Born in 1907 in Poughkeepsie, about 100 kilometers north of New York, Elizabeth “Lee” Miller developed an interest in the arts and Europe at an early age. At 18 she went to Paris to study lighting, costume and design at a theater school. A year later he moved to New York, where he studied theater, drawing and painting.

“By chance” model

There she became one of the most sought-after models in the city. It was a coincidence that happened when she was almost hit by a car and Comte Nast, editor of Vogue magazine, saved her. But Miller quickly grew bored of the modeling life and became more interested in photography. In 1929 she returned to Paris, where she became a student, muse, lover and collaborator of the artist and photographer Man Ray. Together they made sunlight a hallmark of their aesthetics and works (with this technique Ray also created the portrait of Miller above). But Miller established her own photography studio and established herself as an independent artist.

After leaving Man Ray, Miller married her first husband, Egyptian businessman Aziz Elui Bey, in 1934 and moved with him to Cairo. There she combined her surrealist eye with the Egyptian natural landscape, creating some of her best-known works, such as ‘Portrait of Space’.

War photography through the eyes of a surrealist

In 1937, Miller returned to Paris again, where she met her second husband, the British surrealist painter Roland Penrose. The couple settled in London, where their son was born in 1947. When World War II broke out, Miller decided to use her photographic skills as a war correspondent for Vogue magazine. He traveled to England and Europe – and to the front. She was the only photographer allowed to travel freelance in war zones. The photographs she took during this period combined photojournalism with art, with her surrealist sensibility reflected in her shots.

The woman in Hitler’s bathtub

Lee Miller had a gift for catching small moments that others might have missed. In one of her most famous photographs, she stands in Hitler’s bathtub on April 30, 1945 in Munich – the same day the dictator committed suicide in Berlin. The Allies had stationed her there after she had photographed the liberated Dachau concentration camp, near the Bavarian capital.

More than aesthetics, Miller was motivated by empathy. Her photographs of the death, destruction and human suffering she experienced remain shocking to this day, more than seven decades later.

Friend of Picasso

Lee Miller was close friends with several of her fellow artists, including Pablo Picasso. In the four decades they knew each other, she took almost a thousand pictures of the Spanish painter, while he painted her six times. Miller’s son, Anthony Penrose, has written a children’s book about his childhood with the artist, titled The Boy Who Bit Picasso.

Miller remained deeply affected by what she saw and captured with her lens during the war and, after returning to England, suffered from depression. She eventually gave up photography and devoted her creativity to cooking gourmet meals for her friends and family.

Lee Miller died of cancer in 1977 at the age of 70. Her pioneering influence and legacy, both as an artist and as a war reporter, have earned her an important place in the history of 20th century photography. That is why again this year, from June 10 to September 24, the Bucerius Art Forum in Hamburg hosts an exhibition dedicated to her life and work.

Photo: © Lee Miller Archives, England 2016, www.leemiller.co.uk