The exhibition at the Jeu de Paume, Paris (until January 4) is almost identical to that of the V & A Museum in London one year ago. Lee Miller was without doubt an extraordinary woman. Her beauty, first was surprising, since an early age to his 70 years: a pure beauty and sculptural. The men fell under her charm, Man Ray, Picasso, Robert Roland Penrose and many others.
By her mid-thirties, already flooding the covers of British Vogue, Lee Miller chose to be at the other end of the camera in order to document the end of World War II. (She was one of only five female war correspondents.) Her photographs of London’s rubble & decay are amongst the finest war records. In Germany, at times her eye was cool – perhaps for self-protection – as when she photographed SS soldiers and their children, all dead by suicide. Although, when she encountered Hitler’s bathtub, she jumped in and playfully took a self-portrait. Her sweeping landscapes of the Middle East are like a lesson in geometry; and finally, the abstract female torsos she photographed can still moisten a few pants. Her knack for finding beauty in the most wretched places had quickly earned her “one of the seven most distinguished photographers.” [Vanity Fair]
Lee Miller produced some of the most powerful photographs seen this century, from portraits of her friends such as Pablo Picasso, to her work as a correspondent with the US army in World War II. Beginning her own studio in Paris with artist Man Ray, she went on to work with Vogue, and in France, Egypt, and New York, being best remembered for her witty Surrealist images.
