Lee Miller

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Lee Miller, 1943
Lee Miller's autograph

Elizabeth "Lee" Miller, Lady Penrose (born April 23, 1907 in Poughkeepsie , New York , USA , † July 21, 1977 in Chiddingly , East Sussex , England ) was an American photographer and photojournalist . As a war photographer , Miller provided photo documents from the London Blitz and from the Allied invasion to the end of World War II and documented the liberation of the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps : Her works are counted among the most important photographic works of the 20th century .

Life

Elizabeth Miller was born in Poughkeepsie in 1907, the daughter of Theodore and Florence Miller. Her father introduced her to the artistic and technical aspects of photography very early on by portraying her. She suffered a traumatic childhood experience when she was abused by a close relative, possibly even her father, as a 7-year-old. She was infected with gonorrhea .

In 1926 she enrolled in the New York Art Students League to study stage design and lighting. That same year she escaped a car accident in Manhattan in which she nearly ran into an approaching vehicle. At the last moment she was pulled back by a passerby who saved her life. It happened to be the publisher Condè Nast who published Vanity Fair and Vogue magazines. Nast was fascinated by Miller's distinctive appearance and her elegant clothes - she also spoke French - and so he spontaneously offered her a contract as a model.

At school she was an unadjusted student. Despite her much-admired girlish beauty, Lee Miller was a cool and determined woman and was known for quick decisions and surprising U-turns in her life. She once wrote about herself:

"For some reason I always prefer to go somewhere else."

Model career

From 1927 Lee Miller worked in the USA as a model for Vogue with renowned photographers such as Edward Steichen and George Hoyningen-Huene . In 1929 she traveled to Paris to join the progressive art scene - especially the Surrealists . She met the painter , filmmaker and photographer Man Ray , with whom she worked for some time and was also briefly in a relationship.

Lee Miller photographs selection of external web links by Man Ray

A large number of joint photo projects were created with Man Ray: both experimented with the possibilities of solarization . Together they produced the Electricité portfolio (1931), with Miller as a model, for the Paris power station CPDE.

photographer

After separating from Man Ray, Miller decided to work independently as a photographer with her own studio in France. At first she worked as a portrait and fashion photographer ; her passion for metaphysical-surreal subjects and style elements remained unbroken. Disappointed by love affairs and by the diverging art scene in Paris, she returned to New York in 1932 and soon opened her own photo studio again. She worked very successfully as a photographer in the metropolis for two years until she met and fell in love with the wealthy Egyptian businessman Aziz Eloui Bey. Around 1935 she moved to Cairo with him . It was there that some of her “most impressive” ( evidence? ) Photographs were largely inspired by Surrealism. Impressed by the barren desert landscape and the abandoned pharaohs' sites, she photographed the ruins and temples. She climbed the Great Pyramid of Cheops in Giza with all her camera equipment in order to capture her in the picture.

The marriage to Aziz Eloui Bey did not last long either. In 1937, on a trip to Paris, Miller met the surrealist artist Roland Penrose , who had been divorced from his wife Valentine that year . He would later become her second husband. The two crossed half of Europe together, and again photo works were created. They met Pablo Picasso , who made six portraits of Miller. In 1939 Miller left Egypt for good to move to London with Penrose shortly before the outbreak of World War II . Penrose was called up, and Miller briefly returned to New York as a photographer for the American edition of Vogue magazine .

War photographer

War Correspondents in 1943: Lee Miller is second from right.

In 1944, Lee Miller was accredited as a military correspondent by the US Army and worked closely with Time - Life photographer David E. Scherman , who was her partner for a short time. Miller was one of the few women who were used as war correspondents. She photographed war activities in Europe with Scherman . She captured one of the first uses of napalm in the battle for Saint-Malo . It documented the liberation of Paris . She developed the films in an improvised darkroom in her hotel room. Further photo documentation was the meeting of the US Army with the Soviet troops in Torgau and the capture of Adolf Hitler's Berghof on the Obersalzberg in Berchtesgaden .

A well-known photo of Scherman shows Lee Miller in a posed photo in Hitler's bathtub in his private apartment in Munich at Prinzregentenplatz 16 after Munich was taken on April 30, 1945. Miller's reporting on the liberation of the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps documented the misery and horror of the prisoners about mass murder. These traumatic experiences left a lasting mark on the photographer's psyche. Miller was one of the first to publish pictures of the destroyed West Germany and thus strongly shaped the perception of the time immediately after the surrender. Her sympathy for the victims of Nazi rule , such as forced laborers and concentration camp prisoners , contrasted sharply with her contempt for the defeated Germans.

Later years

Farley Farm House in 2011

After the war she withdrew from active photojournalism and married the surrealist artist Roland Penrose on May 3, 1947 . The couple moved into a cottage in rural England. On September 9th of that year the son Antony was born. In 1949 the family moved to Farley Farm House in Chiddingly. Even in the 1950s Miller occasionally worked as a freelancer for various magazines such as Vogue or Life , but neglected her work after the birth of her son and - presumably as a result of the unprocessed experiences - increasingly suffered from a war neurosis , developed depression and began to drink excessively.

Lee Miller died of cancer on July 21, 1977 on her estate, Farley Farm House, East Sussex . Their ashes were scattered over the farm's herb garden.

Farley Farm House

Plaque on Farley Farm House

The property of Lee Miller and Roland Penrose, Farley Farm House, surrounded by a sculpture garden designed by Penrose, is now a museum with partially unchanged rooms such as the kitchen and studio. In addition to the archives, it contains the couple's art collection. In addition to his own works, there is, for example, a collection of works by artist friends such as Pablo Picasso , Man Ray , Max Ernst and Joan Miró . Antony Penrose , the museum's founder, also attached a gallery that shows local and emerging artists in their rooms.

plant

Lee Miller's work is still known today and is published in illustrated books thanks to her son Antony Penrose, who has been managing her estate since the early 1980s. Antony once said of his mother, "She has lived many different lives. Much has remained mysterious to him because she knew how to seal herself off - even from her own family - for her own protection." He has this in the essay The Riddle Lee Miller described. The son only became aware of Miller's eventful life after his mother's death. Together with contemporary witnesses, Antony Penrose tried to sketch a coherent biography from the numerous letters, documents and photographs found in her estate. However, much remains unknown about Lee Miller's person due to material lost during wartime.

"Image trouvée"

For the surrealist photographs of his mother, Antony Penrose introduces the concept of the image trouvée in his essay as a “counterpoint” to the objet trouvé of the surrealists such as Man Ray: “She detached the images from their context and gave them a meaning, that went beyond what she originally stated. ”Penrose even questions how many photographs can really be ascribed to Man Ray, who preferred to leave many of the works to his assistant to devote himself to painting. This “mutual influence” is difficult to distinguish, says Penrose.

"Lee Miller's War"

Lee Miller's major work includes photojournalistic coverage of the end of World War II for Life and Vogue magazines , most of which was published posthumously under the title Lee Miller's War 1992 by Antony Penrose, with a foreword by David E. Scherman . The haunting but strangely ingenuous in some passages photo essay begins with the preparations for the Allied invasion in Normandy , reported in 1944 about the liberation of Saint-Malo and Paris and shows with a visit to Pablo Picasso in his Paris studio, as well as portraits of Paul and Nusch Éluard , Cocteau or Colette are the remaining artists from Miller's circle of friends. Makeshift fashion photographs in wintry Paris 1944/1945 and features of actors like Maurice Chevalier or Marlene Dietrich as well as Fred Astaire looking after the troops convey the reawakening of the art and cultural scene and at the same time imply the " American way of life " of a "normal" post-war everyday life.

The picture story leads in January 1945 on through the Ardennes , shows the destroyed Alsace , the crossing of the Rhine , pictures of the bombed cities of Cologne , Ludwigshafen and Frankfurt , the meeting of the 69th Division of the 273rd US - Infantry Regiment with the Soviet troops on April 26, 1945 in Torgau . Lee Miller's war report concludes with the liberation of the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps. The image documents reflect the suffering of the emaciated, ragged prisoners and show the obvious bewilderment of the overwhelmed, tumb-looking camp guards, who stare into the camera with bloodied faces. Some photos show dead SS officers who had evaded responsibility by suicide. Miller's and Scherman's photographs give an idea of ​​the full extent of the Holocaust from the piles of corpses shown and the human bones in the open crematorium ovens. The report ends with a recording of the burning Berghof on the Obersalzberg - dubbed by Lee Miller as "Eagle's Nest in Flames: the burning pyre of the Third Reich ".

Publications

literature

- chronological -

Movies

  • Love at work: Lee Miller & Man Ray. (OT: L'amour à l'œuvre - Lee Miller et Man Ray. ) Documentary, France, 2019, 26:22 min., Script and direction: Stéphanie Colaux and Agnès Jamonneau, production: Bonne Compagnie, arte France, series: Love at work (OT: L'amour à l'œuvre. Couples mythiques d'artistes ), first broadcast: April 28, 2019 on arte, synopsis by ARD .
  • Lee Miller - The Way to the Other Side of the Mirror. (OT: Lee Miller: Through the Mirror / Lee Miller ou la traversée du miroir. ) Documentary, France, 1995, 54 min., Script and director: Sylvain Roumette, production: Terra Luna Films, arte France, first broadcast: September 1st 2006 at arte, synopsis from Filmdienst .

Exhibitions (selection)

Web links

Commons : Lee Miller  - Collection of Images

Databases

photos

Biographies

Portraits

Remarks

  1. ↑ According to other sources, she had already traveled to Paris in 1925, cf. Jane Livingstone: Lee Miller. Photographer. Thames & Hudson, New York 1989, ISBN 0-917571-07-X , p. 28
  2. ↑ Externally linked images are protected by copyright and are not subject to the GNU Free Documentation License
  3. ↑ Some biographers name July 27, 1977 as the date of death, cf. Jane Livingston: Lee Miller Photographer. Thames and Hudson, ISBN 0-917571-07-X , p. 168.
  4. ↑ The life data in the IMDb do not match the official information.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ David Leafe: Dark secret of the woman in Hitler's bathtub: How war photographer Lee Miller was raped as a child by a relative and forced to pose naked by her father. In: Daily Mail online. March 12, 2013. Retrieved March 19, 2013 .
  2. ↑ a b Antony Penrose: Apropos Lee Miller , p. 46; see. Jane Livingston: Lee Miller - Photographer , p. 28.
  3. ↑ Eduard Kopp: Role Model Lee Miller: From Model to War Reporter. In: Chrismon , August 2015.
  4. ↑ Picasso portrays Lee Miller. In: Museu Picasso Barcelona , (English), accessed May 15, 2019.
  5. ↑ Scherman's photo of Lee Miller in Hitler's bathtub
  6. ↑ Robert Probst: Horror in "Krautland". In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , December 13, 2018.
  7. ↑ Chronology. ( Memento of November 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive ). In: leemiller.co.uk .
  8. ^ Antony Penrose: Apropos Lee Miller , p. 14.
  9. ^ Website of Farley Farm House.
  10. ^ A b Anthony Penrose, David E. Scherman: Lee Miller's War: Photographer and Correspondent With the Allies in Europe 1944-45. Bufinch Press, 1992, ISBN 0-8212-1870-0 .
  11. ^ Antony Penrose: Speaking of Lee Miller. 1995.
  12. ^ Antony Penrose: Speaking of Lee Miller. 1995, p. 22f.
  13. ^ A b Walter van Rossum : Lee Miller: A supermodel as a war photographer. In: Deutschlandfunk (DLF), series: Büchermarkt , May 1, 2014, review.
  14. ^ Carl Dietmar: March 1945: Pictures of the destroyed Cologne . In: Kölner Stadtanzeiger , December 8, 2013, book review.
  15. ↑ Lee Miller ou la traversée du miroir. In: arte , 2015, (English, French).
  16. ^ Exhibition: Lee Miller. In: Victoria & Albert Museum , 2007.
  17. ^ Exhibition: Lee Miller . ( Memento of May 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: Albertina , 2015.
  18. ↑ Chris Cheesman: Photographer Lee Miller's friendship with Picasso explored in new exhibition . In: amateurphotographer.co.uk , April 29, 2015; Retrieved April 30, 2015.
  19. ^ Exhibition: Lee Miller - Photographs. In: visual-history.de , 2016; Exhibition video.
personal data
SURNAME Miller, Lee
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Miller, Elizabeth (maiden name); Penrose, Elizabeth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American photographer, journalist and model
DATE OF BIRTH April 23, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Poughkeepsie , New York, USA
DATE OF DEATH July 21, 1977
Place of death Chiddingly , East Sussex, England