Lee Miller: Photographing World War II

Lee Miller was one of the rare women war correspondents in World War II, photographing and reporting on D-Day, the liberation of Europe and some of the first images of Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps. An exhibition celebrates her reporting of the siege of Saint-Malo in August 1944, before a biopic arrives on cinema screens, starring Kate Winslet as Miller.

Miller was born in New York State in 1907. She modelled, principally for Vogue, before becoming a photographer and moving to Paris. She worked and lived with American Surrealist photographer Man Ray, as well as posing for him. She was painted by Picasso and appeared in a Jean Cocteau film. In 1932, after the end of her relationship with Man Ray, she opened a photography studio in New York City. She spent a lot of the 1930s travelling, marrying an Egyptian rail magnate and then an English Surrealist, Roland Penrose. She moved to the U.K. with him just before war broke out.

Lee Miller surrounded by children in Saint-Malo, photographed by her friend and colleague, LIFE magazine photographer David E. Scherman.

Miller contributed articles and photographs to British Vogue, and in 1943 was accredited as a war correspondent. She arrived in France in August 1944 and documented the siege of Saint-Malo by the Allied troops, from the inside. She took 300 photos of the siege, which destroyed 80 per cent of the town. A selection of fifty are on view in the exhibition.

A street inside the Saint-Malo city walls, photographed by Miller on 15 August 1944. Eighty per cent of the town was destroyed by the Allied bombardments.

Miller and her friend and colleague, LIFE magazine photographer David E. Scherman, went on the cover the liberation of Nazi concentration camps and the end of Hitler’s régime. She documented the aftermath of the war in Europe, scenes of hunger and chaos.

The experiences marked Miller greatly. She no doubt suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and decided to put photography behind her in the early 1950s. She became a well-known cook, hosting Surrealist dinner parties.

When she died of cancer in 1977, her son Antony Penrose discovered an incredible archive of images his mother had never talked about. He has worked tirelessly to make his mother’s achievements known. His biography of her has now been turned into a biopic starring Kate Winslet, to be released this autumn.