In artwork and in life, the American photographer Lee Miller (1907-77) was a free spirit. A key determine within the Surrealist motion, her trailblazing work slipped between artwork, style and reportage. She was the unique model-turned-photographer, working for Condé Nast on either side of the lens, posing recurrently for Edward Steichen and George Hoyningen-Huene earlier than deciding she “would reasonably take an image than be one”, in accordance with one of many many legends that cling to her reminiscence.
Miller sought out Man Ray in Paris to be her mentor they usually grew to become lovers and collaborators. She was a muse to Pablo Picasso, and appeared in Jean Cocteau’s basic of avant-garde cinema, The Blood of a Poet (1930). She lived in New York, Paris, London and Cairo earlier than placing down roots in East Sussex together with her second husband, the artist Roland Penrose. However not earlier than turning into one of many first feminine conflict correspondents, capturing the liberation of Paris and the horrors of the Buchenwald and Dachau focus camps. On the finish of the conflict in Europe, she famously staged {a photograph} of herself in Adolf Hitler’s tub.
Miller’s 1941 picture of mannequin Elizabeth Cowell, set towards the backdrop of a bombed-out London © Lee Miller Archives
Vibrant bits
It’s subsequently unimaginable to separate Miller’s life from her work, however has her mythology overshadowed her standing as an artist? That is among the key questions that the curator Hilary Floe had on the forefront of her thoughts when placing collectively Tate Britain’s survey of the artist, which opens this month. “For a protracted, very long time, what has been picked up on are probably the most vibrant bits: her lovers, being painted by Picasso,” Floe says. “Hopefully, there may be now an urge for food for a narrative that doesn’t get overshadowed by the truth that she was stunning and really near crucial male artists. As a result of, as true as that’s, it doesn’t matter that a lot.”
Floe says that she and the curatorial group didn’t wish to lose the spirit of journey and self-determination that guided Miller’s art-making. However reaching a stability between her work and her backstory was a part of the problem in presenting the UK’s largest survey of a photographer who has been the topic of a dozen main institutional exhibitions over the previous 12 years, to not point out a latest film (Lee, 2023, starring Kate Winslet).
“We’re not attempting to cut back her profession to a husk by eradicating all biography. It’s simply that we’re attempting to deal with the biography that helps us perceive the work, reasonably than entering into her private life for no cause,” Floe says. “So, we requested ourselves, ‘Is that this related to the work?’ We selected probably the most fascinating work we may discover, reasonably than selecting work to assist illustrate some aspect of her life story. It’s nearly placing the emphasis on her skilled life and the way that was pushed by this intelligence and willpower and bravado, reasonably than by probability encounters with males.”
• Lee Miller, Tate Britain, London, 2 October-15 February 2026
