The Lives of Lee Miller

I finished reading The Lives of Lee Miller the other day: Anthony Penrose’s biography of his remarkable mother.

Miller (1907-1977) was a woman of many parts and passions: as a model in New York, she gained notoriety as the first real person to feature in an advertisement for ladies’ sanitary products.

As a photographer, she worked with Man Ray in Paris, as an independent society portraitist in New York, and as a photojournalist in the midst of the London Blitz and the Allied advance into France and Germany.

Besides that, Miller was an intrepid traveller, making bold forays into the Egyptian desert, and through the wreckage of post-war Hungary and Romania.

She loved to socialise: she drank too much, smoked too much, and took dozens of lovers. Among her friends were many of the most prominent artists and writers of the time: Picasso, Max Ernst, Cocteau, Leonora Carrington, Paul Éluard, Dubuffet, Henry Moore…

In later years, her fascination with photography faded, to be supplanted by interests food and music: with characteristic gusto she became a gourmet cook and an enthusiastic concert-goer.

Besides the simple fascination offered by Miller’s whirlwind life and times, the book also offers a poignant record of a son getting to know his mother. For many years, the two had fought each other bitterly, only becoming reconciled after Penrose’s marriage, and the birth of his child.

This was one of those rare books that would have been not one bit less fascinating had it been twice as long.

All but the seventh of the eight images above are Copyright © the Lee Miller Archive.

Posted by misteraitch at May 21, 2003 09:18 AM | TrackBack