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Lee Miller
Elizabeth "Lee" Miller, Lady Penrose (April 23, 1907 – July 21, 1977) was an American photographer and photojournalist. Miller was a fashion model in New York City in the 1920s before going to Paris, becoming a fashion and fine-art photographer there.
During World War II, she was a war photographer and correspondent for Vogue magazine, covering events such as the London Blitz, the liberation of Paris and the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Dachau. Being a woman, Miller was long denied recognition as an artist in her own right, but her son's discovery and promotion of her work has established her reputation as an art and war photographer.
Miller was born on April 23, 1907, in Poughkeepsie, New York. Her parents were Theodore and Florence Miller (née MacDonald). Her father was of German descent, and her mother was of Scottish and Irish descent. She had a younger brother named Erik, and her older brother was the aviator Johnny Miller. Theodore always favored Lee, and often used her as a model for his amateur photography. When she was seven years old, Lee was raped while staying with a family friend in Brooklyn and was infected with gonorrhea. In her childhood, Miller was expelled from almost every school she attended while living in the Poughkeepsie area.
In 1925, aged 18, Miller moved to Paris in France, where she studied lighting, costume, and design at the Ladislas Medgyes' School of Stagecraft. She returned to New York in 1926 and joined an experimental drama program at Vassar College, taught by Hallie Flanagan, a pioneer of experimental theatre. Soon afterwards, Miller left home at 19 and enrolled in the Art Students League of New York in Manhattan to study life drawing and painting.
Miller's father introduced her and her brothers to photography at an early age. She was his model – he took many stereoscopic photographs of his nude teenage daughter – and showed her technical aspects of the art. At 19, she nearly stepped in front of a car on a Manhattan street but was prevented by Condé Nast, the publisher of Vogue magazine. This incident helped launch her modeling career; she appeared in a blue hat and pearls in a drawing by George Lepape on the cover of Vogue on March 15, 1927. Miller's look was what Vogue's then editor-in-chief Edna Woolman Chase was looking for to represent the emerging idea of the "modern girl".
For the next two years, Miller was one of the most sought-after models in New York, photographed by leading fashion photographers, including Edward Steichen, Arnold Genthe, Nickolas Muray, and George Hoyningen-Huene. Kotex used a photograph of Miller by Steichen to advertise their menstrual pads without her knowledge. She was hired by a fashion designer in 1929 to make drawings of fashion details in Renaissance paintings but, in time, grew tired of this and found photography more efficient.
In 1929, Miller traveled to Paris intending to apprentice with the surrealist artist and photographer Man Ray. Although, at first, he insisted that he did not take students, Miller soon became his model and collaborator (announcing to him, "I'm your new student"), as well as his lover and muse. Some photographs taken by Miller are credited to Man Ray.
Along with Man Ray, Miller rediscovered the photographic technique of solarisation through an accident that has been variously described. One of Miller's accounts involved a mouse running over her foot, causing her to switch on the light in the darkroom in mid-development of the photograph. The couple made the technique a distinctive visual signature, examples being Man Ray's solarised portrait of Miller taken in Paris circa 1930, and Miller's portraits of fellow surrealist Meret Oppenheim (1930), Miller's friend Dorothy Hill (1933), and the silent film star Lilian Harvey (1933).
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Lee Miller
Elizabeth "Lee" Miller, Lady Penrose (April 23, 1907 – July 21, 1977) was an American photographer and photojournalist. Miller was a fashion model in New York City in the 1920s before going to Paris, becoming a fashion and fine-art photographer there.
During World War II, she was a war photographer and correspondent for Vogue magazine, covering events such as the London Blitz, the liberation of Paris and the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Dachau. Being a woman, Miller was long denied recognition as an artist in her own right, but her son's discovery and promotion of her work has established her reputation as an art and war photographer.
Miller was born on April 23, 1907, in Poughkeepsie, New York. Her parents were Theodore and Florence Miller (née MacDonald). Her father was of German descent, and her mother was of Scottish and Irish descent. She had a younger brother named Erik, and her older brother was the aviator Johnny Miller. Theodore always favored Lee, and often used her as a model for his amateur photography. When she was seven years old, Lee was raped while staying with a family friend in Brooklyn and was infected with gonorrhea. In her childhood, Miller was expelled from almost every school she attended while living in the Poughkeepsie area.
In 1925, aged 18, Miller moved to Paris in France, where she studied lighting, costume, and design at the Ladislas Medgyes' School of Stagecraft. She returned to New York in 1926 and joined an experimental drama program at Vassar College, taught by Hallie Flanagan, a pioneer of experimental theatre. Soon afterwards, Miller left home at 19 and enrolled in the Art Students League of New York in Manhattan to study life drawing and painting.
Miller's father introduced her and her brothers to photography at an early age. She was his model – he took many stereoscopic photographs of his nude teenage daughter – and showed her technical aspects of the art. At 19, she nearly stepped in front of a car on a Manhattan street but was prevented by Condé Nast, the publisher of Vogue magazine. This incident helped launch her modeling career; she appeared in a blue hat and pearls in a drawing by George Lepape on the cover of Vogue on March 15, 1927. Miller's look was what Vogue's then editor-in-chief Edna Woolman Chase was looking for to represent the emerging idea of the "modern girl".
For the next two years, Miller was one of the most sought-after models in New York, photographed by leading fashion photographers, including Edward Steichen, Arnold Genthe, Nickolas Muray, and George Hoyningen-Huene. Kotex used a photograph of Miller by Steichen to advertise their menstrual pads without her knowledge. She was hired by a fashion designer in 1929 to make drawings of fashion details in Renaissance paintings but, in time, grew tired of this and found photography more efficient.
In 1929, Miller traveled to Paris intending to apprentice with the surrealist artist and photographer Man Ray. Although, at first, he insisted that he did not take students, Miller soon became his model and collaborator (announcing to him, "I'm your new student"), as well as his lover and muse. Some photographs taken by Miller are credited to Man Ray.
Along with Man Ray, Miller rediscovered the photographic technique of solarisation through an accident that has been variously described. One of Miller's accounts involved a mouse running over her foot, causing her to switch on the light in the darkroom in mid-development of the photograph. The couple made the technique a distinctive visual signature, examples being Man Ray's solarised portrait of Miller taken in Paris circa 1930, and Miller's portraits of fellow surrealist Meret Oppenheim (1930), Miller's friend Dorothy Hill (1933), and the silent film star Lilian Harvey (1933).