The art of Lee Miller

Exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum of photographs of and by Lee Miller examining her role as muse and photographer.

I was excited to see the exhibition as I had very much enjoyed the exhibition of portraits at the National Portrait Gallery a number of years ago and had been to visit Farley Farm in Sussex where she had lived with her husband Roland Penrose in the latter years of her life. This is now the home of the Lee Miller archive. It was a magical visit so it was super to see this large range of photos brought together.

I loved the surrealist section particularly the very clear focused pictures based on the idea of found art such as the picture of four rats called “Rat’s tails” and the birdcages in a window.

One of the unexpected sections was the one on Egypt where she lived with her first husband which included a small contact print called “Procession, the Red Sea” which in the sand takes on a surreal quality.

There was a nice theme running through the exhibition of scenes through windows starting form one in the surrealist section, through a tear in a tent in Egypt, a view of the bombing at St Malo and a view from Farley Farm.

The most moving picture is that of Lee Miller in the bath in Hilter’s flat. A wonderfully ironic picture anyway but with the added layer that the mud on her boots by the bath is from Dachau and that she is washing the dirt of that pace off herself.

The exhibition was a nice insight into not only an artists work but also a woman who seemed to know no boundaries. If she wanted to do something she did.

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