The many lives of Lee Miller

From the cover of Vogue to the bathtub of Hitler; feminine feminist Lee Miller’s life story is like a movie with many unbelievable plot twists. But behind the icon and queen of self-reinvention was a woman of flesh and blood – fierce and flawed, damaged but defiant. A woman like you and me. “I looked like an angel, but I was a fiend inside”.

Elizabeth ‘Lee’ Miller was born in 1907 in Poughkeepsie, New York. By the time she passed away 70 years later, the fashion model, surrealist icon, photographer and war correspondent had lived many different lives, touched both by tragedy and incredibly lucky timing.

At only seven years old, Lee’s carefree childhood came to an abrupt end when she was raped while staying with family friends. In a questionable bid to help her overcome her trauma, her father started taking nude pictures of her and took her to a psychiatrist who urged Lee to ‘separate love from sex’. She seemed to take the advice to heart. Even though Lee would later claim that emotionally, she needed to be ‘completely absorbed in some work or in a man I love’, she would also describe herself as ‘never sentimental, ever’. If she had to, Lee could be one of the boys.

Lee’s career would be marked by her knack for always being in the right place at the right time. At 19, while crossing the street in New York, Lee – then an art student – was saved from an oncoming car by Vogue publisher Condé Nast. A striking blonde beauty with the looks of a cool, sexually liberated flapper, Lee could soon be seen everywhere: from Vogue covers to nationwide ads for brands like Kotex. But Lee had other plans. “I would rather take a photograph than be one.” Impressed with the work of surrealist photographer Man Ray, she presented herself to him in a Parisian bar. “My name is Lee Miller,” she stated, “and I’m your new student.” For the next three years, they would be lovers and collaborators.

As a photographer, Lee combined a passion for technique with a talent for being in the moment. After running a successful portrait studio in New York (with clients like Charlie Chaplin and Picasso) she would take stunning landscape pictures in the Middle East where she spent time with her Egyptian husband. But it wasn’t until she became a war correspondent during World War II that Lee transformed into the artist she was always meant to be.

Fearless in combat, Lee registered Nazi atrocities with an unflinching yet poetic eye. In a picture taken just hours after visiting Dachau, she can be seen taking a bath in Hitler’s abandoned house. In front of the tub are her boots, still covered in the concentration camp’s mud. Stunningly beautiful but with sadness in her eyes, Lee is looking away from a portrait of Hitler, who would commit suicide later that day. As always, Lee’s timing was impeccable.

Lee would marry again, become a mother and settle in the English countryside. Yet even though she tried to distract herself with booze-fueled soirees and Surrealist culinary creations, the war kept raging inside of her: a combination of trauma – both childhood and war related – and an addiction to thrills. Accepting it as the price for a life lived voraciously, Lee had no regrets. Or did she? Before she died of cancer at 70 in the arms of her husband, the artist Roland Penrose, Lee wrote: “I keep saying to everyone, ‘I didn’t waste a minute all my life’ – but I know myself, now, that if I had it over again, I’d be even more free with my ideas, with my body and my affection.” It’s perhaps the most important message of Lee Miller’s life and art: Love and live life to the fullest!