Lee Miller Archives – serie

Arriving in Britain just as war was declared Lee Miller, an American with no permit to work, used her camera as her principle means of combat during World War II.Before Lee Miller left Britain to report in Europe she covered the Blitz, civilians braving the destruction around them and their contributions to the war effort as well as wartime fashion, camouflage and the women in the armed forces on the home front.This book curated by the Lee Miller Archives is Lee Miller’s photography in Britain during the war with an essay by Ami Bouhassane.

In 1941, Roland Penrose became a game changer when The War Office published this Home Guard Manual. Penrose shows how to accomplish seemingly impossible visual deceptions: While Penrose, a keen naturalist, drew on influences in the natural world, his Surrealist passion for mimicry is apparent throughout the book. Patterns, textures, shading: all these artistic devices now took on serious military currency.

Surrealist before she knew of the movement Lee Miller was ‘caustically brilliant, yet totally loyal, unpretentious, human and intolerant of sham. She was a consummate artist and a consummate clown; at once an upstate New York hick and cosmopolitan grande dame; a cold, soignée fashion model and a hoyden… She was a mechanical ‘tinker’, in the sense that her friend [the artist] Alexander Calder once called himself ‘just a tinker’. She was the nearest thing I knew to a mid-20th century renaissance woman’ described David E. Scherman, LIFE photographer and her very close friend.Lee Miller was one of the most original photographic artists of the 20th century, her Surrealist eye informed everything she did. Her work presents the world in a way that encourages us to view it in a different manner.

"Penrose" wrote Andre Breton "est Surrealiste dans l'amitie" and 'The Friendly Surrealist' is an apt description for the man who more than any other nurtured friendships and connections which introduced European Surrealism to the British art world. Roland Penrose embraced the fantasies and rebellions of the Surrealist movement through his friendships with artists such as Picasso, Man Ray, Miro, Ernst and Tàpies. His own works, which often reveal the true emotions behind his relationships with his wives, Valentine Boue and Lee Miller, constitute an important contribution to British Surrealist art.

This beautiful book of her wartime fashion work addresses Lee Miller’s contribution to the fashion industry in these years and her significant service to the survival of British Vogue magazine.Audrey Withers, Lee Miller’s editor at British Vogue, in 1941 wrote ‘she [Lee Miller] has borne the whole weight of our studio production through the most difficult period in Brogue’s [British Vogue’s] history’.Containing over 130 images, with the majority printed full page this book also contains accompanying text by Ami Bouhassane, Lee Miller’s granddaughter and Co-Director of the Lee Miller Archives, who provides insights into Lee Miller’s work process. In two additional essays, fashion historian Amber Butchart writes on the fashion of the period and Robin Muir, contributing editor to British Vogue, discusses Lee Miller’s work for Vogue.

Special facsimile copy of the typeset version of the Surrealist photo book The Road is Wider than Long by Roland Penrose.Written as a Surrealist love poem, the inspiration for the book is drawn from a journey that Roland Penrose made together with renowned photographer and war correspondent Lee Miller through the Balkans in 1938. This book is made as a replica of the first copy that Roland printed in 1939 using different fonts and then embellished with imaginative colour illustrations for Lee Miller.

A beautiful, tactile facsimile of the handwritten version of Roland Penrose’s The Road is Wider than Long Surrealist photobook.In 1938, as Europe prepared for war, Roland Penrose and Lee Miller made a journey together through the Balkans. On his return to England Roland produced a handmade photobook containing a Surrealist love poem drawn from his memories and pictures from their travels. The following year he would create and print a typeset version based on this book which has today an important place in the history of Surrealist photobooks.

Painter Roland Penrose and photographer Lee Miller's move to Farleys in Sussex, UK, was not to settle down but to create, entertain, and inspire. In this publication, their son Antony Penrose, recalls the 1950's with a fascinating insight into his parents' lives, as they transformed Farleys from a traditional farmhouse into a hub of art. Farleys with unexpected decoration and surreal living had a wealth of 20th century artists visiting the home. The book is designed to reflect the colours and designs from the colour on the walls to the textiles of the furnishings.

Annabel Moeller’s work spans a career which has been defined by her sense of adventure and one that has taken in an astonishingly diverse cast of characters.From the creative powerhouses of the Sydney Opera House & the London Coliseum to war-scarred backdrops of Afghanistan and Iraq. Catwalk models, ballet dancers, opera stars exist alongside soldiers, surgeons and civilians. In a series of chapters from her carefree beginnings of film and darkrooms to the fast-paced world of the infinite digital environment. These pages vividly illustrate her desire to tell the human side of any story with humour and determination. With essays by Moeller and key associates from throughout her career: Major General Andy Salmon, her commanding officer in Iraq; Philip Weir, her early mentor in Australia and Craig Hassall who commissioned her throughout her career in the opera and ballet; David Nott, vascular and trauma surgeon with whom she has travelled to areas of conflict and instability to document the work of his foundation.

In the pre-digital age, before email and cell phones, letters carried an importance that few who were not part of those times will understand. The words on the pages of a love letter carry the nuances and emotions of love and desire, passion and anger in a deeply confidential way.The urgency and the intimacy of the writers can be clearly felt in this collection of letters between Lee Miller, Photographer, and Roland Penrose, Surrealist Artist, as they conduct their long-distance romance. It begins with their meeting in Paris in 1937 and runs to 1939 when Lee Miller left her Egyptian husband Aziz Eloui Bey in Cairo and joined Roland Penrose in London at the start of World War 2.In this real-life romantic drama, the period and their connections give us a supporting cast that includes Dora Maar and Picasso, Nusch and Paul Eluard, Leonora Carrington and Max Ernst, Ady Fidelin and Man Ray.The nearly 300 pages of love letters in this book show that as the relationship grew it produced and supported some of the world’s best loved art and photography. The letters have never been published before and have only been read by a handful of people since they were first written.

Written by Antony Penrose, son of American feminist icon Lee Miller and British artist Roland Penrose this delightful narrative introduces the fascinating lives of Lee Miller; War Correspondent and Surrealist photographer and her husband Roland Penrose; Surrealist artist and co-founder of the ICA, whilst taking a tour of their extraordinary home in the Sussex countryside. Farleys's exterior has no hint of visual excitements to be discovered. Bright walls & corridors filled with remarkable & eclectic art. The book gives a glimpse into amazing lives of Lee Miller & Roland Penrose. This special anniversary edition, 75 years at Farleys, has new photography and never seen before insights to the house.

1937 could be named ‘the summer of love‘ for Lee Miller, Roland Penrose, who had recently met for the first time & their friends, Max Ernst, Leonora Carrington, Picasso, Dora Maar, Man Ray, Ady Fidelin and more. This facsimile of Lee and Roland’s photograph albums shows their summer holiday together as portrayed in the 2024 feature film LEE and demonstrates the freedom and friendship of these artists as World War Two looms on the horizon.