History's Disappearing Woman
Elizabeth "Lee" Miller's incredible life has been covered in the 2024 film Lee, detailing her rise from a fashion model to one of the most important photographers of the 20th century. Elizabeth Miller's ability to capture some of history's most pivotal moments in the 20th century, most famously during the Second World War, set her apart as one of the greatest of the era. But where did Lee Miller begin? Let's examine the incredible life and work of one of history's most pivotal photographers.
A Star Is Born
Elizabeth Miller was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, on April 23, 1907, to Theodore and Florence Miller. She had a brother, Johnny Miller—the first person to make a transcontinental flight in the United States on a rotorcraft.
An Appalling Crime
Elizabeth Miller's early life can be characterized as turbulent. Miller was frequently asked by her father, Theodore, to pose without clothing. And, at the age of just seven years old, she was the victim of an assault by an unknown assailant, which left Miller with gonorrhea.
The Aftermath
In the immediate aftermath of that assault, Miller had to be given twice-daily doses of potassium permanganate while her body was painted with picric acid every two weeks. Everything she had touched at her home was immediately sterilized. Heartbreakingly, seven-year-old Miller was treated terribly for something that was not her fault.
School Troubles
Despite becoming a student of photography later in life, Miller was expelled from almost every school she attended in New York, before she moved to Paris at the age of 18.
Her Interest In Photography
It was Elizabeth Miller's father Theodore that got her into photography as an art form. He also encouraged her to move to Paris at the age of 18.
School In Paris & Return To New York
She did so, studying lighting and costume design at the Ladislas Medgyes School of Stagecraft. She returned to the United States just one year later, and studied at Vassar College, joining an experimental drama program in 1926. She would leave home that year, enrolling in the Arts Students League of New York, studying life drawing and painting.
A Near-Fatal Collision Proves Pivotal
While in New York at 19, Elizabeth Miller would meet Vogue's publisher, Condé Nast, but not in the way you might think. No, Condé Nast saved her life when she nearly walked out in front of an oncoming car. This chance meeting would prove pivotal in Miller's career. Nast would set her up to be drawn by artist George Lepape for Vogue's cover on March 15, 1927.
The Most Sought-After Model In New York
Following her appearance on Vogue in a blue hat and pearls, Miller became one of New York's most sought-after models. Photographers and artists alike were flocking to photograph and draw her. Kotex even used a photograph of Miller without her consent to advertise their menstrual pads.
From Modeling To Photography In 1929
Despite being hired by a fashion designer in 1929 to draw the fashion details of Renaissance paintings (as was her training), Miller sought out photography as a new career, traveling to Paris in 1929 to apprentice for the surrealist photographer, Man Ray.
Apprenticeship Under Man Ray
Man Ray was initially resistant to having students, particularly Elizabeth Miller, but her self-confident declaration, "I'm your new student" won him over and she began to apprentice under the photographer.
Discovery Of Solarization
Solarization is an artistic technique used in photography whereby light is accidentally introduced into the dark room and changes the lighting of a negative as a result. There are various stories as to how it happened, but Elizabeth Miller and Man Ray are both credited with discovering polarization. One fun story is that Miller tripped over a mouse in the studio and flung open a curtain, allowing light to stream across the image in her darkroom.
Solarization Becomes Her Signature
Along with Man Ray, Elizabeth Miller developed polarization as a signature of her work, including it in many famous portraits of hers, such as Miller's portraits of Meret Oppenheim and Lilian Harvey in the early 1930s.
Miller Goes Out On Her Own
In 1932, following a dispute between the two about the attribution of their co-produced work, Elizabeth Miller left Man Ray and Paris to return to New York City. She established her own photography studio and hired her brother Erik Miller as her darkroom assistant. The studio was located in an apartment that she rented and would become known as the Lee Miller Studio. Canadian-American cosmetic empire magnate, Elizabeth Arden, would become one of her clients.
The Julien Levy Gallery Exhibition
The Julien Levy Gallery provided Elizabeth Miller with space in an exhibition in 1932, alongside her old mentor Man Ray and half a dozen other photographers. One of her only exhibitions of her career, the Levy Gallery Exhibition included some of her most infamous works thus far. But all that was about to change.
Marriage To Aziz Eloui Bey
Aziz Eloui Bey and Elizabeth Miller met in 1934 in New York, while the Egyptian businessman and engineer was on a business trip to New York to buy train equipment for the Egyptian National Railway that was under construction. Miller and Bey fell in love quickly and Miller gave up her photography studio in New York to move to Egypt with Bey.
Giving Up Professional Photography
While married to Aziz Eloui Bey, Elizabeth didn't work as a professional photographer, but she was still taking pictures. Some, like Portrait Of Space, an image of a desert landscape seen through a torn fly screen, would inspire painters and others and be included in some of her best works collection in the future.
Return To Paris
By 1937, Elizabeth had given up on her marriage to Aziz Bey (though not divorced him) and returned to Paris, perhaps seeking a new challenge. On her first day back in the city, she went to a party hosted by her former mentor, Man Ray. She would reconcile her differences with Man Ray whilst there and also meet her future lover and husband, British painter and curator, Roland Penrose.
The War Begins
As war broke out across Europe, Elizabeth Miller was living in London, England, with her then-husband, Roland Penrose. Although her family and friends pleaded with her to return to New York and the relative safety of the United States, Miller refused. Instead, Miller approached Condé Nast, her former editor at Vogue, looking for a job as a photojournalist.
Getting The Job For Vogue
Because the British Army would not permit Miller to travel with them and take photographs, the United States Army was approached and Miller received her accreditation in December of 1942, permitting her to travel with the US Army as a war correspondent for Condé Nast Publications.
Covering Nurses For Her First Article
Focusing on the human side of the conflict, her first article for British Vogue featured British nurses at work in Oxford, including one image of a nurse drying and sterilizing surgical gloves by the hundreds. Following this, much of her work would focus on the medical professionals saving lives during the conflict.
Covering The Battle Of Saint-Malo
Despite not being allowed to cover the Battle of Saint-Malo following the events of D-Day, Miller went into Saint-Malo without authorization and covered the battle anyway. When the military discovered that she was there without authorization, she was arrested and placed under house arrest for a short period. Still, her photographs included the first recorded use of napalm.
Compositional Importance
Unlike you might imagine during the context of live gunfire or upon seeing the horrors of work, there was a great deal of intentionality about Miller's images during the conflict. She would use the elements to her advantage and take the time to compose her shots, including several from inside cattle trains that were used to transport Jewish prisoners to and from concentration camps.
France Free Again: The Liberation Of Paris
As the war dragged on, Miller would find herself back in her beloved Paris, but this time behind a camera, covering the liberation of Paris. She wrote and photographed for an article in Vogue entitled: "France Free Again: The Liberation Of Paris", published on October 15, 1944.
Witness To The Concentration Camps
One of Miller's most poignant and moving works came as part of a series called Witness To The Concentration Camps, which included text and imagery of the Liberations of Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps. Miller and her photographer friend from LIFE Magazine, Scherman, were among the first to enter Dachau.
The Horrors Of Buchenwald
She went first to Buchenwald, where she captured the depravity there and the reactions of the liberating soldiers, including many being physically ill from the inhumanity of what they had seen. Buchenwald was a camp that at its height contained over 280,000 prisoners. 56,000 were killed. Despite this, Miller was able to capture the first funeral procession to leave the camp.
Death At Dachau
A few days after capturing the liberation of Buchenwald, Miller and fellow photographer Scherman went to Dachau concentration camp as Allied forces liberated it from the Nazis. Arriving amid an atmosphere of anger, disgust, and despair, Miller took several photographs of dead SS guards, including those who had surrendered, but been shot anyway by American troops. She also took photographs of the faces of survivors, humanizing them.
The Sharing Of Chocolate
Miller also shared her Army-rationed chocolate with survivors, but this kind gesture would turn into a scuffle for food, such was the condition of their starvation.
I Implore You To Believe This Is True
After two days at Buchenwald and Dachau, amidst the horrors that Miller could scarcely believe herself, she sent a cable to British Vogue editor Audrey Withers, simply saying, "I IMPLORE YOU TO BELIEVE THIS IS TRUE". Miller's subsequent articles and photographs pulled no punches and spared no one the horrors.
Wanting To Help
From Dachau, Scherman and Miller made their way, with the 179th Regiment of the 45th Infantry Division to Munich, stating in another cable to Withers, "If Munich, the birthplace of this horror was falling, we'd like to help".
Living In Hitler's Private Apartment Whilst Munich Was Liberated
Once they arrived in Munich, Miller and Scherman were given an apartment, which had been turned into a command post, at 16 Prinzregentenplatz (Prince Regent's Place). That apartment had previously belonged to Adolf Hitler himself. Miller was struck by the banality of Hitler's private possessions. "The banality of evil", as it were.
Humiliating The Fuhrer
Taking the opportunity to humiliate the Fuhrer, both Scherman and Miller posed for unclothed photographs in Hitler's bath and trudged their dirty combat boots on a pristine white rug in the bathroom. There's also an image of a Sergeant reading Mein Kampf on Hitler's bed while using a field telephone. Ironically, the same day they were humiliating the man, Hitler died in Berlin.
The End At Eagle's Nest
Elizabeth Miller's final piece of World War II photography came at Berchtesgaden, the municipality where the "Eagle's Nest" lay—the final outpost of the SS and German High Command that were not in Berlin with Hitler in the bunker. The SS were making their final stand. Entering the area on May 24, 1945, Miller captured her final frames of the war, as the SS burned the Eagle's Nest to the ground and Allied Air Forces hit the compound with everything they had.
A Souvenir From The War
Alongside all of her photographs, Miller left Eagle's Nest the following morning, carrying a small silver tray emblazoned with "AH" and a swastika imprinted in the middle.
Capturing The Aftermath Of War
Most of us would have gone home and sought therapy for ourselves after so many years on the frontline, but not Miller. She stayed in Europe for a period, mostly in Vienna, Austria, capturing medical personnel and nurses at work. In her correspondence, she lamented that little could be done for those critically injured by the war, because of the shortage of drugs and medical supplies.
Post-Traumatic Stress Sets In
It was in Austria that she wrote, "a dying baby is the same color as the blue striped garb on the skeletons of Dachau". Further, a comedic play about outer space reminded her of rockets fired at her during combat and that aliens in the same play were akin to the "lizard-like people of Dachau".
New Images Emerge From The Darkness
Miller captured new images, likely as a way to cope with her post-traumatic stress. Still dark in nature, the early ones were of war graves still being dug and of lifeless refugees wandering European streets, unsure of which direction home may be and what awaited them when they started the long journey home. She was in Hungary when a firing squad executed the former Prime Minister for colluding with the Nazis.
Home Again, But Not At Home
Finally, after years at war and capturing the immediate aftermath, Miller would return home to England in 1947 and to Roland Penrose. Becoming "Lady Penrose" in the process, Miller would do the occasional photoshoot for Vogue, but would become a gourmet cook in the interim. She and Penrose bought a farmhouse that would see visitors from Man Ray to Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore, among others.
A Life Of Breaking Barriers
Time and again throughout her life, Miller was faced with obstacles, usually from men telling her what she could and could not do and where she could and could not go. But she did not let this stop her. Miller's life is one of breaking down every barrier that was put in front of her. When asked what drew her to photography by a New York Times reporter, she replied, "It's a matter of getting out on a limb and sawing it off behind you".