A trenchant yet sympathetic portrait of Lee Miller, one of the iconic faces and careers of the twentieth century. Carolyn Burke reveals Miller as a multifaceted woman: both model and photographer, muse and reporter, sexual adventurer and mother, and, in later years, gourmet cook—the last of the many dramatic transformations she underwent during her lifetime. A sleek blond bombshell, Miller was part of a glamorous circle in New York and Paris in the 1920s and 1930s as a leading Vogue model, close to Edward Steichen, Charlie Chaplin, Jean Cocteau, and Pablo Picasso. Then, during World War II, she became a war correspondent—one of the first women to do so—shooting harrowing images of a devastated Europe, entering Dachau with the Allied troops, posing in Hitler’s bathtub. Burke examines Miller’s troubled personal life, from the unsettling photo sessions during which Miller, both as a child and as a young woman, posed nude for her father, to her crucial affair with artist-photographer Man Ray, to her unconventional marriages. And through Miller’s body of work, Burke explores the photographer’s journey from object to subject; her eye for form, pattern, and light; and the powerful emotion behind each of her images.A lushly illustrated story of art and beauty, sex and power, Modernism and Surrealism, independence and collaboration, Lee Miller: A Life is an astute study of a fascinating, yet enigmatic, cultural figure.

Fashion model, surrealist artist, muse, photographer, war correspondent—Lee Miller defies categorization. She was a woman who refused to be penned in, a free spirit constantly on the move from New York to London to Paris, from husbands to lovers and back, from photojournalistic objectivism to surrealism. Midcareer, she made the unprecedented transition from one side of the lens to the other, from a Condé Nast model in Jazz Age New York to fashion photographer, creating stunning images that imbued fashion with her signature wit and whimsy. Miller became a celebrated Surrealist under the tutelage of her lover, Man Ray, and then joined the war effort during World War II, documenting everything from the liberation of concentration camps to the daily life of Nazi-occupied Paris. Miller was recognized as “one of the most distinguished living photographers” during her hey-day as a fashion photographer, but an astonishing number of these images have remained unpublished. Lee Miller in Fashion is the first book to examine how her career as a model and fashion photographer illuminates her life story and connects to international fashion history from the late 1920s until the early 1950s. The world of fashion emerges as the backbone of Miller’s creative development, as well as an integral lens through which to understand the effects of war on the lives of women in the 1940s and 1950s. Miller witnessed incredible acts of resistance born out through fashion—and her photographic record of women’s indomitable spirit even in times of war has remained an invaluable resource in fashion and global history. Lee Miller in Fashion presents these striking archival fashion photographs as well as contact sheets, memos, and Miller’s published illustrations, vividly setting the wit, irrepressible creativity, and daring of Miller within the larger story of women’s experience of fashion, art, and war in the twentieth century. “In all her different worlds, she moved with freedom. In all her roles, she was her own bold self.” —Antony Penrose

One of the 20th century's most significant photographers, Lee Miller illuminated one of its darkest periods as well as celebrating its creative geniuses. This volume includes many unpublished celebrity portraits, also pictures of war workers, and victims and perpetrators of Nazi oppression. Originally published: 2002.

Beautiful, bewitching and an exceptionally good photographer, Lee Miller was one of lifes adventurers. She became a Vogue cover girl in 1920s New York before embracing Paris, photography and Surrealism, and then dramatically changed her life yet again, reinventing herself as a war correspondent, notably covering the liberation of Dachau. These are but three of the many lives of Lee Miller, intimately recorded here by her son, Antony Penrose. Featuring a selection of Millers finest work, including portraits of her friends Picasso, Tanning and Ernst, Penroses tribute to his mother brings to life a uniquely talented woman and the turbulent times in which she lived.

A biography, gourmet cookbook, and inside look at one of the mid-century's most creative and fascinating figures. A woman of many lives and mistress of her own re-invention, Lee Miller was a model, surrealist, fashion photographer, war correspondent, gourmet cook, and more. She did everything in her life wholeheartedly and with an imaginative flair. Though much has been written about the varied forms of her creativity, Miller's achievement as a gourmet chef is usually relegated to the endnotes. However, her granddaughter, Ami Bouhassane, views cooking as a vastly important part of her life--her longest battle and most extraordinary personal accomplishment in every sense. As a trustee of the Lee Miller Archives, Bouhassane has worked closely with the material for more than nineteen years. Coupled with her access to never-before-published manuscripts and photographs, Bouhassane's unique insight into her grandmother's life reveal previously unknown aspects of Miller. More than just a collection of recipes, this award-winning cookbook explores Miller's life through the influence of food and shows us how it became the creative vehicle for which she eventually swapped her camera and used it to build bridges, heal old wounds, and empower other women. Featuring more than 180 of Miller's pictures, nearly one hundred of her recipes, an introduction by her son, Antony Penrose, and material from the cookbook that she was secretly hoping to publish at the end of her life, Lee Miller: A Life with Food, Friends & Recipes is a treasure not to be missed.

The first in-depth look at Lee Miller's perspective on women in the Second World War, as seen through her photography and commentary from experts in the field Lee Miller photographed innumerable women during her career, first as a fashion photographer and then as a journalist during the Second World War, documenting the social consequences of the conflict, particularly the impact of the war on women across Europe. Her work as a war photographer is perhaps that for which she is best remembered—in fact she was among the most important photographers on the subject of the twentieth century. Published to coincide with an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, Lee Miller: A Woman's War tells the story beyond the battlefields of the Second World War by way of Miller’s extraordinary photographs of the women whose lives were affected. Introductions by Lee Miller’s son, Antony Penrose, and author Hilary Roberts precede Miller’s work, divided into chronological chapters: Women Before the Second World War; Women in Wartime Britain 1939–1944; Women in Wartime Europe 1944–1945; and Women and the Aftermath of War. Miller’s photographs, many previously unpublished, are accompanied by extended captions that place the images within the context of women’s roles within the landscape of war.

There is the raw edge of combat portrayed at the siege of St. Malo and in the bitterly fought Alsace campaign, and the disbelief and outrage Miller describes on witnessing the victims of Dachau. The war's horror is relieved by the spirit of post-liberation Paris, where she indulged in frivolous fashions and recorded memorable conversations with Picasso, Cocteau, Eluard, Aragon, and Colette. The book ends with Miller's on-the-scene report giving a sardonic description of Hitler's abandoned house in Munich and the looting and burning of his alpine fortress at Berchtesgaden, which marked a symbolic end to the war.

Image based book on the Surrealist photography of Lee Miller. Essay of approx 7500 words by her son Antony Penrose included and extended captions supplied for 100 images.

Lee Miller (1907-1977) was an American-born Surrealist and war photographer who, through her role as a model for Vogue magazine, became the apprentice of Man Ray in Paris, and later one of the few women war correspondents to cover the Second World War from the frontline. Her comprehensive understanding of art enabled her to photograph vivid representations of Europe at war – the changing gender roles of women in war work, the destruction caused by enemy fire during the London Blitz, and the horrors of the concentration camps – that embraced and adapted the principles and methods of Surrealism. This book examines how Miller’s war photographs can be interpreted as ‘surreal documentary’ combining a surrealist sensibility with a need to inform. Each chapter contains a close analysis of specific photographs in a generally chronological study with a thematic focus, using comparisons with other photographers, documentary artists, and Surrealists, such as Margaret Bourke-White, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, George Rodger, Cecil Beaton, Bill Brandt, Henry Moore, Humphrey Jennings and Man Ray. In addition, Miller’s photographs are explored through André Breton’s theory of ‘convulsive beauty’ – his credence that any subject, no matter how horrible, may be interpreted as art – and his notion of the ‘marvellous’.

One of the Best Books of the Year: Parade, Glamour, Real Simple, Refinery29, Yahoo! Lifestyle. "A startlingly modern love story and a mesmerizing portrait of a woman's self-transformation from muse to artist." --Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere "I'd rather take a photograph than be one," Lee Miller declares after she arrives in Paris in 1929, where she soon catches the eye of the famous Surrealist Man Ray. Though he wants to use her only as a model, Lee convinces him to take her on as his assistant and teach her everything he knows. As they work together in the darkroom, their personal and professional lives become intimately entwined, changing the course of Lee's life forever. Lee's journey of self-discovery takes took her from the cabarets of bohemian Paris to the battlefields of war-torn Europe during WWII, from inventing radical new photography techniques to documenting the liberation of the concentration camps as one of the first female war correspondents. Through it all, Lee must grapple with the question of whether it's possible to stay true to herself while also fulfilling her artistic ambition--and what she will have to sacrifice to do so.