The Art of Lee Miller

This year sees the centenary of Lee Miller’s birth. To mark the occasion her son, Anthony Penrose, has worked tirelessly to put his late mother’s name up in lights, literally! On entering the exhibition the first thing you see is her name written in bright pink neon.

This is fitting, as for many years much of Lee Miller’s work sat abandoned and forgotten about in her attic. On discovering such a rich archive of amazing images, a concerted effort was made to bring them to the public eye. This extensive collection, of both well known and previously unseen work, certainly does an impressive job at showing what a creative and talented photographer she was.

Fire Masks
© Lee Miller archives

Wandering around the exhibition you learn how Lee Miller started her career as a model and muse, before beginning to work behind the camera. She soon had Vogue eating out of her hand, taking whatever work she chose to produce for them.

She was instrumental in working with Man Ray to discover the solarisation process, giving a surrealist feel to many of her photographs. She also turned her hand to writing and worked as a photojournalist. To the world it must have appeared as if there was nothing she couldn’t do, yet she described her life as like mismatched pieces of a jigsaw.

Self portrait
© Lee Miller archives

As to how she saw herself, she’s famously quoted as saying: ‘I was terribly terribly pretty. I looked like an Angel, but was a fiend inside.’ It’s certainly true that she possessed a spirit of adventure. Not content with just the glamorous life at Vogue, she was determined to do her bit during the Second World War. She took the bold step of becoming a war correspondent and was the only female photojournalist to work in combat areas at that time. Her photographs include the horrors of the death camps, a far cry from her modelling days.

Other images on display include stunning self-portraits, still life, nudes, documentary style photos of Egypt, and New York studio portraits. The solarisation shots are intriguing too, including a simple image of a piano transformed to look like it’s made of liquid gold. There’s also many a famous face such as Picasso, Charlie Chaplin and Salvador Dali. In fact the show ends with a Picasso painting of Lee Miller. In true Picasso style it’s not nearly as flattering as one of Lee Miller’s own portraits, but does portray the different aspects of her personality. I wonder what she made of it!

Lee Miller’s varied life led to an equally varied body of work, making her a true female icon of the 20th century. This inspirational exhibition gives as fascinating insight into her world. Although it’s on until January my advice would be see it as soon as you can!

Exhibition ends 6th January 2008
Admission £6
See www.vam.ac.uk/leemiller for details