Photojournalist, war correspondent, model, and surrealist muse, Lee Miller was one of the most important women photographers of the twentieth century, working in the fields of photojournalism, fashion, portraiture, and advertising. This book presents over one hundred of Miller’s finest works in a single volume.
Introduced to photography at an early age, Miller honed her craft in Paris, where she associated with the surrealists and other avant-garde artists, including Jean Cocteau and Pablo Picasso. Together with Man Ray, she discovered the distinctive technique of solarization to create mesmerizing halo effects. After establishing her own photographic studio in New York, where she became a prominent commercial photographer, she then moved to the Middle East and Europe before becoming the official war photographer for Vogue, a period during which she took many of her most iconic photographs.
This evocative book collects Miller’s most famous documentary, fashion, and war works, as well as photographs of Miller. They are all carefully compiled by her son, photographer Antony Penrose, with a foreword by actress Kate Winslet, who will star as Miller in the film Lee.
Reviews
[Miller] created images that demand attention.
— The Wall Street Journal
This handsome monograph…collects more than 100 photographs from each phase of Miller's storied career, imagery that affirms the complete ease and mastery of each genre she explored… She had a knack for transforming prosaic objects and moments into startingly surreal visual statements… [A] must-have book.
— Black & White
Antony Penrose's magnificent retrospective of Miller's career delivers a comprehensive and intimate portrayal of her remarkable oeuvre to the world.
— Musee Magazine
Miller created high contrast, black-and-white photographs that were dramatic, startling and provocative… [This] slim coffee-table book…spans her career from experimental work and fashion shoots to landscapes and portraits to gruesome depictions of war.
— Atlanta Journal-Constitution
An impressive collection of more than 100 Miller pictures that Antony Penrose, Lee and Roland [Penrose]'s son, culled from the fashion photography, advertising campaigns, portraiture, and photojournalism with which Miller made her name.
— Air Mail
Gathers some of the most stunning images made by the photographer during her years covering both war and fashion—as well as pictures taken of her by members of the avant-garde art world she inhabited.
— The Boston Globe
Brings together over 120 works that explore the photographer’s groundbreaking contributions to the medium.
— Huck
For anyone who has not discovered Lee Miller’s work, this new edition from Thames & Hudson is an ideal introduction [and] shows us why her work still matters.
— Art Photo Collector
Excellent… Miller’s images call attention to the impact of war on women and children, be they starving infants in a hospital ward, or suspected collaborators with the enemy hanging their heads in shame, and her compassion as well as artistry are why these photographs remain to this day especially moving… That we are able to know the legacy of Lee Miller and experience her masterful work is in large part thanks to her son Antony Penrose, whose informative and touching introduction provides the context for this superb overview of Miller’s life and photography… This hard-bound gorgeously printed monograph is yet another superbly-edited must-have publication from Thames and Hudson.
— PhotoBook Journal
The 110 exquisite photographs…glow in their nuanced black-and-white radiance, from surrealist images to portraits of friends and people [Miller] met on her travels to the ruins of the Blitz and the horrors of the battlefields, hospitals, and death camps, each image dynamically composed, vibrant with defiant humor, arresting juxtapositions, outrage, compassion, and unexpected beauty.
— Booklist
Contributors
Antony Penrose
Author
Antony Penrose is a British photographer. The son of Sir Roland Penrose and Lee Miller, Penrose is director of the Lee Miller Archives and the Penrose Collection at his parents’ former home, Farleys House. He wrote the biography The Lives of Lee Miller.
Kate Winslet
Foreword By
Kate Winslet is an Academy Award–winning actress who will star as Miller in the film Lee.
