Miller’s stubborn creativity is evoked by her ironic quotations. She once described her job this way: “It was about coming out with a bad limb and sawing it off from behind.” The urgency, boldness, and unexpected compassion that characterizes many of her photographs are also closely tied to her personal experience.
She was born in 1907 in Poughkeepsie, New York. Although she began her global adventures at a young age, her final home was Farley’s House in the East Sussex countryside, where she moved in 1949 with her husband, the British painter and curator Roland Penrose, and their young son Anthony. It wasn’t until after Miller’s death in 1977 that her family discovered her vast cache of never-before-seen negatives, personal letters, and manuscripts.
traumatic details
This proved to be a multifaceted revelation. It revealed traumatic details that Miller had never spoken publicly before: the childhood sexual abuse she suffered (she was molested by a family friend when she was 7 years old) and the full extent of the horrors of World War II that she witnessed. For Anthony Penrose, the event also brought into focus his mother’s undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder and their icy relationship, which finally thawed shortly before her death.
Penrose became his mother’s biographer (his book The Life of Lee Miller was the inspiration for a recent biopic). He and his daughter Ami Bouhassan are now the custodians of the Mirror Archives and guides at Furry’s House. Here, visitors can see works by Miller and her lifelong friends (including Man Ray and Picasso), contemporary art exhibits, and some of Miller’s personal belongings, including the custom knuckle duster she carried during the war.
Lee Miller Archive, UK, 2025. Unauthorized copying and reproduction prohibited. leemiller.co.jpSource: BBC Culture – www.bbc.com
