Lee Miller

Lee Miller

Women at War

Liberation of Paris

Upon trying to understand the life and times of a war torn Paris during the 1940's I turned to Lee Miller's photography for some inspiration and insight.

Lee Miller was born in 1907 in Poughkeepsie, New York USA and first entered the world of photography in New York as a model to the great photographers of the day such as Edward Steichen, Hoyningen-Huene and Arnold Genthe.

In 1929 she went to Paris and worked with the well known Surrealist artist and photographer Man Ray, and succeeded in establishing her own studio. She became known as a portraitist and fashion photographer, but her most enduring body of work is that of her Surrealist images.

In 1939 she left Egypt for London shortly before World War II broke out. She moved in with Roland Penrose the Surrealist and defying orders from the US Embassy to return to America she took a job as a freelance photographer for Vogue. In 1944 she became a correspondent accredited to the US Army, and teamed up with Time Life photographer David E. Scherman. She was probably the only woman combat photo-journalist to cover the war in Europe and among her many exploits she witnessed The Liberation of Paris.

She billeted in both Hitler and Eva Braun's houses in Munich, and photographed Hitler's house Wachenfeld at Berchtesgaden in flames on the eve of Germany's surrender. Penetrating deep into Eastern Europe, she covered harrowing scenes of children dying in Vienna, peasant life in post war Hungary and finally the execution of Prime Minister Lazlo Bardossy.

Her photographs are emotional and paint a the emotions associated with war. That of struggle, fear, hope, liberation, beauty, strength, defeat, love and loss.