The American Lee Miller (1907-1977) was one of the most outstanding photographers of the 20th century. The exhibition “Lee Miller: Photographer between war and glamour” at the Bucerius Kunstforum in Hamburg shows her multifaceted life and work through 150 photographs from the period 1929 to 1973 until September 24, the Kunstforum announced on Thursday. The show traces her positions as a photo model in New York, as an artist, surrealist, fashion and portrait photographer in Paris and Egypt, as a war reporter in France and Germany, and as a gourmet chef in southern England.
“Neither privately nor professionally, Miller did not stick to convention and always went her own way,” said curator Karin Gimmi. In the 1920s, Lee Miller modeled for the most famous photographers of the 20th century, including Man Ray. In 1932 she left Paris and returned to Paris returned to her native New York, where she ran a photo studio.In 1934 she married the Egyptian businessman Aziz Eloui Bey and moved to Cairo with him.Many of her best-known surrealist works, such as “Portrait of Space”, were created in the Egyptian desert.
When World War II broke out, Miller was living in London with her new partner, English artist Roland Penrose. From 1940 she worked as a photographer for “Vogue”. In 1942 she was accredited to the US Army as a war reporter and reported on the conquest of Normandy by the Allies and the liberation of Paris. From 1945 Miller photographed the aftermath of the war and documented the crimes of the National Socialists in the concentration camps in Dachau and Buchenwald. (dpa)