Miller’s headstrong creativity is evoked by her wry quotes; she once explained of her work: “It was a matter of getting out on a damn limb, and sawing it off behind you.” The urgency, audaciousness, and unexpected compassion that defines so much of her photography is also inextricably linked to her personal experience.
She was born in 1907 in Poughkeepsie, New York State; she began her global adventures in her youth, though her ultimate home was Farleys House in the East Sussex countryside, where she moved in 1949 with her husband, British painter and curator Roland Penrose, and their infant son Antony. It was only following Miller’s death in 1977 that her family discovered a huge cache of her previously unseen negatives, personal letters and manuscripts.
Traumatic details
This proved a multi-stranded revelation. It uncovered traumatic details that Miller had never openly discussed – the childhood sexual abuse she had suffered (aged seven, she was abused by a family acquaintance) and the full extent of the World War Two horrors she had witnessed. For Antony Penrose, it also brought focus to his mother’s undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder, and their icy relationship, which only thawed shortly before her death.
Penrose became his mother’s biographer (his book, The Lives Of Lee Miller, inspired the recent biopic); he and his daughter Ami Bouhassane are now custodians of Miller’s archives and also guides at Farleys House, where visitors can see artworks by Miller and her life-long friends (such as Man Ray and Picasso), contemporary art exhibitions, and some of Miller’s personal effects – including the bespoke knuckledusters she carried during the war.
Lee Miller Archives, England 2025. All rights reserved. leemiller.co.ukDevonshire Hill,1941, portraying Blitz-era London, has a futuristic quality (Credit: Lee Miller Archives, England 2025. All rights reserved. leemiller.co.uk)
