Lee Miller American, 1907-1977

Lee Miller (1907-77) was born in Poughkeepsie, New York. Introduced to cameras early through her father, Lee Miller entered the world of photography in New York as a model to the great photographers such as Steichen, Hoyningen-Huene and Genthe. In 1929 she went to Paris and worked with Surrealist artist and photographer Man Ray, succeeding within a year in establishing her own studio. Returning to New York in 1932 she set up her studio for two years and was highly successful. It closed when she married Egyptian businessman Aziz Eloui Bey and went to live in Cairo, Egypt. Fascinated by desert travel, Miller photographed desert villages and ruins. Visiting Paris in 1937 she met Roland Penrose and in 1939 left Egypt for London as WW2 broke out and became a freelance photographer at Vogue. Between 1939 and mid 1944 Miller's fashion work was published on over 400 pages of British Vogue. In 1942 she became a correspondent to the US Army. Among her many exploits she witnessed the siege of St Malo, Liberation of Paris, fighting in Alsace, liberation of Buchenwald and Dachau and famously billeted in Hitler's apartment. Whilst still working at Vogue, in 1947 Miller married Penrose and contributed to his biographies of Picasso, Miró, Man Ray and Tàpies. Her portraits of 20^th Century artists are powerful, but it is mainly the witty Surrealist images which permeate her work that she is best remembered. Post war, the effects of what she had witnessed caused her to struggle with depression.  It was through her fascination with food that she reinvented herself as a gourmet chef and found a way using her creativity to recover. Lee Miller died at home at Farleys in East Sussex in 1977.