Lee miller artist biography book

Beautiful, bewitching, and an exceptionally good photographer, Lee Miller was one of life’s 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 Miller’s finest work, including portraits of her friends Picasso, Tanning, and Ernst, Penrose’s tribute to his mother brings to life a uniquely talented woman and the turbulent times in which she lived.

The Lives of Lee Miller is adm

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The Lives of Lee Miller

February 22, 2024

An illustrated biography of Lee Miller from a son's perspective

For fans of the artist, fashion icon, journalist, photographer and gourmet chef Lee Miller, I am reviewing a series of the many books about her astonishingly varied creative life. In this review, I am commenting on what was considered the standard biography of Miller from its publication in 1995 until Carolyn Burke's more in-depth biography appeared in 2007 from the University of Chicago Press.

I started this series of reviews by recommending Burke's Lee Miller: A Life, which I continue to regard as the best biography of Miller's multi-faceted life. This foundational book has special authority because it was researched and written by a recognized scholar—in contrast to the many other volumes produced via the Miller archives and Miller's son Antony Penrose. Comparing the text in these books about various eras of Miller's life, Burke's stands up, in my view, as providing mor

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An expert’s guide to Lee Miller: fem must-read books on the American photographer

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The American photographer Lee Miller (1907-77) wore many hats. She was a Vogue model and mode photographer, a Surrealist artist and muse, a photojournalist during the Second World War and much more besides. This autumn, Miller is the subject of several new books, a feature spelfilm starring Kate Winslet and an exhibition at the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery curated by Martin Pel. Below, Pel has picked fem books that helped him research the show and that give us greater insight into the life and career of Lee Miller.

The Lives of Lee Miller (2021) bygd Antony Penrose

“An honest and sandig book written by Lee Miller’s son as he goes on a journey of upptäckt about the secret lives of his mother—most of which he only funnen out about after her death. Even so, this biography fryst vatten written with love and insight into this re