{"id":163214,"date":"2025-04-23T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=163214"},"modified":"2025-04-23T09:30:40","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T13:30:40","slug":"i-would-rather-take-a-photograph-than-be-one-lee-miller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=163214","title":{"rendered":"“I would rather take a photograph than be one.” — Lee Miller"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nLee Miller, by David Scherman<\/p>\n

It’s the birthday of Lee Miller, fashion model, Surrealist artist, and … as if all that wasn’t enough … the only female combat photographer in Europe during the war, taking photos of concentration camps, firing squads, and all the concomitant horrors she saw embedded with the 83rd Infantry Division of the U.S. Army, documenting the Allied advance from Normandy to Paris, as well as the liberation of Dachau and Buchenwald. <\/p>\n

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\nMuch of her history was erased through decades of obscurity and a total and shameful lack of a proper archive where her accomplishments get proper credit. Her son discovered a treasure trove of over 60,000 photos and negatives, and slowly but surely Miller is taking her proper place. More work needs to be done. There are biographies out now, and art books featuring her photos, and there have been a couple of very prominent exhibitions, heavily covered in the press. Because of her background as a fashion model, her work has also been covered by Vogue<\/i> (which launched her career), Elle<\/i> and etc. This little tribute post is the tip of the iceberg of this completely fascinating woman. <\/p>\n

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Miller’s lifetime was crammed with many lifetimes, through which she was both photographer and<\/i> a photograph. Miller was a stunningly beautiful woman, but her beauty was the least interesting thing about her. However, her beauty should not be discounted or ignored. It would be an elephant in the room otherwise. What was it like to be her? What was it like to turn heads, the way she did? Consider how she was “discovered”: She was 19 years old, crossing the street near her apartment on West 48th Street in New York and was almost hit by a car. A man pulled her out of the path of oncoming traffic. That man was Conde Nast. You can’t make this shit up. Soon after that, she appeared on the cover of Vogue<\/i>, in a drawing by George Lepape. <\/p>\n

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\nVogue<\/i> fell in love with her. Photographers did too. She was in demand. She had the look of the 1920s modern woman. Everyone wanted to photograph her.<\/p>\n

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\nLee Miller, Vogue, 1931. Photographer: George Hoyningen-huene<\/p>\n

\nConsidering the weighty sum of Miller’s historic accomplishments as a combat photographer with not just a front-row seat to the horrors Germany inflicted on the Jews – she was actually on the stage – it may strike people as unfair to start off with the beauty\/modeling part of her life. That’s fine, write your own piece. I, however, find it fascinating that this woman – so used to being looked at – would end up Looking At<\/i> some of the worst atrocities of not only the 20th century, but all time. Who better to observe than one so used to being observed? As a model, and as a Surrealist artist (and collaborator of Man Ray – let’s not say “muse” – we’ll come back to that), Miller was woman as Art Object from a very young age. She was also, disturbingly, Child as Art Object. This was all normal for her, and it’s not possible to untangle all of it and I don’t think Miller untangled it either. The Surrealist movement wasn’t about untangling, it was about tapping into the unconscious, the Jungian dreamworld. For such an artist to then stare unblinkingly at WWII reality is one of her many fascinations. For Miller, “being looked at” was the air she breathed from an upsettingly young age, and so of course she would be fascinated by the art of Looking. <\/p>\n

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Born in 1907, Miller died in obscurity in 1977, broke, broken, and alcoholic, having alienated everyone who loved her, including her family. Her legacy as a combat photographer – all that work – was completely erased – it was as though it never happened – and yet her image – her face and body – was still famous the world over, because of all the photographs Man Ray took of her. SHE wasn’t famous though, she was famous just as the Looked at object<\/i> of a genius. Another example of this: in 1930, Miller appeared in Jean Cocteau’s 1930 film The Blood of a Poet<\/i>, where she played a marble statue which – creepily – comes to life, freaking out its creator. The Blood of a Poet<\/i> is a beloved piece of Surrealist art (released on Criterion, played at festivals, Cocteau a cinema darling). And so there she is, again, immortalized by another genius – and this time in motion – and yet still … Miller, the woman, was in the shadows when she died. It occurs to me that her performance as the statue (her only experience in cinema) is an apt metaphor for her life. Cocteau knew what he was doing in casting her: The marble statue doesn’t behave like a proper statue. The marble statue is disobedient and comes to life. If Miller was a muse, she was a very unruly one. <\/p>\n

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