Lee Miller - Photographer

[Multitudes]

^ You're most welcome Whitelinen

 

[Multitudes]

Marlene Dietrich(1944)

artnet.de

 

[Multitudes]

Dorothy Hill, 1933

Woman with Hand on Head, 1930

A Picninc, 1937

staleywise.com

 

[fredo]

two photos by lee miller (I had post some photos with lee miller at hoyningen-huene thread), source : les femmes photographes des années trente, scanned by me
miller lee 1929 ironwork fb

miller lee 1930 exploding hand fb

 

[ChrissyM]

wow...

i can't imagine sitting at a picnic with no shirt on today... let alone 1937!!

very gutsy

i like that a lot of these aren't too serious.. the picasso image, the woman crouching under what i think is a plane that says "a belly full" right next to her..

i like the subtleties

 

[scriptgirl]

Who lives in her house in Sussex now?

 

[SomethingElse]

Here is the most current ownership information I could find.

Sign of notoriety

Among the many images of the Second World War, few are quite so bizarre as that of a naked woman reclining in the bathtub in an immaculately-grouted bathroom at Adolf Hitler's Munich apartment after the capture of the city in 1945. The photograph is all the more surreal considering that on the day she took her bath, Lee Miller, who held the unlikely position of war correspondent for Vogue magazine, accompanied troops as they liberated Dachau concentration camp, and produced some of the first photographic evidence of the Holocaust.

Sixty years on, it is Lee Miller's own home that is attracting attention. On June 20, No 21 Downshire Hill, Hampstead became the latest London property to be awarded a blue plaque. Unveiled by the playwright Sir David Hare, it reads simply: "Lee Miller (1907-1977), Photographer, and Sir Roland Penrose (1900-1984), Surrealist, lived here." For historians of 20th-century photography, the plaque marks the rightful rehabilitation of a remarkable artist and character who had been all but forgotten since her death.

For the current owner, Richard Klein, it marks the culmination of a campaign to have the history of his home recognised. For countless other Londoners, it has provided the perfect opportunity to have a gawp at the house.

The property, a four-storey, five-bedroom, end-of-terrace Regency town house, attracted a fair amount of attention back in Lee Miller's day, too, and not just because Pablo Picasso and Max Ernst were frequent visitors. The name of a third resident, David Scherman, a photographer on Life magazine, has been left off the plaque - an omission which, one imagines, Lee Miller would have regretted, for it was in this house that she conducted a much remarked-upon ménage à trois. In the 1930s and early 1940s the house was known in artistic circles for its parties, which often had a surrealist theme. A photograph dated April 23, 1943 - Miller's 36th birthday party - features a goose wandering among the guests.

Miller, born in New York state, had previously been the wife of, and model for, the photographer Man Ray. Having escaped his possessive clutches, she was living in Cairo in the summer of 1939 when she began an affair with Roland Penrose, an art critic of wealthy Quaker background. With the threat of war imminent, they drove quickly to London where they set up home at Downshire Hill. Miller found herself a job on Vogue, where she became noted for her fashion shoots on bomb sites.

In 1946, Miller and Penrose conceived their only child, got married and moved to Sussex, where Lee sank into depression, alcoholism and obscurity. Among the furniture and general bric-a-brac they took with them were one or two mementos from the war. "She wasn't opposed to stealing stuff and taking it home," says Klein. "I understand that Hitler's cuff-links and braces were stored in the attic here for a few months in 1946." The items ended up in Sussex, along with the 500 prints and 40,000 negatives which constituted Lee's life's work and which have subsequently been archived by her son, Anthony.

Since the blue plaque went up in Downshire Hill two weeks ago, Klein has noticed considerable interest from passers-by. "The street gets quite a lot of traffic anyway, because it leads up to the Heath, but now people have been stopping outside. Some have even opened the gate and walked into the garden to have a closer look. It is the first blue plaque in Downshire Hill."

Last weekend, Richard Klein put his home on the market, through TK International (020 7435 6990) for £2,475,000. Remarkably, given the quietness at the upper end of the London housing market this year, the agent received 15 calls and arranged two viewings on the first day, followed by a further three viewings early last week.

"A substantial house in Downshire Hill will always attract interest," says Jeremy Karpel of TK International. "But in addition this property is attracting the sort of buyer who wants to acquire a piece of history. Some people find it attractive to have their home as a talking point, and in this case people find the history quite racy. On the negative side, a house with an interesting history attracts what I call 'flakes' - people who want to have a look around but then melt away when you try to follow up to see whether they are interested in buying."

If he thinks his home is attracting tourists now, it is nothing compared to the interest 21 Downshire Hill could be receiving in a couple of years' time. In spite of her blue plaque, Lee Miller is still a relatively obscure figure, but that will change if a planned film about her life, written by David Hare and provisionally starring Nicole Kidman, actually gets made. As residents of Notting Hill can attest, coach tours are never far behind a Hollywood film.

Blue plaques

• There are 800 blue plaques in Britain, all but 50 on buildings in London.

• To be eligible for a plaque, the person being commemorated must either have been dead for 20 years, or 100 years must have passed since their birth.

• A blue plaque does not mean the house becomes listed, neither is there any statutory duty to maintain it.

• Homeowners cannot be forced to host a blue plaque; if you already have one, you are entitled to remove it and return it to English Heritage, which has administered the scheme since 1986. A spokesman says, however, that "We are not aware that this has ever happened."

 

[scriptgirl]

Thanks for that! I first became aware of Lee Miller via Vanity Fair in the late 80s or maybe early 90s. I was young, so I don't know which it was. Tina Brown-a much better editor than whatshisface-was very good at bringing a much more international flavor. It seems to me that Lee was mentioned in a lot of VF issues at the time. At the time I swooned over her looks and her life story, which was sad. She was raped at the age of 7 by a sailor while she stayed with family friends while her mother was sick. I don't know if charges were pressed, but Lee's mom, who was a nurse, got help for Lee, by taking her to see an analyst. I also read that the r*pe may have been caused by the habit of Lee's father of photographing her nude well into her adulthood, which I find really creepy, to say the least.

Lee seemed very undone by her WWII work and her marriage to Penrose wasn't happy. It seems to have been the old story of a once prominent woman who led a thrilling life settling for a more obscure one and not having the tools to handle it well. Lee was estranged from her son until the latter stages of the illness which eventually killed her.

 

[SomethingElse]

The Art of Lee Miller exhibit is coming to the V&A (15 Sept 07 - 1 Jan 08).

Women with fire masks, Downshire Hill, London, 1941

vam.ac.uk

 

[SomethingElse]

Nude bent forward, about 1930

vam.ac.uk

 

[SomethingElse]

With Pablo Picasso, the liberation of Paris, 1944

vam.ac.uk

 

[SomethingElse]

Portrait of Space, frame 4, final version, 1937

vam.ac.uk

 

[SomethingElse]

"The Cloud Factory", Assyut Egypt 1939

vam.ac.uk

 

[wheneveriwakeup]

Lee Miller is an all-time favorite of mine. She lived such a rich life, I think. Beautiful woman.

Thanks for the photos, SomethingElse. Always loved the stuff from her Egyptian period. Her nudes are pretty amazing, too.

 

[ApertureRomance]

The Art of Lee Miller exhibit is coming to the V&A (15 Sept 07 - 1 Jan 08).





vam.ac.uk

Can't wait !

 

[zembla]

I bought and read her bio just because I liked the picture of her on the cover...LOL...

 

[kissmesweet]

I love the oddness and relevation in his work.

Is there an archive of his work anywhere online?

 

[scriptgirl]

Lee Miller is a woman, not a man.

 

[SomethingElse]

I love the oddness and relevation in his work. Is there an archive of his work anywhere online?

Here is the link to the archive of her work.

 

[ApertureRomance]

There was a great article in the guardian this weekend.