Photographer Elizabeth “Lee” Miller, identified professionally as Lee Miller, was an American photographer and photojournalist following a spell as a style mannequin. Miller, who died in 1977 at age 70, flew considerably below the radar inside the images business for a very long time, regardless of the importance of her work over a protracted interval.
Many extra individuals will quickly change into accustomed to Lee Miller due to a brand new biographical drama that includes Kate Winslet as Lee Miller. The movie, ‘Lee,’ is at the moment in manufacturing and likewise stars Alexander Skarsgard, Andrea Riseborough, Marion Cotillard and Andy Samberg, amongst others. The movie is directed by Ellen Kuras, greatest identified for her earlier work as a cinematographer on movies together with ‘Everlasting Sunshine of the Spotless Thoughts’ and ‘Blow,’ and as a director on the current documentary ‘The Betrayal – Nerakhoon,’ which was nominated for an Academy Award for Greatest Documentary Function.
Whereas there is not any trailer obtainable but for Lee, because the film simply began filming in Croatia, we now have our first have a look at Winslet as Lee Miller. The nonetheless from the set exhibits Winslet in army uniform and a Rolleiflex digicam – Lee’s digicam of alternative – in hand:
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| Kate Winslet as Lee Miller. Credit score: Kimberley French / Sky UK Ltd |
The film is impressed by the biography, The Lives of Lee Miller, by Anthony Penrose, Miller’s son by her second husband, historian and surrealist painter Roland Penrose. The movie’s script is co-written by Liz Hannah, Lem Dobbs, John Collee, Marion Hume and The Lee Miller Archives.
Born in New York, Miller’s adolescence was tumultuous, together with a tragic assault as a baby and infinite troubles with schooling. Ultimately, Miller moved to Paris at age 18 and studied lighting, costume and design. She returned to New York the next yr and joined a drama program at Vassar School. She then went on to review drawing and portray earlier than an opportunity assembly with writer Condé Nast. The assembly led to Miller starting a modeling profession for Vogue. She was a extremely profitable mannequin in New York for a few years earlier than turning her consideration to the style business from behind the digicam.
Miller moved again to Paris in 1929 to work as a mannequin and collaborator for the well-known artist Man Ray. She then grew to become Ray’s accomplice, each romantically and professionally. The 2 collaborated on solarization pictures, which match the surrealist model Miller hoped to realize. She grew to become shut with different surrealists, together with Pablo Picasso, Paul Éluard and Jean Cocteau. In 1932, Miller moved again to New York Metropolis and began her personal portrait and business images studio.
After working there for a couple of years, Miller married Egyptian businessman Aziz Eloui Bey. Three years later, Miller returned to Paris and met the aforementioned Roland Penrose. On the daybreak of World Struggle II, Miller was residing with Penrose in England. Towards the pleas of her family and friends again within the US, Miller not solely stayed in England however grew to become a photojournalist, incomes accreditation from the U.S. Military and dealing as a battle correspondent with Condé Nast Publications, together with British Vogue.
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| Lee Miller – U.S. Military Heart of Army Historical past – CC BY-SA 4.0 |
This era is the first focus of the movie, ‘Lee,’ which focuses on Miller’s life from 1938 by 1948. Throughout her time working as a battle correspondent, Miller photographed portraits of nurses all through Europe, labored with the famed American photographer David E. Scherman, recorded the primary documented use of napalm at St. Malo, photographed the liberation of Paris, the Battle of Alsace and the sheer horror of the Nazi focus camps at Buchenwald at Dachau. Miller was additionally the topic of a well-known battle picture, Scherman’s portrait of Miller within the bathtub at Hitler’s Berlin house in 1945.
Miller’s work on the frontlines of the battle and documenting the terrors that World Struggle II left behind on civilians uncovered Miller and the remainder of the world to many terrible realities, together with dying kids in hospitals, corpses of troopers, and even the execution of László Bárdossy in Hungary. Lee Miller, who as soon as informed a journalist that she’d ‘moderately take an image than be one,’ took many vital pictures throughout her life. Her pictures of focus camps had been the primary publicity for a lot of, particularly within the US, to the realities of the Nazi battle effort and occupations all through Europe.
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| The quilt of ‘Lee Miller: Vogue in Wartime Britain,’ a ebook about Miller written by Ami Bouhassane, Robin Muir & Amber Butchart and revealed in 2022. |
Whereas Miller continued to work for Vogue as a style and superstar photographer for 2 years following the battle, World Struggle II left an indelible mark on Miller. She suffered from scientific melancholy and post-traumatic stress dysfunction and have become a heavy drinker. Miller finally put the digicam down – largely – and centered on changing into a gourmand cook dinner.
She nonetheless captured portraits for her husband Roland Penrose and captured the occasional portrait. In keeping with her son, the scars from World Struggle II had a big and lasting influence on Miller’s emotional well-being. She was additionally investigated over a protracted interval by the British safety service MI5 below suspicion of being a Soviet spy.
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| Lee Miller, in 1943, alongside different feminine battle correspondents working in Europe for the U.S. Military. From left to proper, Mary Welsh, Dixie Tighe, Kathleen Harriman, Helen Kirkpatrick, Lee Miller and Tania Lengthy. |
Lee Miller died of most cancers at age 70 in 1977. Whereas her life and work had been chronicled in her son’s biography, plus a ebook by Penrose and Scherman titled Lee Miller’s Struggle: Photographer and Correspondent with the Allies in Europe 1944-45 in 1992, it wasn’t till Anthony Penrose uncovered greater than 60,000 negatives, journals and different items of labor in an attic in 2013 that Miller’s physique of photographic work garnered the total consideration it deserved. A basis in Miller’s title was shaped, and the curiosity in her work has elevated enormously.
This text touches solely briefly on the fascinating life and profession of Lee Miller. You’ll be able to stay up for the brand new movie, ‘Lee,’ which appears prone to launch someday in 2023, to be taught way more about her life, particularly the turbulent and vital decade surrounding World Struggle II. Lee Miller placed on many hats throughout her life and skilled outstanding highs in a male-dominated business and crushing lows as a consequence of her vital work as a battle correspondent. You could find a group of Miller’s work on the Lee Miller Archives Instagram account.