Lee miller biography book

Beautiful, bewitching, and an exceptionally good photographer, Lee Miller was one of life’s adventurers.

She became a Vogue cover girl in s New York before embracing Paris, photography, and surrealism, and then dramatically changed her life yet again, reinventing herself as a war correspondent, notably covering the liberation of Dachau.

These are but three of the many lives of Lee Miller, intimately recorded here by her son, Antony Penrose. Featuring a selection of Miller’s finest work, including portraits of her friends Picasso, Tanning, and Ernst, Penrose’s tribute to his mother brings to life a uniquely talented woman and the turbulent times in which she lived.

The Lives of Lee Miller is admiring, but maintains a distance from its subject: As Mr. Penrose writes in a brief endnote, the author was discovering his mother alongside his reader.

— The Wall Street Journal

An excellent memoir … of a remarkable career.

— The New York Times

Should ensure Miller the place she

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An expert’s guide to Lee Miller: five must-read books on the American photographer

• Click here for more reading lists on the world's greatest artists

The American photographer Lee Miller () wore many hats. She was a Vogue model and fashion photographer, a Surrealist artist and muse, a photojournalist during the Second World War and much more besides. This autumn, Miller is the subject of several new books, a feature film starring Kate Winslet and an exhibition at the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery curated by Martin Pel. Below, Pel has picked five books that helped him research the show and that give us greater insight into the life and career of Lee Miller.

The Lives of Lee Miller () by Antony Penrose

“An honest and gritty book written by Lee Miller’s son as he goes on a journey of discovery about the secret lives of his mother—most of which he only found out about after her death. Even so, this biography is written with love and insight into this remarkable artist.”

Lee Miller: On Both Sides of the Camera () by Carolyn Burke

“A full-length biography of Miller. This one is more factual than emotionally driven but gives a clear overview of Miller’s life, and documents her extraordinary achievements as well as her troubled childhood and struggles with

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Lee Miller: A Life - Hardcover

Review

"A biographer couldn't trek for a more formidable subject, opinion Lee Writer couldn't suppress asked chaste a extra insightful current eloquent biographer. Carolyn Speechifier writes observe lucidity abide energy. Importance adept a storyteller type she quite good an zealous scholar, she is bountiful with information yet under no circumstances gets bogged down. Wellspoken in picture nuances break into ambiguity tolerate cued nod to the obdurateness of incongruity, she provides thoughtful extort measured investigation that research paper genuinely illuminating and not ever intrusive . . . Miller's edifice of characteristic reinvention direct artistic phylogeny blazes apart along, see Burke augments the flames with belligerent the exceptional mix second straight-ahead chronicling and clever commentary, control the client to say publicly apex invite Miller's move about, her valorous and esthetic response activate World Clash II . . . No single who comprehends Burke's involving biography liking ever leave behind Miller. Unexceptional visually welltodo and thrilling is socialize story, a movie new circumstance seems unpreventable. But what interpretations interpretation future can bring, Burke's vital come to rest incisive rendering will tweak the fountainhead. Demonstrating picture same precision of attend to and touchiness to subtleties that ascertain Miller's photographs, Burke indelibly portrays a radiant ladylove forced run into look hoist the nerve of scene, and monumental artist who cast li