| About Art History: Lee Miller | |
| A Guest Article by Ursula Butler |
The quality of human life and the environment it dwells in is presented through several art mediums. One can choose to view an oil painting to glimpse into the human soul or one can choose a sculpture in order to get a three dimensional effect. However, only one medium in my opinion will present life in its true unaltered state, the photograph. Since the introduction of the daguerreotype in 1839, no other medium has been able to capture human kind realistically at its best and worst. This changed the way the world previously viewed the over romanticized human life and its surroundings. The result of man’s previous fabrication left an entire social class in the dark. The sounds of human despair and misery man had to face daily were successfully muffled. The photograph represents visual fact, produces true awareness and prompts action among all social classes.
Lee Miller (1907-77) introduced herself to the world through her dynamic photographs taken over the span of forty years. Miller was born on April 23, 1907 in Poughkeepsie, New York to Theodore Miller, who was an engineer and an accomplished amateur photographer and Florence Miller, a nurse. During Lee Miller’s childhood, staying focused in school proved to be a difficult task. Miller’s indignation channeled itself into a series of often cunning and high-spirited practical jokes, and without fail she was expelled from one school after another.[1] Miller later escaped to Paris at the age of eighteen where she studied lighting, costume and theatre design at Ladislas Medgyes’s School of Stagecraft. She later returned to New York and enrolled in the Art Students League. There she met Condé Nast and he introduced Miller to the world of modeling. From 1926-1929 she modeled, but eventually wanted to see what life was like behind the camera. Miller studied under the great dada-surrealist artist and photographer Man Ray. Under his supervision, Miller learned how to manipulate the photograph to make a self-contained, semi-abstract or dreamlike image.[2] With Miller’s vast array of life experiences, she was able to produce several major themes in her photographical work that would change the way people examined the world. The most significant being fashion photography, photojournalism in Egypt, and photographs of the war.
Miller worked under the direction of George Hoyningen-Huene in Paris while working as a model. Miller joined the Vogue studios and loathed the work environment. She explained to mutual friends that when joining the Vogue studio she felt as though she was one of their slaves. [3] Later on, she began replacing Huene on minor assignments. Her first fashion photos of luxury items were published in Vogue during this time. Miller had an assignment with Chanel to promote and feature its new perfume line. She skillfully arranged the glass bottles on a glass surface with assorted props. Miller used an African mask, classical architecture and a chessboard in the background. A silhouetted hand reached across the frame towards the perfume instantly grabbing the viewer. She continued to do fashion work for Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Harper’s Bazaar. Miller would use an array of objects to promote the item and sometimes she would model herself. The photographs always had an aesthetic beauty and were technically perfect, but there was something artificial and self-conscious about them. [4] Miller’s imagination was not engaged at all doing commercial photography so she decided to move to portraiture. She returned to New York City in 1932 and began working under Man Ray. Her first client was Prince Mike Romanoff and later Lilian Harvey, the British star of German films. For the photograph, Lilian Harvey, film star, New York, 1933, Miller used a solarized negative; the partial reversal of the black and white negative to create a halo effect; and gave Lilian the appearance of a porcelain doll. Harvey’s career was in full swing and she continued to return to Miller several times. Word began to spread about Miller’s dynamic portraits and many influential actors, actresses, and businessman came to Miller for her services. Her next big client was the English actress Gertrude Lawrence. In Miller’s photograph Gertrude Lawrence, New York, 1933, she decided to dress Lawrence in all black and place her next to a concrete vase filled with metal flowers. Miller strategically did this so it would make Lawrence appear to be the "materialization of the spirit lacking in the flowers." [5] She become synonymous with the intellectual and social elite from Paris to New York City and was listed among 'the most distinguished living photographers' by Vanity Fair.[6] Soon it became fashionable to even be associated with Lee Miller at that time.
Even with all the newfound glory, Miller was still disconsolate. She did not like the restricted atmosphere of the studio. She confided in her mentor Man Ray about the situation, explaining how the outside world offered more elements of surprise versus a staged studio. In 1934, she married to Aziz Eloui Bey, a distinguished Egyptian and moved to Cairo, Egypt. There she began the next phase of her life, photojournalism. Miller was a newcomer to an unofficial English colony with fixed social hierarchies. She did not fit in as successfully as she did in New York City so she buried herself in her work. She took pictures of the vast landscapes of Egypt; from the Nile, to the pyramids, to the crowded bazaars. This was Miller's way of having a voice in a society where the majority of women were devout Muslims and often silenced. In her photograph entitled "Portrait of Space", Near Siwa, 1937, Miller took a photograph through the torn opening of a fly screen door. The opening in the screen functions as an eye for the viewer and displays a vast desert landscape. The viewer feels trapped when looking at the photograph, and the dessert is presented as a means of escape. Another breathtaking photograph is "From the top of the Great Pyramid," Eygpt, 1938. Miller takes this photograph on top of a pyramid and the viewer is able to see the city below. The monumental size of the pyramid casts a shadow over the tiny town. Miller began to explore the desert frequently and it became a refuge to her. The basic theme she carried through her photographs represented confinement. Unfortunately, this also mirrored her marriage, and with Aziz’s blessing and financial support, Miller left him in 1937 and returned to Paris.
While in Paris she met her second husband, Ronald Penrose, one of the most important figures in Surrealism in England. [7] During this time, World War II started and Miller returned to Vogue to cover the war. Miller approached her photography with a bit of surrealism, mixing humor and horror. Miller wanted to capture the true images of the war and did this successfully in her photograph entitled GIs Opening Cattle Truck, Dachau, Germany, 1 May 1945.[8] The photograph shows the mangled bodies of prisoners who have died. The viewer is able to see the tattered clothes of the prisoners and even look directly into the eyes of the dead. The soldiers empty the bodies out of the truck without any emotion. Miller’s portrayal of the German guards is a mix of barbarianism and human. It is haunting and a reminder of the evils of war. Another side of war society forgets about is the children and the effect on them. In Dying Child, Vienna, 1945, Miller takes a snapshot of an infant. The infant looks directly into the camera as if she is trying to tell the story of her life to the viewer in her own words that cannot yet be formed. Crisp white blankets surround the infant contrasted against her pale, wrinkled, skin; a result of starvation. Miller’s ability to portray the grimness of death in a beautiful way is exceptional.
Lee Miller went through many phases in her life and traveled over many great lands. Miller’s work always reflected her heart and the honesty that lied within it. She made no apologies for presented life in its true form, no matter how uncomfortable it made the viewer. The difficulties and loneliness in her life forced her to form a lasting relationship with the camera. She will always be remembered for not only as great American female photographer, but a genuine pioneer in the field.
Bibliography
Ades, Dawn. Surrealist Art.
Chicago: Thames and Hudson, 1997.
Calvocoressi, Richard. Lee Miller, Portraits from a Life.
New York: Thames and Hudson Inc, 2002.
Penrose, Anthony. Lee Miller’s War.
Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1992.
Penrose, Anthony. Ronald Penrose and Lee Miller, The Surrealist and the Photographer.
Edinburgh: Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland, 2001.
Penrose, Anthony. The Lives of Lee Miller.
New York: Holt, Rhinehart and Winston, 1985.
[1] Anthony Penrose, The Lives of Lee Miller (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1985) 13.
[2] Richard Calvocoressi, Lee Miller, Potraits from a Life (New York, Thames and Hudson, Inc, 2002) 16.
[3] Anthony Penrose, Ronald Penrose and Lee Miller, The Surrealist and the Photographer (Edinburg: Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland, 2001) 129.
[4] Anthony Penrose, The Lives of Lee Miller (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1985) 49.
[5] Anthony Penrose, The Lives of Lee Miller (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1985) 49.
[6] Anthony Penrose, Ronald Penrose and Lee Miller, The Surrealist and the Photographer (Edinburgh: Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland, 2001) 130.
[7] Dawn Ades, Surrealist Art (Chicago: Thames and Hudson, 1997) 215.
[8] Anthony Penrose, Lee Miller's War (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1992) 183.
From Your Guide: At the time of writing, Ursula Butler is in the process of completing her undergraduate degree in Art History at Mansfield University. She also has a B.A. in Psychology. Ursula plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Art History with a concentration in African Art and Archaeology. She is from Decatur, GA, and is an active member of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA.
