Lee Miller - Annotated by Carolyn Burke (Paperback)

About the Book

A lushly illustrated story of art and beauty, sex and power, Modernism and Surrealism, independence and collaboration, "Lee Miller" is an astute study of one of the most visible, yet enigmatic, cultural figures of the recent past. of photos and 58 photos in text.

Book Synopsis

Lee Miller's life embodied all the contradictions and complications of the twentieth century: a model and photographer, muse and reporter, sexual adventurer and domestic goddess, she was also America's first female war correspondent. Carolyn Burke, a biographer and art critic, here reveals how the muse who inspired Man Ray, Cocteau, and Picasso could be the same person who unflinchingly photographed the horrors of Buchenwald and Dachau. Burke captures all the verve and energy of Miller's life: from her early childhood trauma to her stint as a Vogue model and art-world ingénue, from her harrowing years as a war correspondent to her unconventional marriages and passion for gourmet cooking. A lavishly illustrated story of art and beauty, sex and power, Modernism and Surrealism, Lee Miller illuminates an astonishing woman's journey from art object to artist.

Review Quotes

"Art historian Carolyn Burke takes a detailed look at Miller's life in what is widely considered one of the great books on an artist's life."

--Nick Hilden "Observer, 11 Books that Will Transform Your Understanding of Art"

"[This] impeccably written and researched book is surely a state-of-the-art biogrpahy."--Carl Rollyson "New York Sun"

"No one who reads Burke's involving biography will ever forget Miller. So visually rich and electrifying is her story, a movie version seems inevitable. . . . Demonstrating the same clarity of observation and sensitivity to subtleties that distinguish Miller's photographs, Burke indelibly portrays a radiant woman forced to look into the heart of darkness, and an artist who cast light on a brutalized world, illuminating its abiding beauty and grace, and enhancing our empathy and awe."--Donna Seaman "Chicago Tribune"

"At last, a life and an album about Lee Miller. . . . For the first time the ravaged arc of [her] life is clear, beautiful but lined in pain."-- "New York Observer"

"If, like Auntie Mame, you believe that 'Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death, ' you'll surely want to read Carolyn Burke's delightful biography of Lee Miller. . . . Delightful, meticulously researched, fascinating. . . . Miller's life had many phases, all of them interesting, and Burke captures them in [this] fine biography."-- "Washington Post Book World"

"Lee Miller was an astounding woman, brought memorably to life in this astounding book."-- "Telegraph (UK)"

"Like Walt Whitman, Lee Miller contained multitudes. . . . Miller was an artist of merit with a life perhaps more interesting than her art. Carolyn Burke has given us a richly detailed, excellently written, and critically observed account of this life--one that deserves a superb biography and has gotten it. . . . [She] shows us that the largely forgotten Lee Miller is well worth remembering and judging."--Samuel McCracken "Columbia Magazine"

"Lee Miller went through life as a serial dazzler, adopting and shedding...guises a chameleon might envy."

--Janet Maslin "New York Times"

"Carolyn Burke's biography of Lee Miller (1907-1977) stands out for its thoroughness and professionalism. . . . Burke is neither an art critic nor an expert in photography, but she does know how to enlist psychological insights as keys to her narrative."--Andy Grundberg "Art in America" (10/1/2006 12:00:00 AM)

"Carolyn Burke's startling achievement is to document each persona with empathy and insight, to embed them all in time and place, and to weave the whole together into an absorbing narrative. . . . The result is an engrossing double portrait, a subtle analysis of two enigmas: Miller herself and the exhilarating and appalling century in which she lived."--Judith Rice "Guardian" (11/18/2006 12:00:00 AM)

Finalist-- "National Book Critics Circle Award"

2006-- "New York Times Notable Book of the Year"

About the Author

Carolyn Burke has taught at Princeton and the University of California at Santa Cruz, among other universities in France, the U.S., and Australia. She is the author of Becoming Modern: The Life of Mina Loy.