Lee Miller: On Both Sides of the Camera

Plot

Lee Miller was one of the most extraordinary photographers of the 20th century, famous for her portraits and her devastating photographs of World War Two - as well as for her legendary beauty. Miller was born in 1907 and in her early life moved from being an art student to a Vogue model to muse of Man Ray and the Parisian surrealists. In 1932 she started her own studio, taking photographs for magazines and portraits of renowned cultural figures, and in the forties married the surrealist Roland Penrose, Picasso's great friend. She was one of the few women covering the Second World War: the first photographer to access Hitler's Munich home and among the first to document the liberation of the concentration camps. But there is another side to her story. She was raped at the age of seven, an experience which left a legacy of terrible darkness. As she said herself, 'I looked like an angel, but I was a fiend inside.' This is the first full-length biography of Lee Miller. Meticulously researched, beautifully written, this is an absorbing account of a fascinating woman. Carolyn Burke was born in Australia.