Lee Miller notes

L3

Lee Miller ( 1907 to 1977)

Lee Miller was an extraordinary women, she was a model, muse, artist, photographer, surrealist, war correspondent and mother. She was with the American forces soon after the D-Day landings in WW11, and photographed St Malo during the capture of the town from the Germans (the DVD issued by the Miller archive is very interesting, as it also shows her notes of the photographs, and some of the perilous positions she was in whilst fighting was taking place). She appears to have documented her photographs quite well.

Well known as a model for Vogue, and as one of their fashion photographers, and for her various photographic work, it was her father who set her off on her way as a photographer, and with her early studies in Paris and New York in lighting, costume and stage design, would have helped her immensely later on. It was Edward Steichen who persuaded her to take up photography, and make contact with Man Ray (who she acknowledged later taught her everything, fashion, portraiture “the whole technique of what he did”). Miller’s contact with the surrealists certainly helped her to develop her great sense of seeing that is displayed in her photographs. It is incredible the number of artists and photographers who passed each other via Man Ray, either briefly or more extensively in that period, 20’s and 30’s, all of them developing the aspects of photography we see today. She had the ability to capture her portrait subjects not as you might expect to see them, but as she knew how they should appear. Although they looked posed, she had the ability to “snatch that shot”. I would rather take portraits like this, as a lot of subjects do “pose”, and do not reflect how they are either way, as formal or not.

Portraiture was an integral part of Miller’s life, and people were used to her having a camera with her. Five main types of portraiture can be identified with in Miller’s work. Formal studio portraits of figures from the worlds’ of stage, screen, fashion and literature, the less formal portraits of artists, writers, musicians, and actors taken on location, a lot for Vogue, but many for herself. Thirdly, intimate portraits of friends, many of them artists, then women engaged in war work, an assignment for Vogue, Miller’s “Wrens in camera” 1945. Last but not least civilians caught up in the war, and victims of Nazi oppression, following the defeat of the Germans after D -Day, (this could be classed as photoreportage). She was one of the first to see Dachau and Buchewald eg and some of her photographs are quite harrowing, and British Vogue were persuaded to publish them, so some departure from portrait photography.

Having visited Farley Farm in Sussex in 2006 (where she spent most of her life after the war with Roland Penrose) and her exhibition at the V&A in 2007, the extent of her work is evident, and two thirds of her work was indeed taken up with portraiture of one kind or other, a very impressive collection.