Lee Miller - by Patricia Allmer (Hardcover)

About the Book

Revises conventional biographical accounts of Miller's work, examining unpublished and lesser-known works, and offering new insights into her relationship with surrealism and the American avant-garde.

Book Synopsis

Lee Miller: Photography, surrealism, and beyond offers a major new critical discussion of the work of one of the most significant twentieth-century photographers. Applying art-theoretical analyses and insights afforded by previously unseen material in archives and collections, Patricia Allmer undertakes revisionary readings of many of Miller's works, including Portrait of Space, Severed Breast from Radical Mastectomy and the famous series of war photographs produced for Vogue. At the same time she sheds new light on Miller's relations with surrealist groups and American avant-gardes, on her experiences in Paris, Egypt and World War II Europe and on her critically neglected post-war activities. Above all, Lee Miller: Photography, surrealism, and beyond focuses critical attention on the works themselves. As a result it will be of great interest to students and scholars of twentieth-century photography, modernism and surrealism.

From the Back Cover

This volume offers a major new critical engagement with the work of one of the most significant, and yet critically neglected, twentieth-century American photographers. Applying art-theoretical analyses and insights afforded by previously unseen and unread material in archives and private collections, Patricia Allmer undertakes a series of revisionary readings of many of Miller's works. These include detailed analyses of famous photographs like Portrait of Space and Severed Breast from Radical Mastectomy, lesser-known works like her photographic portraits of the cast and production team of the avant-garde opera Four Saints, together with well-known bodies of material like her war-correspondent work for Vogue and the photographs she made in 1944 and 1945 travelling across a Europe ravaged by war and totalitarianism.

The book affords new insights into Miller's complex relations with surrealist groups and American avant-gardes, and into her experiences in Paris, Egypt, London, and Europe during the Second World War, as well as her critically-neglected but significant post-war involvement in developing and contributing work to major exhibitions, organisations, and projects. Allmer makes extensive use of art-theoretical and art-historical analyses to focus critical attention on the photographs themselves as works of art as well as historical documents, and argues strongly for the importance of looking carefully at, and beyond, Miller's extraordinary life in order to comprehend the significance of her photography on its own terms. This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars of twentieth-century photography, modernism, and surrealism.

Review Quotes

'The book is provocative and will inspire thoughtful reconsideration of Dada and surrealism-its people, activities, and production.'
C. Chiarenza, University of Rochester, Choice July 2016

'This groundbreaking book is a welcome, indeed crucial, addition to Lee Miller scholarship. Allmer's analyses reframe and enhance our comprehension of Miller's artistic oeuvre, gracefully complementing, rather than completely upending, the established canon. The narrative is pleasingly plotted, and Allmer's conclusions crisply and satisfyingly come together.'
Caitlin Davis, Woman's Art Journal, Fall/Winter 2017

"[...] in Lee Miller: Photography, Surrealism and beyond, Allmer offers the most extensive and most in-depth analysis of Miller's visual art work to date."
Jonas Ellerström, Svenska Dagbladet, 9 September 2017

'As I write this, it has just been announced that there is to be a biopic about Lee Miller starring (perhapsinevitably) Kate Winslet...At the outset of this stimulating and informativebook, Allmer stated her intention: it is not to disprove current versions of Miller's life or to offer a new narrative, but rather to 'refocus it, adding new layers to it and revealing uncertainties that open up historical andaesthetic possibilities.' This she has certainly achieved. Her book should beread by all those interested in photography, modernism and surrealism - and by Kate Winslet.'
Julie Lawson, Studies in Photography, vol. 2, 2017

About the Author

Patricia Allmer is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at the University of Edinburgh