Model Focus
She may have begun her career as a Vogue cover girl but a major new exhibition of the photography of Lee Miller celebrates her life as a ground-breaking artist Words: Emma Juhasz A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN steps off the kerb in New York City into the path of an oncoming car but is pulled to safety [...]
She may have begun her career as a Vogue cover girl but a major new exhibition of the photography of Lee
Miller celebrates her life as a ground-breaking artist
Words: Emma Juhasz
A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN steps off the kerb in New
York City into the path of an oncoming car but
is pulled to safety by a bystander. The fairy-tale
continues when the bystander turns out to be Condé
Nast, the founder of the magazine publishing empire,
and within months, the woman is staring out of the
front cover of Vogue magazine as its cover model.
This life-altering happenstance really happened to
Lee Miller (1907-1977) when she was 20. She went
on to become a successful model and one of the
most original photographic artists of the 20th century.
Miller was evidently a beautiful woman but she
had an extraordinary talent behind the lens as well,
which was her preferred occupation: “I’d rather take
a picture than be one.” After her model beginnings
and a brief stint in Paris as a muse to the surrealist
artist Man Ray, she returned to New York in 1932 to
set up her own portrait studio. Having been seduced
by surrealism, her work was experimental and often
surprising, but fundamentally, it was pioneering.
Miller was considered the quintessential ‘modern
woman’ and she travelled to Egypt and Romania,
establishing herself as a documentary and travel
photographer. The Second World War saw her return
to Vogue. Rather than grace its cover though, she
became its freelance war correspondent; one of
only six accredited women war reporters and the
only woman photo-reporter in active combat areas.
Among the scenes she recorded were prisoners
being liberated from the Nazi concentration camps.
Peacetime brought Miller to England. She had
a son, Antony, born in 1947, with the English painter
Sir Roland Penrose and went to live on a farm in
West Sussex. Her career concluded with a series
called ‘Working Guests’, which featured friends who
included the artists Pablo Picasso and Max Ernst.
You can currently see her greatest works at the
Victoria & Albert Museum in London, as it celebrates
the centenery of her birth with a major retrospective.
‘The Art of Lee Miller’ takes place until 6 January
2008 at the Victoria & Albert Museum, South
Kensington, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL,
+44 (0) 20 942 2000; www.vam.ac.uk
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SELF-PORTRAIT1933 Miller returned to New York after the break-up of her relationship with Man Ray. There she established a portrait and advertising studio with her younger brother Erik. |
| PORTRAIT OF SPACE,FINAL VERSION, 1937 One of Miller’s most famous photographs from her time in Egypt. It was taken at Siwa- an oasis in the Western Desert |
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LEE MILLER WITH ROLLEIFLEX, EYGPT,1935Miller married Aziz Eloui Bey and moved to Cairo in 1934. She left Egypt and her husband in 1939, after she met Roland Penrose |
| WOMEN WITH FIRE MASKS, LONDON,1941 One of her first war photographs: it shows two women sitting at the entrance to an air raid shelter. It was considered too imbued in surrealist values to be published |
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LEE MILLER AND PABLO PICASSO – LIBERATION OF PARIS, 1944Miller and Picasso became great friends. When they met after the liberation of Paris, he remarked, “This is the first Allied soldier I have seen, and it’s you!” |
