Collected in this compelling volume are the many lives of Lee Miller, intimately recorded by her son, Antony Penrose, whose years of work on her photographic archives have unearthed a rich selection of her finest work, including portraits of her friends Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Max Ernst, Paul Eluard, and Joan Miró.
Starting in 1927 in New York, this volume chronicles Lee Miller as she is discovered as a model by Condé Nast, hits the cover of Vogue, and is immortalized by Edward Steichen, George Hoyningen-Huene, Horst P. Horst, and other acclaimed photographers. From there, readers follow Miller to Paris where she, along with Man Ray, invented the solarization technique of photography, and where she developed into a brilliant Surrealist photographer. Finally, this account covers the later chapters of her life, when she became a war correspondent during World WarII, traveling with the Allied armies to cover the siege of Saint-Malo and the liberation of Paris, which lead to her photographs of the Dachau concentration camp that shocked the world.
A highly readable biography of a uniquely talented artist, The Lives of Lee Miller is now published in compact paperback.
Reviews
Part memoir, part photo essay, part search for the real woman behind an unconventional mother… Should ensure Miller the place she deserves in future histories of the period.
— Art in America
Lavishly illustrated, Penrose's tribute to his mother brings to life a uniquely talented woman and the turbulent times in which she lived.
— Library Journal
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.
