Lee Miller: Portraits from a Life by Richard Calvocoressi
Published by Thames and Hudson
BY LYNN HILDITCH LRPS

January 2005 saw the publication of the paperback edition of Richard Calvocoressi’s Lee Miller: Portraits from a Life. Originally published in hardback in 2002, the 144-page book containing over 150 black and white photographs provides an extensive gallery of the American-born photographer’s portrait photography including some previously unpublished work. Calvocoressi is Director of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh and was the curator of Miller’s photographs for a 2001 exhibition “The Surrealist and the Photographer: Roland Penrose and Lee Miller”.

Interest in Miller’s colourful life and appreciation of her work has increased considerably during the past ten years. 2005 alone saw an exhibition of Miller’s portraits, to coincide with the paperback publication of Calvocoressi’s book, at London's National Portrait Gallery and new biography by Miller’s official biographer Carolyn Burke, is due for publication in November. Miller was also the subject of a new musical, Six Pictures of Lee Miller, which had its world premiere in July at the Chichester Festival Theatre, and a film of her life, written by the English playwright Sir David Hare and starring Nicole Kidman as Miller, is due to be released in 2006. A major retrospective at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London is also planned for 2007, a significant milestone in Miller’s legacy, marking the one-hundredth anniversary of her birth and the thirtieth anniversary of her death.

In Portraits from a Life, Calvocoressi assigns Miller’s portraits to one of six main categories. Firstly, the usually commissioned sophisticated studio portraits of film stars, actors, models and society figures many of which were taken in Miler’s own studio in New York between 1933 and 1934; secondly, the more informal portraits of artists, writers, scientists and other intellectuals shot on location for Vogue; thirdly, the private portraits of friends, mostly artists, shot either individually or in groups; fourthly, the portraits of people, often unidentified, engaged in work or in action, taken on assignment for Vogue or for commissioned books such as Wrens in Camera (1945); fifthly, the portraits of civilians, including victims of persecution and their oppressors; and finally, and probably the most obscure category, the portraits of absent individuals who are represented by objects associated with them (for example, Miller’s portraits of Picasso’s studio and the surreal work of Joseph Cornell).

Portraits from a Life is divided into five main chapters: The Surrealist Decade; The War at Home; The War in Europe; Postwar: Artists and Writers; and Picasso and Other Friends. Each photograph is accompanied by a useful brief descriptive caption as opposed to just the title and date. Calvocoressi also includes quite a lengthy introduction, which, while briefly providing an overview of biographical detail, examines Miller’s portraiture in some depth. There is also a short but informative bibliography recognising the important main texts. Although the book may appear to be limiting Miller’s work primarily to portraiture, the diverse nature of the portraits spans Miller’s entire career from 1929 to 1960 and includes photographs taken during her time in Paris with Man Ray as well as portraits from WWII. Therefore, for anyone interested in the unique and diverse photographic work of this remarkable woman, Calvocoressi’s book is a must.

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