Lee Miller: a Woman’s War

Fascinating exhibition at the Imperial War Museum about photographer Lee Miller’s work in the Second World War.

The title was clever as the subtitle could either apply to the fact the pictures were taken by a woman or that the majority of them were of women. It was a really well organised and presented exhibition and I love the fact that it included paintings of her by Roland Penrose and Picasso. There was also good use of objects and it was very moving to see her cameras and clothes from the time.

I loved the first section on her work in Britain. Some of it seems a bit quaint now but they were powerful and subtle images. I loved a fashion shoot of a coat with leopard trim against a map and next to a as hat stand of tin hats and ARM helmets. The show talks about the role of fashion magazines in the war not just to show clothes but to educate and encourage women. I also loved an image of an office worker in the British Red Cross HQ taken off a landing looking down and including the diagonal stair banister.

Most moving though are the images she took during the liberation of France and the push into Germany. She had an eye for quiet irony such as a picture of displaced Russian women billeted in an old SS guard house next door to Evan Braun’s house. I am always moved by the famous picture of her in the bath in one of Hitler’s houses on the day of his death just hours after returning from photographing Dachau. The first time I heard the story it was told by her son Anthony Penrose at Farley Farm and he built the layers of the story up so beautifully and movingly.

The show talked as well about the work she did after the war looking at the effect the war had had on Europe and I loved one quite about it being “peace with perforations, dog eared corners and marginal notes”. It also looked at the effect on Miiler of the wat work and her breakdown and alcoholism after the war.

Closes on 24 April 2016.

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