Lee Miller

See also: Miller

Elizabeth " Lee" Miller (1907, Poughkeepsie, N.Y., U.S.A - 1977) is a American Photographe . It is also famous to have been model many photographers, of which Man Ray.

Biography

Its beginning in photographs were rather modest: it was model for large photographers after having been a long time that of her father, photo hobbyist, for hundreds of studies of naked. As of 1925 it is leading fashion model at Vogue and poses for Edward Steichen or George Hoyningen-Huene.

In 1929 it left America for Paris and became acquainted there with Man Ray with which it lived and worked during some time, being freed gradually and successfully from its influence to create a personal work. It was known as portraitist and fashion photographer, but also produced a surrealist work personal. She attends the artistic mediums of avant-garde of the time and is thus brought to interpret the role of the statue in film of Jean Cocteau the Blood of a poet .

She returned to New York in 1932 and establishes there a studio which met success quickly. Two years later, she married Aziz Eloui Bey, a rich person Egyptian business man , with which she settles with the Cairo. She then carries out remarkable images in the desert or on the archeological sites.

At the time of a voyage to Paris in 1937, it becomes acquainted with Roland Penrose, writer and surrealist Poète English, which will become later its second husband. She makes then several return tickets between London and Cairo, between Penrose and Eloui Bey, for finally leaving this last. During the Blitz of London, it leaves England for New York and settles there again as fashion photographer, mainly for Vogue.

In 1944, it is the only woman to obtain an accreditation of corresponding of war near the army of the United States. In team with David Sherman, it follows the troops since their unloading and during all their progression through the France, the Germany, the Austria and the Hungary. It will bring back remarkable testimonys of the daily life of G.I.s and civilians of the crossed areas, like Libération of Paris and discovery of the concentration camps. Its period of corresponding of war will be richest on the photographic level. Its photographs, of the bombardments on London with the release of France, bloodless Germany to the concentration camps or of the life in Hungary and Austria after the engagements, oscillate between poignant testimonys of misery human and vision surréalisante and poetic of an unexpected daily newspaper. They make watch of a great sensitivity, without insipidness no, very as much as attention with the quality of testimony of the photography of war; sometimes dramatic or simply objective, they are always the proof of the quality of the glance of Lee Miller which, even in the most intense moments, succeeds in composing of the images of a real esthetic value.

After the war, she works again for Vogue , wife finally Roland Penrose in 1947, then gives up any photographic activity towards 1948. She dies in 1977.

His/her son Anthony Penrose devoted several books to him and made much for the redécouverte of his work.

See too

  • Marc Lambron, the eye of silence , Price Fémina 1993. From 1944 to 1946, fictionalized life of Elizabeth Miller.

  • Carolyn Burke, Lee Miller in the eye of the history , Otherwise, 2007.

Documentary

  • Lee Miller or the crossing of the mirror , film of Sylvain Roumette (France, 1995,54 mn). Film including/understanding of the documents of time and testimonys of Roland Penrose and David Scherman. (diffused on ARTE 1st and on September 7th, 2006)

External bonds

  • Lee Miller Files - Site on which one can see many photographs

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