Ten years in the past I visited Farleys Home in East Sussex, the house of the artist and curator Roland Penrose and his spouse Lee Miller (and their varied lovers) for over 28 years.
I met their son, Antony Penrose, who nonetheless lives in the home. At the moment, I have to say, there was far much less curiosity in Miller. Like so many ladies, her achievements had been partly overshadowed by the lads in her life—and there have been fairly a number of—regardless of her profession as a mannequin and photographer.
There was Roland Penrose himself, a frankly reasonably mediocre painter however one of many few British Surrealists, famous extra at present as a curator and biographer of Picasso and Miró. Then there was Picasso, who painted her six occasions, however in fact he all the time will get the limelight. She was additionally supposedly a “muse” to her lover Man Ray, who “invented” the solarisation course of in 1929 whereas she was his assistant. The story goes that she flipped on the sunshine briefly when a mouse ran over her foot, so creating these pictures, half optimistic, half detrimental, as if lit from behind. Man Ray and Miller labored so intently collectively that apparently some works she created are nonetheless credited to him.
Miller was among the many first ladies photographers to unsparingly doc the London Blitz, the liberation of Paris and the focus camps
However amongst Miller’s most searing work was when Vogue commissioned her as a photojournalist through the Second World Struggle—partnered with a male co-photographer, David Scherman. She was among the many first ladies photographers to unsparingly doc the London Blitz, the liberation of Paris and the focus camps of Dachau and Buchenwald. With Scherman they visited Hitler’s residence in Munich, the place he took the well-known picture of Miller bathing in Hitler’s bathtub, the bathmat muddied with the grime of Dachau from her boots. On the very similar day, 30 April 1945, Hitler and Eva Braun died by suicide of their Berlin bunker.
Love letters and ephemera
I returned to Farleys Home this 12 months, to seek out that it’s now all about Miller. The guided tour concentrates on her legacy, whereas Antony Penrose has been engaged on an enormous archive: 60,000 negatives, images, love letters and ephemera found in trunks within the attic. And definitely curiosity has been ramped up by the movie, Lee, which has simply come out, starring Kate Winslet and impressed by Antony’s e-book, The Lives of Lee Miller (1985).
Miller is now receiving each institutional and industrial accolades. In November the Heide Museum of Trendy Artwork in Australia is presenting a serious survey of her work (4 November-25 February 2024), curated by Antony Penrose. And in New York, Gagosian is exhibiting Seeing Is Believing: Lee Miller and Associates (11 November-22 December). It can function images by Miller and Roland Penrose, and works on paper by the bevy of artists they knew, lived with and liked: Joseph Cornell, Max Ernst, Dora Maar, Man Ray, Henry Moore, Valentine Penrose and Picasso.
True to kind, Larry Gagosian is staying schtum on costs, so I don’t understand how a lot he’s asking for her work. However her costs elsewhere are nonetheless nowhere close to these of contemporaries. Christie’s is providing a gelatin silver print, her portrait of Man Ray, courting from 1931. It’s estimated at $6,000-$8,000. However in the identical sale, Man Ray’s silver gelatin portrait of Miller, courting from round 1930 and nearly the identical measurement, has a heftier estimate: $20,000-$30,000.
However, at present a contemporary version of Miller’s Girls Firewatchers (1941) exhibiting masked wardens in London, is priced at round £20,000. In 2007, a print of the identical topic bought at Christie’s for simply £1,500—which might be £2,400 at present. Your time has come, Lee!
• To obtain this column each month, signal as much as the Artwork Market Eye publication
