
* – article discussing the relationship between Miller and Picasso
{{DEFAULTSORT:Miller, Lee
1907 births
1977 deaths
Art Students League of New York alumni
20th-century American photographers
American artists' models
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
American photojournalists
Fine art photographers
Muses
Photographers from New York (state)
People from Poughkeepsie, New York
Photography in Egypt
Photography in Germany
American surrealist artists
American war photographers
American war correspondents of World War II
Women surrealist artists
20th-century American women photographers
Women photojournalists