Lee Miller : portraits from a life / Richard Calvocoressi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Calvocoressi, Richard.

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Miller, Lee, 1907-1977.

Miller, Lee.

Portrait photographers--United States.

Portrait photographers.

United States.

World War, 1939-1945--Photography.

World War, 1939-1945.

Photography.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

176 pages : illustrations ; 28 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Thames & Hudson, 2002.

Summary:

In 1929, Lee Miller, already a legendary fashion model, left the United States to study photography in Paris. Here she became the disciple and lover of Man Ray, and rapidly developed into a witty surrealist photographer. She was soon taking on both portrait and fashion assignments for Vogue and running her own studio, first in Paris and later in New York. The Second World War saw her as Vogue's war correspondent: she covered not only the siege of Saint Malo and the liberation of Paris, but was also present with her camera when the US Army entered the Dachau concentration camp. Her later years were spent in London with her husband, the painter and writer Roland Penrose, and at their Sussex home, Farley Farm.

During her extraordinary life, Lee Miller came into contact with an astonishing range of people including painters, sculptors, actors, writers, musicians, fashion designers and socialites. Many of these became her friends and also the subject of her penetrating portraits. The finest of these photographs, two-thirds of which are either unpublished or have not been seen in print for over fifty years, are collected together here for the first time. They include not only highly perceptive and sympathetic studies of Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Dora Maar, Igor Stravinsky, Henry Moore, Colette, Marlene Dietrich, Fred Astaire and others, but also pictures of unsung individuals engaged in war work. Most memorable of all are Miller's pictures of victims and perpetrators of Nazi oppression -- some of the most powerful images from the last century. There is also a selection of photographs of Lee Miller herself, taken by other photographers. Throughout Lee Miller's career, spanning over three decades, her surrealist eye never left her. She viewed the world instinctively as a painter. Lee Miller: Portraits from a Life will confirm her as one of the twentieth century's most important photographers.

Contents:

An Unflinching Eye 6

The Portraits

The Surrealist Decade 16

The War at Home 52

The War in Europe 90

Postwar: Artists and Writers 126

Picasso and other Friends 148.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (page 175) and index.

Local Notes:

Gotham Book Mart Collection copy has dustjacket retained.

ISBN:

0500542600

OCLC:

51444358