Historical Photographer - Lee Miller

http://www.leemiller.co.uk/images/self.jpg

http://www.leemiller.co.uk/images/photos/large/114.jpg 1937 - Eileen Agar’s shadow on the Royal Pavilion Brighton, England (Portrait series)
http://www.leemiller.co.uk/images/photos/large/1058.jpg 1937 - Pablo Picasso, Hotel vaste Horizon, Mougins, France (Portrait series)
http://www.leemiller.co.uk/images/photos/large/76.jpg 1933 –  Scent Bottles, New York, NY (New York series)
http://www.leemiller.co.uk/images/photos/large/48.jpg 1930 – Charlie Chaplin, Paris, France (Paris series)

Lee Miller was born in 1907 in Poughkeepsie, New York USA and began her career as a model for famous photographers of the day such as Edward Steichen, Hoyningen-Huene and Arnold Genthe.

In March, 1929 she was the first ‘real’ person to pose for Kotex pads.  The same year she also went to Paris and opened her own studio working with well-known photographer Man Ray.  Her work became known as a portraitist and fashion photographer but the work she is best known for is the surreal photos in the Liberation of Paris, Hitler’s house burning the night the Germans surrender, Pablo Picasso and those taken during World War II. Her photos were intense, descriptive and often times disturbing. 

She returned to New York in 1932 and opened another studio and ran that for 2 years before marrying Aziz Eloui Bey, an Egyptian businessman.  At that time she went to Cairo Egypt and became interested in the deserts and villages of the area so began taking pictures of those areas.  She traveled to Paris in 1937 and met her second husband, Roland Penrose, a Surrealist artist.  They traveled to Romania and Greece and then went to London in 1939 as a freelance photographer for Vogue just prior to World War II breaking out. 

She was the only female photo-journalist to cover the war in Europe.  In 1944 she became a correspondent for the US Army and along with David E. Scherman, (a Time Life photographer), and together they ‘followed the US troops on D-Day + 20’.  During this time she witnessed many world events including; “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”, as well as photos of peasants in post war Hungary, dying children in Vienna and the execution of a prime minister.

She worked for 2 years after the war for Vogue photographing fashion and models.  Her portraits of Picasso and other famous artists are believed to be some of the most powerful photos ever taken of the artists.  She is remembered mostly for her “witty Surrealist images which permeate all her work”.  Lee Miller died at Farley Farm House in 1977.