Sweet uncultured swine,
My fucking god has it been two weeks? Shit. My excuse: it’s the end of the modern world as we know it. And I’ve been looking for answers, MamaMia! style, on how to manage the upcoming apocalypse best. Do I continue my skin regimen with only 9 of the 10 recommended serums? How do I make sparkling water? Is something off globally, or is it just the incumbent eclipse season?
There was a brightness to Lee Miller’s 1937 summer - made more delectable by knowledge of the what followed. So let’s take a beat, and bask alongside the photographer, model and muse for a moment before the deluge.
#NoFilter
“The hottie that knocked boots with Man Ray?” Is the most ill-informed, albeit accurate, answer to the question of who Lee Miller is. A model turned photographer in the early to mid 20th-century, Miller became an unlikely centre in the events of WWII. If you’re struggling to find a sensible path of course from Vogue centrefolds to war correspondent, it’s because there isn’t one.
It’s tempting to focus on her war years, which are both important and disturbing, but by the summer of 1937, Miller already had plenty life experience. A relationship with Man Ray, work with Vogue, a stint in Egypt - including a marriage - to name some. She was clearly accomplished and I, a good feminist, staunchly attribute this to her wit. It would be reductive to suggest she was also, maybe, a hot mess. Though she was also, maybe, a hot mess.
In 1927 Miller, then 19, was saved from walking into oncoming traffic by Conde-fucking-Montrose Nast, publisher for Vogue magazine (if she wasn’t hot, would he’ve let her get smooshed?). Miller had already posed for her photographer father and before this chance encounter, was kinda untethered. Multiple school expulsions before studying production, then leaving to study drama and later, drawing. All of which, incidentally, made her a perfect candidate for adhd I mean modelling (above).
Her pursuit of photography blossomed, in some part from the modelling career, but mostly from extreme impatience; why would she draw when she can take a pic toot suite? Her pursuit of visual artist, Man Ray, blossomed from photography. Ray was so good at photography, he could physically possess her body, take photos in it, and credit himself. Wow, that’s good. His protégé and their romance lasted from 1928 - 1932, during which time Miller worked both in front of, and behind the lens.
Missed a spot. I don’t know much about photography, studied it for half a year before leaving for journalism, left that for building design, then creative writing and art history (Miller and I might share a diagnosis). What I do know, especially with film photography, is immediate recognition of good composition is crucial. Man Ray shaving (above) represents both an instant, and years of preparation.
When Miller decided to leave Ray, she also left Paris with designs to start a photography studio in New York. It was successful, earning her steady clientele and a solo exhibition until, two years in, she married Egyptian business-man, Aziz Eloui Bey, and moved to Cairo. Naturally. Though Miller didn’t work professionally in Egypt, she never stopped working on her craft.*
*I’ve crammed a lotta life into one paragraph here, there are resources on Miller at the end written by people who aren’t overwhelmed by the aforementioned eclipse season.
In 1937, three years on, Miller left Bey, and Cairo, and returned to Paris. You know when you witness a friend go through a period of ascension? Miller was now 30, an established photographer with creative friendships and budding romance with Roland Penrose. Elation is palpable in her images rounding out the 1930s, when the couple holidayed in the South of France with Pablo Picasso, Dora Maar, Man Ray and his new lover, Ady Fidelin (see below) - also known as my dream blunt rotation.
To deter myself, I’m taking a shot every time I try write ‘eerily’ or ‘calm before the storm.’ Both terms are difficult to avoid, and I’m getting less equipped at finding alternatives the longer I withhold. Miller survived WWII (I mean, she’s dead now), but it’s still good to linger in her summer of ‘37. It’s too speedily bypassed, overshadowed by who’d become ‘the woman that bathed in Hitler’s bathtub’ (actually) after his defeat, and who’d sent images of camps to Vogue pleading, ‘Believe it’.
Not that summer though. She was just a chaotic, creative, loved-up, hot mess - maybe the very attributes that made her blithely courageous in the years following. I’m taking note.
Oh my god soooorr heavy you guys!
If you want more there’s a book, The Lives of Lee Miller by Antony Penrose (full disclosure - that’s her bebe) and noice piece by The New York Times here.
Sorry shit got real! Love you c*nts (spesh editor Grace), C U Next Tuesday xx
Maggie Jean xxx