Model, war correspondent, photographer, surrealist, Lee Miller, wore many hats. As one of the few widely known female photographers of the first half of the 20th century she has made a valuable contribution to photography.
In the 1930s, Lee Miller is part of the surrealist circles of Paris. At her studio she creates commercial photos for fashion magazines, sometimes also working in front of the camera. As a former model she understands posing like no one else.
During and after the Second World War, she documents important moments as a photographer and war correspondent. This is quite a remarkable feat for a woman: such work was typically the exclusive domain of male photographers.
Lee Miller’s diverse, layered, and often personal corpus of work appears in well-known magazines such as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and LIFE Magazine, as well as in avant-gardist artists’ magazines. Her photographs also appear in publications by the allied forces, such as The War Illustrated and Cadran. Her own publication Wrens in Camera is focused on the wartime labour carried out by women for the British Royal Navy.
Cover image: Model with lightbulb, London, England c.1943 by Lee Miller (F0021) © Lee Miller Archives, England 2025. All rights reserved, www.leemiller.co.uk