© Lee Miller Archives

Lee Miller first entered the world of photography as a high fashion model in 1920’s New York. Working with some of the greatest photographers of the day, such as Edward Steichen, George Hoyningen-Huene and Arnold Genthe, Lee’s modelling career was incredibly successful if short-lived. Deciding she would ‘rather take a picture than be one’, in 1929 she moved to Paris to work with the well-known Surrealist artist and photographer Man Ray.

It wasn’t long until Lee established her own photographic studio in the city, working as a commercial portrait and fashion photographer. Lee’s most enduring body of work from this time is her surrealist images of street scenes and studio experimentation, when she re-discovered the Sabattier Effect, a photographic technique later popularised as ‘Solarisation‘, with Man Ray.

Witnessing many of the major events of the Second World War, Lee was 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 devastated post-war Hungary and finally the execution of Prime Minister Lazlo Bardossy.

Post-war, Lee continued to contribute to Vogue, covering fashion and celebrity culture, including portraits of renowned artists such as Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró. Following the birth of their son, Antony Penrose, Lee and Roland re-located to Farleys, a farm in the East Sussex countryside. There, Lee moved away from professional photography. In the last two decades of her life, she became a celebrated, award-winning cook, known for her dishes inspired by Surrealism. Lee died at Farleys in 1977.