Photographer at heart
In 1925, she left her native America and joined the prestigious School of Fine Arts in Paris, where she discovered theater and the visual arts. In 1927, she returned to New York and posed for big names in photography including Edward Steichen and George Hoyningen-Huene. A pure beauty, she was hired by Vogue magazine as a model, and became an icon of the 1920s and 1930s.
Photograph of Lee Miller when she was a war correspondent in 1943.
Wikipédia / U.S. Army Official Photograph
His return to Paris in 1929 was synonymous with his meeting with Man Ray, a famous French photographer seventeen years his senior. She became his muse, and assimilated new photographic processes. Alongside her, she integrated the bohemian world of artists, as well as the surrealist movement of the time. The young woman became friends with Pablo Picasso, who painted many portraits of her. In 1930, the director Jean Cocteau chose her to play a statue in his film “The Blood of a Poet”. Eager for independence, she left Man Ray and returned to the United States, where she opened her own studio in 1932.
Two years later she met Aziz Eloui Bey, a rich Egyptian businessman. They moved to Cairo shortly after their union. The artist contemplates new landscapes, and is inspired by the country’s deserts. There she took one of her most beautiful photos, “Portrait of Space”.
From muse to war correspondent
Lee Miller’s life took on meaning when, in 1942, Vogue magazine asked her to become a war correspondent. The artist, who wanted to photograph “real” things, found himself capturing the daily lives of civilians during the war. Her focus is more on the living conditions of women, forced to take on a new role since the departure of their husbands.
Wikipédia / U.S. Army Official Photograph
The War Correspondents Team. Lee Miller is second to last on the right.
In 1944, she formed a duo with David Sherman, photographer for Life magazine, with whom she followed the 83rd division, from the landings in France to Romania. His reports and his argued photographs bear witness to the horror of the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps.
It was in 1945 that the two acolytes decided to go to the home of Adolf Hitler. They intrude into an empty apartment, and immerse themselves in the dictator’s privacy. As they explore every nook and cranny of the house, the BBC announces the Führer’s suicide. Taken by inspiration, David Sherman created a legendary photograph, a self-portrait of Lee Miller, naked in Hitler’s bath. Through this symbolic cliché, she questions the place of women during the war.
“Lee Miller” in the eyes of Ellen Kuras
Nominated for an Oscar in 2008 for her documentary “The Betrayal-Nerakhoon”, Ellen Kuras, American cinematographer and director, makes her first fiction film here. Kate Winslet, co-producer, plays the main role, that of the photojournalism icon.
