Lee Miller
Encyclopedia
Elizabeth 'Lee' Miller, Lady Penrose (April 23, 1907 – July 21, 1977) was an American photographer
. Born in Poughkeepsie
, New York
in 1907, she was a successful fashion model in New York City in the 1920s before going to Paris where she became an established fashion
and fine art photographer. During the Second World War
, she became an acclaimed war correspondent for Vogue
covering events such as the London Blitz
, the liberation of Paris
, and the concentration camps at Buchenwald
and Dachau.
d while staying with a family friend in Brooklyn
. Soon after, it was realized that Lee had contracted gonorrhea
. The rape (which she almost never discussed), had a life-long traumatizing effect upon her.
, thus launching her modeling career when she appeared on the cover of the March 1927 edition in an illustration by George Lepape. For the next two years, she was one of the most sought after models in New York, photographed by the likes of Edward Steichen
, Arnold Genthe
, and Nickolas Murray. A photograph of Lee by Steichen was used to advertise a female hygienic product (Kotex
) causing a scandal, effectively ending her career as a fashion model.
. Although, at first, he insisted that he did not take students, Miller soon became his photographic assistant, as well as his lover and muse. While she was in Paris, she began her own photographic studio, often taking over Man Ray's fashion assignments to enable him to concentrate on his painting. In fact, many of the photographs taken during this period and credited to Man Ray were actually taken by Lee. Together with Man Ray, she rediscovered the photographic technique of solarisation
. She was an active participant in the surrealist movement
, with her witty and humorous images. Amongst her circle of friends were Pablo Picasso
, Paul Éluard
, and Jean Cocteau
. She even appeared as a statue that comes to life in Cocteau's The Blood of a Poet
(1930
).
After leaving Man Ray and Paris in 1932, she returned to New York and established a portrait and commercial photography studio with her brother Erik as her darkroom assistant. During this year she was included in the Modern European Photography exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York. In 1933 Levy gave Miller the only solo exhibition of her life. Among her portrait clients were the surrealist artist Joseph Cornell
, actresses Lilian Harvey and Gertrude Lawrence, and the African-American cast of the Virgil Thomson
–Gertrude Stein
opera Four Saints in Three Acts
(1934).
In 1934, she abandoned her studio to marry Egyptian businessman, Aziz Eloui Bey, who had come to New York to buy equipment for the Egyptian Railways. 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. By 1937, Lee had grown bored with her life in Cairo and she returned to Paris, where she met her future husband, the British surrealist painter
and curator
Roland Penrose
. Her photographs were not included in another exhibition until 1955, when her work was displayed with The Family of Man
exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art
in New York City.
, Miller was living in Hampstead
, London with Roland 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
as the official war photographer for Vogue
documenting the Blitz
. Lee was accredited into the U.S. Army
as a war correspondent
for Condé Nast Publications
from December 1942. She teamed up with the American photographer David E. Scherman, a Life Magazine
correspondent on many assignments. Miller travelled to France less than a month after D-Day
and recorded the first use of napalm
at the siege of St. Malo, the liberation of Paris, the battle for Alsace
, and the horror of the Nazi
concentration camps at Buchenwald and Dachau
. One photograph by Scherman of Miller in the bathtub of Adolf Hitler
's apartment in Munich
is one of the most iconic images from the Miller-Scherman partnership.
During this time, Miller photographed dying children in a Vienna Hospital, peasant life in post-war Hungary and finally the execution of Prime Minister László Bárdossy
. After the war she continued to work for Vogue for a further two years, covering fashion and celebrities.
and what later became known as post-traumatic stress syndrome. She began to drink heavily, and became uncertain about her future. In 1946, she traveled with Roland to the United States where she visited Man Ray in California. After she discovered she was pregnant with her only son, Antony, she divorced Bey and, on May 3, 1947 married Roland. Antony was born in September 1947. In 1949, they bought Farley Farm House in Sussex
. During the 1950s and 1960s, Farley Farm became a sort of artistic Mecca for visiting artists such as Picasso, Man Ray, Henry Moore
, Eileen Agar
, Jean Dubuffet
, Dorothea Tanning
, and Max Ernst
. While Miller continued to do the occasional photo shoot for Vogue, she soon discarded the darkroom for the kitchen becoming a successful gourmet cook. She also photographed for biographies Roland wrote about Picasso and Antoni Tàpies
. However, images from the war, especially the concentration camps, continued to haunt her and she started on what Antony describes as a "downward spiral". Her depression may have been accelerated by her husband's long affair with the trapeze artist Diane Deriaz. Lee rarely talked about her war experiences but it inevitably had harsh effects on her health and her relationship with her family.
Miller died from cancer
at Farley Farm House in Chiddingly
, East Sussex
in 1977, aged 70. She was cremated, and her ashes spread through her herb garden at Farley Farm House. Her son Antony Penrose, known as Tony, owns the house and offers tours of the amazing work of Miller and of Roland Penrose. The garden exhibits art items such as Fallen Giant, Sea Creature, and Kneeling Woman, and the house is home to the private collections of Miller-Penrose, their own work and some of their favourite pieces of art. In the dining room, the fireplace was decorated in vivid colours by Roland Penrose.
In 1985, the first biography of Miller entitled The Lives of Lee Miller was written by Antony Penrose. Since then, a number of books, mostly accompanying exhibitions of Miller's photographs, have been written by art historians and writers such as Jane Livingstone, Richard Calvocoressi, and Mark Haworth-Booth. In 2005 her life story was turned into a musical Six Pictures Of Lee Miller with music and lyrics by British composer Jason Carr. It premiered at The Chichester Festival Theatre
(also in Sussex). Also in 2005 Carolyn Burke's substantial biography, Lee Miller, A Life, was published in the U.S. by Alfred A. Knopf
and in the U.K. by Bloomsbury. 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.
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
. Born in Poughkeepsie
Poughkeepsie (city), New York
Poughkeepsie is a city in the state of New York, United States, which serves as the county seat of Dutchess County. Poughkeepsie is located in the Hudson River Valley midway between New York City and Albany...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
in 1907, she was a successful fashion model in New York City in the 1920s before going to Paris where she became an established fashion
Glamour photography
Glamour photography is a genre of photography whereby the subjects, usually female, are portrayed in a romantic or sexually alluring way. The subjects may be fully clothed or seminude, but glamour photography stops short of deliberately arousing the viewer and being pornographic photography.Glamour...
and fine art photographer. During the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, she became an acclaimed war correspondent for Vogue
Vogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
covering events such as the London Blitz
The Blitz
The Blitz was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed...
, the liberation of Paris
Liberation of Paris
The Liberation of Paris took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the surrender of the occupying German garrison on August 25th. It could be regarded by some as the last battle in the Battle for Normandy, though that really ended with the crushing of the Wehrmacht forces between the...
, and the concentration camps at Buchenwald
Buchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald concentration camp was a German Nazi concentration camp established on the Ettersberg near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937, one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps on German soil.Camp prisoners from all over Europe and Russia—Jews, non-Jewish Poles and Slovenes,...
and Dachau.
Early life
Lee Miller was born on April 23, 1907 in Poughkeepsie, New York. Her parents were Theodore and Florence Miller (née MacDonald). Her father was of German descent, and her mother a Canadian of Scottish and Irish descent. She had a younger brother named Erik, and older brother named John. Theodore always favored Lee, and he often used her as a model for his amateur photography. When she was eight years old, she was rapeRape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
d while staying with a family friend in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
. Soon after, it was realized that Lee had contracted gonorrhea
Gonorrhea
Gonorrhea is a common sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae. The usual symptoms in men are burning with urination and penile discharge. Women, on the other hand, are asymptomatic half the time or have vaginal discharge and pelvic pain...
. The rape (which she almost never discussed), had a life-long traumatizing effect upon her.
Modelling
Her father, Theodore Miller, an engineer, inventor and businessman, introduced Lee and her brothers, John and Erik, to photography from an early age. She was his model — with many stereoscopic photographs taken of a teenage Lee in the nude — and he also showed her technical aspects of the art. At age 19, she was stopped from walking in front of a car on a Manhattan street by the founder of Vogue, Condé NastCondé Montrose Nast
Condé Montrose Nast was the founder of Condé Nast Publications, a leading American magazine publisher known for publications such as Vanity Fair, Vogue and The New Yorker.-Background:...
, thus launching her modeling career when she appeared on the cover of the March 1927 edition in an illustration by George Lepape. For the next two years, she was one of the most sought after models in New York, photographed by the likes of Edward Steichen
Edward Steichen
Edward J. Steichen was an American photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator. He was the most frequently featured photographer in Alfred Stieglitz' groundbreaking magazine Camera Work during its run from 1903 to 1917. Steichen also contributed the logo design and a custom typeface...
, Arnold Genthe
Arnold Genthe
Arnold Genthe was a photographer, best known for his photos of San Francisco's Chinatown, the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and his portraits of noted persons, from politicians and socialites to literary figures and entertainment celebrities.-Biography:Genthe was born in Berlin, Prussia, to Louise...
, and Nickolas Murray. A photograph of Lee by Steichen was used to advertise a female hygienic product (Kotex
Kotex
Kotex is a brand of feminine 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 feminine hygiene products...
) causing a scandal, effectively ending her career as a fashion model.
Photography
In 1929, Lee Miller traveled to Paris with the intention of apprenticing herself to the surrealist artist and photographer Man RayMan Ray
Man Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...
. Although, at first, he insisted that he did not take students, Miller soon became his photographic assistant, as well as his lover and muse. While she was in Paris, she began her own photographic studio, often taking over Man Ray's fashion assignments to enable him to concentrate on his painting. In fact, many of the photographs taken during this period and credited to Man Ray were actually taken by Lee. Together with Man Ray, she rediscovered the photographic technique of solarisation
Solarisation
Solarisation is a phenomenon in photography in which the image recorded on a negative or on a photographic print is wholly or partially reversed in tone. Dark areas appear light or light areas appear dark...
. She was an active participant in the surrealist movement
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, with her witty and humorous images. Amongst her circle of friends were Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
, Paul Éluard
Paul Éluard
Paul Éluard, born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel , was a French poet who was one of the founders of the surrealist movement.-Biography:...
, and Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
. She even appeared as a statue that comes to life in Cocteau's The Blood of a Poet
The Blood of a Poet
The Blood of a Poet is an avant-garde film directed by Jean Cocteau and financed by Charles de Noailles. Photographer Lee Miller made her only film appearance in this movie, and it also features an appearance by the famed aerialist Barbette...
(1930
1930 in film
-Events:* November 1: The Big Trail featuring a young John Wayne in his first starring role is released in both 35mm, and a very early form of 70mm film and was the first large scale big-budget film of the sound era costing over $2 million. The film was praised for its aesthetic quality and realism...
).
After leaving Man Ray and Paris in 1932, she returned to New York and established a portrait and commercial photography studio with her brother Erik as her darkroom assistant. During this year she was included in the Modern European Photography exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York. In 1933 Levy gave Miller the only solo exhibition of her life. Among her portrait clients were the surrealist artist Joseph Cornell
Joseph Cornell
Joseph Cornell was an American artist and sculptor, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage...
, actresses Lilian Harvey and Gertrude Lawrence, and the African-American cast of the Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music...
–Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
opera Four Saints in Three Acts
Four Saints in Three Acts
Four Saints in Three Acts is an opera by American composer Virgil Thomson with a libretto by Gertrude Stein. Written in 1927-8, it contains about 20 saints, and is in at least four acts...
(1934).
In 1934, she abandoned her studio to marry Egyptian businessman, Aziz Eloui Bey, who had come to New York to buy equipment for the Egyptian Railways. 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. By 1937, Lee had grown bored with her life in Cairo and she returned to Paris, where she met her future husband, the British surrealist painter
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
and curator
Curator
A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...
Roland Penrose
Roland Penrose
Sir Roland Algernon Penrose CBE 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.- Biography :...
. Her photographs were not included in another exhibition until 1955, when her work was displayed with The Family of Man
The Family of Man
The Family of Man was a photography exhibition curated by Edward Steichen first shown in 1955 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.According to Steichen, the exhibition represented the 'culmination of his career'. The 508 photos by 273 photographers in 68 countries were selected from almost 2...
exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
in New York City.
World War II
At the outbreak of the Second World WarWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Miller was living in Hampstead
Hampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
, London with Roland 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
Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism that creates images in order to tell a news story. It is now usually understood to refer only to still images, but in some cases the term also refers to video used in broadcast journalism...
as the official war photographer for Vogue
Vogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
documenting the Blitz
The Blitz
The Blitz was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed...
. Lee was accredited into the U.S. Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
as a war correspondent
War correspondent
A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. In the 19th century they were also called Special Correspondents.-Methods:...
for Condé Nast Publications
Condé Nast Publications
Condé Nast, a division of Advance Publications, is a magazine publisher. In the U.S., it produces 18 consumer magazines, including Architectural Digest, Bon Appétit, GQ, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Vogue, as well as four business-to-business publications, 27 websites, and more than 50 apps...
from December 1942. She teamed up with the American photographer David E. Scherman, a Life Magazine
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
correspondent on many assignments. Miller travelled to France less than a month after D-Day
D-Day
D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar...
and recorded the first use of napalm
Napalm
Napalm is a thickening/gelling agent generally mixed with gasoline or a similar fuel for use in an incendiary device, primarily as an anti-personnel weapon...
at the siege of St. Malo, the liberation of Paris, the battle for Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
, and the horror of the Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
concentration camps at Buchenwald and Dachau
Dachau
Dachau is a town in Upper Bavaria, in the southern part of Germany. It is a major district town—a Große Kreisstadt—of the administrative region of Upper Bavaria, about 20 km north-west of Munich. It is now a popular residential area for people working in Munich with roughly 40,000 inhabitants...
. One photograph by Scherman of Miller in the bathtub of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
's apartment in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
is one of the most iconic images from the Miller-Scherman partnership.
During this time, Miller photographed dying children in a Vienna Hospital, peasant life in post-war Hungary and finally the execution of Prime Minister László Bárdossy
László Bárdossy
Dr. László Bárdossy de Bárdos was a Hungarian diplomat and politician who served as Prime Minister of Hungary from 1941 to 1942.-Biography:...
. After the war she continued to work for Vogue for a further two years, covering fashion and celebrities.
England
After returning to Britain from eastern Europe, Lee started to suffer from severe episodes of clinical depressionClinical depression
Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...
and what later became known as post-traumatic stress syndrome. She began to drink heavily, and became uncertain about her future. In 1946, she traveled with Roland to the United States where she visited Man Ray in California. After she discovered she was pregnant with her only son, Antony, she divorced Bey and, on May 3, 1947 married Roland. Antony was born in September 1947. In 1949, they bought Farley Farm House in Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
. During the 1950s and 1960s, Farley Farm became a sort of artistic Mecca for visiting artists such as Picasso, Man Ray, Henry Moore
Henry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art....
, Eileen Agar
Eileen Agar
Eileen Forrester Agar was a British painter and photographer associated with the Surrealist movement.-Biography:...
, Jean Dubuffet
Jean Dubuffet
Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a more authentic and humanistic approach to image-making.-Life and work:Dubuffet was...
, Dorothea Tanning
Dorothea Tanning
Dorothea Tanning is an American painter, printmaker, sculptor and writer. She has also designed sets and costumes for ballet and theatre.-Biography:...
, and Max Ernst
Max Ernst
Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...
. While Miller continued to do the occasional photo shoot for Vogue, she soon discarded the darkroom for the kitchen becoming a successful gourmet cook. She also photographed for biographies Roland wrote about Picasso and Antoni Tàpies
Antoni Tàpies
Antoni Tàpies i Puig, 1st Marquess of Tàpies is a Catalan painter. He is one of the most famous European artists of his generation. After studying law for 3 years, he devoted himself from 1943 onwards only to his painting...
. However, images from the war, especially the concentration camps, continued to haunt her and she started on what Antony describes as a "downward spiral". Her depression may have been accelerated by her husband's long affair with the trapeze artist Diane Deriaz. Lee rarely talked about her war experiences but it inevitably had harsh effects on her health and her relationship with her family.
Miller died from cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
at Farley Farm House in Chiddingly
Chiddingly
Chiddingly is a village and civil parish in the Wealden District of East Sussex, some five miles northwest of Hailsham. The parish is rural in character: it includes the village of Chiddingly and a collection of hamlets: the largest of these being Muddles Green and Thunder's Hill; others...
, East Sussex
East Sussex
East Sussex is a county in South East England. It is bordered by the counties of Kent, Surrey and West Sussex, and to the south by the English Channel.-History:...
in 1977, aged 70. She was cremated, and her ashes spread through her herb garden at Farley Farm House. Her son Antony Penrose, known as Tony, owns the house and offers tours of the amazing work of Miller and of Roland Penrose. The garden exhibits art items such as Fallen Giant, Sea Creature, and Kneeling Woman, and the house is home to the private collections of Miller-Penrose, their own work and some of their favourite pieces of art. In the dining room, the fireplace was decorated in vivid colours by Roland Penrose.
Legacy
Throughout her life, Miller did very little to promote her own 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. Her pictures are accessible at the Lee Miller Archive.In 1985, the first biography of Miller entitled The Lives of Lee Miller was written by Antony Penrose. Since then, a number of books, mostly accompanying exhibitions of Miller's photographs, have been written by art historians and writers such as Jane Livingstone, Richard Calvocoressi, and Mark Haworth-Booth. In 2005 her life story was turned into a musical Six Pictures Of Lee Miller with music and lyrics by British composer Jason Carr. It premiered at The Chichester Festival Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre, located in Chichester, England, was designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, and opened by its founder Leslie Evershed-Martin in 1962. Subsequently the smaller and more intimate Minerva Theatre was built nearby in 1989....
(also in Sussex). Also in 2005 Carolyn Burke's substantial biography, Lee Miller, A Life, was published in the U.S. by Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. is a New York publishing house, founded by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. in 1915. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. The publishing house is known for its borzoi trademark , which was designed by co-founder...
and in the U.K. by Bloomsbury. 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.
External links
- News story about how she was put under surveillance by MI5, BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, 2009 - News story about a 2002 Lee Miller exhibition, BBC
- Composer-lyricist Jason Carr's website's section about the musical Six Pictures Of Lee Miller
- Borzoi Reader on Carolyn Burke's Lee Miller, A Life
- Bloomsbury on Carolyn Burke's Lee Miller
- Looking Down on Lee Miller: Carolyn Burke’s Lee Miller: A Life by Henry Edward Hardy on Scanlyze
- Model Focus - Remembering Lee Miller by Emma Juhasz for bmi Voyager, October 2007
- Lee Miller Archive official site