Names: | Born: Elizabeth Miller Other: Lady Penrose Other: Lee Penrose
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| Dates: | 1907, 23 April - 1977, 21 July | Born: | US, NY, Poughkeepsie | Active: | US / UK / France / Egypt | American model, writer and photographer. She was deeply involved in the surrealist movement and was a lover of Man Ray and a friend of Picasso. She traveled widely in the Middle East and became a war correspondent in the Second World War.
A plaque commemorating her first studio at Rue Victor Considérant, Montparnasse, Paris was unveiled on 8 March 2022.Preparing biographies Biography provided by Focal Press Born ("Elizabeth") in Poughkeepsie, New York, Miller drew much inspiration from her father, an avid photographer and inventor. After modeling for Steichen and Horst, she moved to Paris and became a model and assistant (and lover) to Man Ray (1929–1932) where she learned the technical craft and became an accomplished photographer of the avant-garde circle. She opened her own New York studio in 1932 and was successful in advertising, fashion, and portraits, eventually working solely for Vogue. Married an Egyptian, Aziz Bey, and moved to Cairo (1934), but that relationship dissolved and she moved to England and married (1947) the author and prominent art collector, Roland Penrose. During WWII she served as a U.S. Army war correspondent. After some documentary work for Vogue about the war’s effects on England, she boldly got herself transported just behind the Allied lines near the Normandy beaches. Miller was one of the first to enter and photograph the German concentration camps of Buchenwald and Dachau. Later she lived in Hitler’s Munich apartment and was photographed bathing in Hitler’s bathtub (photo by partner, D. Scherman). After 1945 her life was enriched by the comings and goings of the art elite at the Penrose estate in East Sussex. Miller accumulated over 1000 negatives of Picasso over 20 years. Her career, documented in several biographies, was fast paced and certainly, through a combination of myth and truth, one of the most fascinating in 20th century photography. (Author: Ken White - Rochester Institute of Technology) Michael Peres (Editor-in-Chief), 2007, Focal Encyclopedia of Photography, 4th edition, (Focal Press) [ISBN-10: 0240807405, ISBN-13: 978-0240807409] (Used with permission)
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Family history If you are related to this photographer and interested in tracking down your extended family we can place a note here for you to help. It is free and you would be amazed who gets in touch. alan@luminous-lint.com |
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