Program

NYS Historic, Pomeroy Education Program

Subject

House, People

Location

40 S Clinton St, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601, USA

Lat/Long

41.698276, -73.922351

Grant Recipient

Millbrook Historical Society

Elizabeth “Lee” Miller was born in Poughkeepsie, NY on April 23^rd, 1907. She grew up at 40 S. Clinton Street (U. S. Census 1910). In 1926 she attended Vassar College in the experimental theater program, and after one year she left to study painting at the Art Students League in New York City from 1927-1928 (Poughkeepsie Eagle News, September 5, 1934). In 1929 she moved to France where she was taught by and opened a studio with Man Ray, a surrealist artist and photographer. By 1930 she was working as a photographer and model in Paris for Vogue magazine. In 1932 she established her own art and fashion photography studio in New York City, photographing Charlie Chaplin among others. Her surrealist art photography became very well known, and in 1933 she had a solo exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York City (“Lee Miller”, Lee Miller Archives; Poughkeepsie Eagle News, October 25, 1932).

In 1934 she was married to Aziz Eloui Bey, and moved abroad to live in Cairo, Egypt and St. Moritz, Switzerland. Although she did not work as a professional photographer during this time, she continued to take Surrealist photographs. In 1937 she had met Roland Penrose, an English surrealist painter and curator, and by 1939 she left her husband in Egypt and moved to London, England (“Lee Miller”, Poughkeepsie Eagle News, September 5, 1934).

When World War II broke out, Miller was living in London, England. She began her photojournalism career by documenting the Blitz for Vogue. Her photographs were published in the 1941 book “Bloody But Unbowed: Pictures of Britain Under Fire” (Poughkeepsie Journal, June 25, 1941). In 1944 she was accredited by the U.S. Army as a war correspondent for Conde Nast Publications, the owners of Vogue magazine (“Lee Miller”). She photographed nurses at army bases, the front lines, and prisoners of war. Initially she was focused on women’s work on the British home front and later documenting the victims of the war.

In August of 1944, following the D-Day invasion of France, Miller found herself on the front lines at a town called Saint-Malo, which was supposed to have been already liberated. She spent five days documenting it as an active combat zone, and her photographs include the first recorded use of Napalm (“Lee Miller in Combat”, Jennifer Putnam, The National WWII Museum, March 25, 2024).

Miller also documented the liberation of Paris, the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Dachau, and Hitler’s private apartment in Munich on the night he died. Miller and Time magazine’s David E. Scherman famously tracked dirt from the concentration camp at Dachau into Hitler’s bathroom, took baths in his tub, and slept in his bed (“Lee Miller: Witness…, 2024). In 1945, Miller was photographing the women of post-war Hungary when she was detained by the Russian military and held for three days (Poughkeepsie Journal, November 10, 1945). She later photographed the execution of Prime Minister Lazlo Bardossy (“Lee Miller”). As the concentration camps were liberated, Miller came through with the military and documented the conditions of the prisoners, and the efforts made to save them.

Miller likely suffered from PTSD following her return to England, according to a biography written by her son Anthony Penrose (The Lives of Lee Miller, 1984). In 1947 Miller discovered she was pregnant with her son and divorced her first husband. She married Roland Penrose in May 1947. In 1949 they purchased Farleys House, a farm in Sussex, which became a site often visited by the artist community, hosting friends like Picasso, Man Ray, Max Ernst, etc. (“Farleys House & Gallery”).

Miller effectively retired from photojournalism around this time, although she still did an occasional photo shoot for Vogue. Miller turned to gourmet cooking as her passion in later years, becoming a noted chef (“Lee Miller”).

Miller passed away at Farleys House on July 21, 1977 (“Lady Penrose”, Poughkeepsie Journal, July 22, 1977).

Learn more about Lee Miller, and see her digitized photographs, at the Lee Miller Archives: https://www.leemiller.co.uk/

Read more about Lee Miller’s life in The Lives of Lee Miller by Antony Penrose. Originally published in 1985 by Hold, Reinhart and Winston in New York.

Sources:

“Lee Miller’, Lee Miller Archives. https://www.leemiller.co.uk/artists/lee-miller/

“Lee Miller in Combat”, Jennifer Putnam, National WWII Museum, March 25, 2024. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/lee-miller-combat

“Lee Miller: Witness to the Concentration Camps and the Fall of the Third Reich”, Jennifer Putnam, National WWII Museum, March 28, 2024. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/lee-miller-witness-concentration-camps-and-fall-third-reich#_ftn1

“Farleys House & Gallery: Home of the Surrealists”, https://www.farleyshouseandgallery.co.uk/