Category 1, Uncategorised •
27 January 2024
Lee Miller and the Mermaid (Part 1)
Follow Lee Miller's footsteps through the liberation of Denmark, as written by her granddaughter Ami Bouhassane.
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Born: 09 October 1947, London, UK
Antony’s photographic career began at an early age when peering through the viewfinder of his mother Lee Miller‘s Rolleiflex camera. He says he could not understand why the image he saw in colour returned in black and white. This began a long fascination with the medium.
His mother was a good mentor. At the age of 14, a family visit to see Pablo Picasso produced some amateur images which later became widely published. On a trip to Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) in 1962 , Lee was taken ill and handed him her Zeiss Contax to get the pictures she could not take. She explained the working of the light meter and advised, “If you drop the camera, I will break your neck”. Later images from the 1960s of artists such as Picasso, Joan Miró and Man Ray are now widely known.
Peter Bucknall of Athos Films gave Antony his break into 16 mm filmmaking, working on Kings Horses and Migrate to Survive. These documentaries about horses were both shot in Iran and led to Antony establishing Penrose Film Productions Ltd, with 18 produced credits for documentaries, technical films and drama shorts.
Antony has dedicated a large part of his life to research into the lives of his parents Lee Miller and Roland Penrose, and their circle of artist friends. He established the Lee Miller Archives in the 1980s with his late wife Suzanna. Today, with his daughter Ami Bouhassane, Antony is the co-director of Farleys House & Gallery Ltd, which comprises the archives, the house museum and galleries and The Penrose Collection. Antony has a unique standpoint, having personally known many of the great artists of the 20th century. His work comprises about 15,000 images and is housed by The Penrose Collection & the Lee Miller Archives, while his books are available through all major retailers.
His main activity is as an author and lecturer, and he is an accredited NADFAS lecturer on photography and fine art. Antony has also written performance pieces based on his parent’s lives and works, including The Angel and The Fiend on the life of Lee Miller, which has been staged widely in the USA and UK. His first book, The Lives of Lee Miller, has been adapted into a major motion picture – ‘Lee‘.
View Antony Penrose's workFor available lectures, seminar & performance details please see catalogue below.
For bookings, please contact us here stating the title you are interested in, the institution / club or association name and approx. dates.
The Indestructible Lee Miller
50 minute version 250 images. Power Point. Designed for use on Zoom and for live performance.
From an early age Lee Miller learned the chances life brought needed her skillful and courageous adaptation to make them work for her. Born 1907 in America, she morphed from a young artist to a top fashion model.
In Paris she became a surrealist photographer also shooting fashion for American Vogue. Back in New York she had a highly successful studio but left to marry an Egyptian and become a photographer of that land. At the outbreak of WW2 she arrived in London, returning to fashion photography for Vogue and later became their war correspondent with the US Army in Europe.
Her final career was as a surrealist gourmet cook in her last home, Farleys House in Sussex. Her life was filled with passion, heartbreak and high drama. Her secret in moving forward was to grab her chances with both hands. It made her indestructible in the sense that today her work is the subject of many books, TV documentaries, international exhibitions and in 2022 a feature film.
Surrealist Lee Miller
60 minute version 300 images, Powerpoint.
Lee Miller was a surrealist back home in Poughkeepsie New York before the movement had a name. Her love affair and collaboration with Man Ray in Paris from 1929 to 32 established her unquestionably as part of the movement, and her love and later marriage to Roland Penrose put her firmly in the middle of British surrealism. She remained a surrealist resolutely on her own terms through her subsequent roles as a fashion photographer, photojournalist, combat photographer and finally a gourmet cook. She is now rightfully recognised as a surrealist artist for whom surrealism was a natural expression of her way of life and her way of seeing. who made her own highly significant contribution to the art of the 20th Century in Britain and Europe.
Created for the Hepworth Wakefield exhibition Lee Miller and Surrealism in Britain 2018.
Contains disturbing images of the holocaust, war and consequences.
Lee Miller: Witnessing Women at War
60 minute version 300 images. Power Point.
For Lee Miller a woman at war was any woman caught up in the events of World War II. We see her faultless images for Vogue’s haute couture in London’s bombed out streets. She documented the magnificent work of the WRNS, ATS, the Land Girls, the WRVS and the nurses. She shows us the refugees in Europe, girls accused of collaboration, women forced into slave labour or prostitution and concentration camp victims.
This catalogue ranges from bravery to stupidity and from enforced involvement to volunteering. It is told against the background of Lee Miller’s own life story which takes her from being a fashion supermodel via life as a surrealist artist to a combat photographer and finally a gourmet cook.
Contains highly disturbing images of the holocaust, extreme violence and depravity
Lee Miller and Roland Penrose
60 minutes, Power Point 270 images
The story of Roland Penrose, British Surrealist artist and biographer of Picasso and Lee Miller, the American Surrealist photographer, who shot fashion and combat with equal talent, seen through the eyes of their son Antony Penrose, who is also their biographer. We look at how their early lives formed their motivations and how they strove to use art to make the world a better place. The last decades of their life together were at Farley Farm, their home in Sussex which was frequented by many prominent Surrealist and Modern artists.
Contains some war time images which may be disturbing.
Very well received by NADFAS audiences.
The Legendary Lee Miller
60 to 80 minutes Power Point 300 images.
“That was not so much a lecture as a prose poem set to beautiful images.” Andrew Parkin, Poet, Critic and Chairman, Paris DFAS.
“Your well researched and informative lecture was indeed a master class”. Jonathan Hill, Chairman, S.W. Branch Photographic Collectors Club of Great Britain.
The life of Lee Miller, told with reference to those with whom she exchanged creative inspiration : Man Ray, Roland Penrose, Pablo Picasso, David E. Scherman, her father Theodore Miller and her son Antony Penrose.
A definitive view by her son and biographer, this presentation has been acclaimed for its ability to embrace many different levels of the history of art and photography, social commentary and emotional connection with the subject. It gives an accurate and lasting portrait of a talented and courageous woman who was a free spirit and a trail blazer.
Contains some war time images which may be disturbing.
Lee Miller and Picasso
50 – 90 minutes Power Point 260 images
“‘Fabulous’; ‘the best NADFAS lecture from any society over a 30 year membership’; ‘this one lecture was more than worth the whole year’s subscription’. The fact that you were speaking from the heart came across and members were really quite moved by the tribute to your Mother and fascinated by your insights into Picasso and his work”. Janice Brooke, Programme Secretary, Lunesdale DFAS
The relationship between Lee Miller and Picasso began during the enchanted summer holiday they shared in the Côte d’Azur in 1937 and lasted until Picasso’s death in 1973. Picasso painted 6 portraits of Lee Miller and she photographed him more than 1,000 times. She was a frequent visitor to his home in post war years accompanying Roland Penrose on his many research trips whilst he was writing his biography of the artist Picasso, His Life and Work. The story is told mainly using Lee Miller’s own photographs and contains a brief biography of her and Roland Penrose.
Contains some war time images which may be disturbing.
The Boy Who Bit Picasso
Running time 50 minutes. Short version for Schools at 20 minutes. Approximately 240 digital images on Power Point.
As a child Antony Penrose first met Picasso when he visited the Penrose family home of Farley Farm, in Chiddingly, East Sussex in 1950. They became instant friends and invented their own boisterous game of pretend bull fights. In the excitement Antony bit Picasso, and Picasso bit him right back, but it did not spoil the friendship and during the many visits he made to Picasso’s homes in France Antony felt very much at home. He loved the menagerie of pets : the live ones and those Picasso made as sculptures that seemed alive. Antony’s parents were Roland Penrose, the curator and biographer of Picasso, and Lee Miller, the photographer. Picasso painted her portrait six times, and she photographed him more than 1,000 times and her images illustrate Antony’s entertaining and amusing account of life around Picasso.
This lecture also covers the process of writing and the design of the book which has been very favourably reviewed and is a best seller.
Roland Penrose : The Friendly Surrealist
60 Minutes. 320 images on Power Point.
The man who came from a family of strict Quakers became a key figure in Modern Art in the 20th C, responsible for bringing Surrealism to Britain in 1936 and Picasso to Britain in 1960.
He was a Surrealist artist in Paris, a friend of Breton and Éluard and later the close friend and biographer of Max Ernst, Picasso, Miró, Man Ray and Tàpies. He founded the ICA in London and curated exhibitions of work by Picasso (1960) and Miró (1964) at the Tate Gallery. His own work is enjoying a return to prominence following a major retrospective exhibition of his work at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh in 2001 and at Fundacion Picasso Malaga in 2008 and Southampton Art Gallery in 2012. In 1937 he met the American photographer Lee Miller, who he married in 1947. This presentation is illustrated with many of her images.
Contains some war time images which may be disturbing.
Picasso, Man Ray and Max Ernst
Through the eyes of Lee Miller and Roland Penrose. A personal profile of giant figures in 20th Century art.
60 Minutes. 290 images on Power Point.
“WeDFAS group and all NZDFAS groups are still enthusiastically appreciative of your visits – the best ever!!”
Karin Beatson, Programme Secretary Wellington DFAS, New Zealand.
“A gem of an evening” Janey Bevington Norwich Contemporary Art Society.
Picasso, Man Ray and Max Ernst were three of the key artists of the 20th Century. They were also close friends the Surrealist photographer Lee Miller and the Surrealist artist Roland Penrose. This is the hidden part of the story of a unique friendship which spanned the Surrealist movement and the last 30 years of Picasso’s life. It is told by Antony Penrose who witnessed some of the events himself, using the words and images of those who were there.
Contains war and holocaust images that are highly disturbing
Hand Grenades Like Cartier Clips
60 minutes. 280 images on Power Point.
Two genres shaped the life of Lee Miller, Surrealism and the world of fashion. They informed each other and were both central to the way she saw the world. Her career as a fashion model began with an accidental encounter with Condé Nast, the proprietor of Vogue who put her on his front cover a few weeks before her 20th birthday. She became the model for Lepape, Steichen, Genthe, Man Ray, Hoyningen Heune, Horst, Picasso and Penrose : later to be her husband. She emerged as a fashion photographer in her own right, metamorphosing into a war correspondent and finally a combat photographer before returning to her role as a distinctive and witty photographer for Vogue in the post war years. This presentation shows how Lee Miller’s success on both sides of the camera has left us with enduring images that result from her unique way of seeing.
Contains some war time images which may be disturbing.
Lee Miller’s Egypt
60 minutes. 280 images on Power Point.
In 1934 Lee Miller, the American Surrealist photographer closed her successful studio in New York, married Aziz Eloui Bey, an Egyptian businessman and settled in Cairo. The easy life of a rich ex-patriot was not for her and she made long range excursions into the desert, photographing the wonders of what seemed to her an eternally Surrealist land. On a visit to Paris in 1937 she met Roland Penrose, a British Surrealist. She later wrote him eloquent letters from Egypt and eventually after travelling with him in the Balkans and Egypt she left Eloui and went to live with him in London just as the war broke out.
This production is based on field research work done in Egypt in January 2009 by Antony Penrose with Mark Haworth-Booth, the curator of the exhibition The Art of Lee Miller and Joshua Penrose. It draws heavily on Lee Miller’s own photographs and her letters to Roland Penrose. Penrose’s own work inspired by both Lee Miller and by Egypt is also included to complete the narrative of what was one of the most exciting and productive periods in Lee Miller’s life.
Man Ray the Magic Man
60 minutes 290 images, Power Point
“Pitch perfect” Maia Sutnik, Curator of Photography, Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada
When my father Roland Penrose made his collage titled Homage to Man Ray, he included the pencilled wording HOM MAGE, a pun in French which can be translated as Magic Man. Roland knew that in his photography Man Ray magically transformed light into wonderful Surrealist images, and in his objects everyday things became visual puns, sometimes sinister, sometimes funny, but always provocative. Man Ray was much adored by both my parents and from an early age by me too. He encouraged me to make my own objects and my own puns. I knew he and my mother Lee Miller had been lovers in their youth and their love endured as a deep friendship. There was always a special smile on her face when Man Ray was around. It took me much of my life to discover the history that lay between her, Man Ray and my father. This is the story of Lee Miller’s special smile.
Contains war and holocaust images that are highly disturbing
Picasso Through the Eyes of Lee Miller and Roland Penrose
60 minutes 325 images. Power Point.
It began as the casual encounter of two artists on a Provence beach and developed into one of the most powerful synergistic forces in Picasso’s life. Roland Penrose, then a Surrealist artist met Picasso in 1936. A year later he introduced Picasso to the love of his life, the American photographer Lee Miller. Penrose brought Picasso to the incredulous and sometimes hostile British public in his International Surrealist Exhibition in 1936. His biography 1958 Picasso His Life and Work was regarded the definitive work and is still in print, and his Picasso retrospective at the Tate in 1960 was considered to be ‘the show of that century’. Picasso celebrated Lee Miller’s beauty by painting six portrait of her a l’Arlesienne, and she reciprocated by photographing him more than 1,000 times.
Antony Penrose is the son of Lee Miller and Roland Penrose and this talk draws on the material held in the Lee Miller Archives and The Penrose Collection of which he is the co-director.
Contains war and holocaust images that are highly disturbing.
Lee Miller’s Indelible Images
55 minutes 290 images, Power Point
‘Steel yourself, look and inwardly digest the heaps of the murdered. Think of their innocent lives extinguished, think of the immensity of it and that they represent only a minute fraction of those, from all over Europe, who were exterminated … So let us give support to Antony Penrose, Lee Miller’s son and curator of her photo archive, both of whom I admire for the message they have for us today and don’t look away but choose on whose side you are on. “If you have tears, prepare to shed them now” (Julius Caesar)’
Frank Bright, born Franz Brichta, Ghetto number Di-556, KZ Gross-Rosen number 73 803, Survivor of the Holocaust
What is it that makes an image stick in our memory against our will? People find many of Lee Miller’s combat photographs have this indelible quality, and of these the most powerful are from her witness of the Holocaust. Her stark and harrowing evidence takes us back to one of the most terrible episodes of persecution in the whole grim history of man’s inhumanity to man. In this lecture, Miller’s son Antony Penrose talks about why his mother responded to the Holocaust in the way she did, and the work he has done to authenticate her evidence as a witness: evidence she deliberately left for us in the hope it would help prevent history repeating. When we learn the background, we begin to understand why so many of her images are so poignant, and why they have the ability to engrave themselves in our minds.
• Created for Holocaust Week at the University of Essex, in connection with The Dora Love Prize and the exhibition Lee Miller’s War at The Art Exchange gallery. 29 January 2014
Contains many war and Holocaust images which are highly disturbing. Not suitable for people under 16 years of age.
Roland Penrose and the British Surrealists
60 minute version 290 images, Power Point
… a talk so full of passion, which turned the lecture I’d asked for: RP’s route to Surrealism, his ideals, his achievements, friendships: into something that informed both understanding and spirit: many of us were moved by it.
Prue Cooper, The Art Worker’s Guild. London
In 1922 Roland Penrose went to Paris and became a Surrealist artist. In 1936, following the collapse of his marriage to the poet Valentine Penrose (neé Boué), he returned to London, introducing Surrealism to an incredulous and often hostile British public. With Herbert Read and David Gascoyne he mounted the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition, and the movement took root in this country. Eileen Agar, John Banting, Paul Nash, Henry Moore, Humphrey Jennings, Conroy Maddox and later Desmond Morris became numbered among Roland’s friends. Reviled and ridiculed at the time, and beset with internal quarrels, the movement made a truly lasting impact on the arts in Britain.
• Originally created for The Art Workers Guild, November 2014.
Lee Miller’s War
60 minute version 230 images. Power Point
90 minute performance version in which Ami Bouhassane, Lee Miller’s granddaughter, is the voice of Lee Miller, reading from her original manuscripts and letters.
Lee Miller is thought to be one of only a few women combat photographers accredited to the allied infantry in Europe during WW II. This lecture presents her war photojournalism from shortly after D Day in Normandy to the flames leaping from Hitler’s Berghof near Berchtesgaden that signalled the end of the war, and the post war traumas of Austria and Hungary. The story is told through extensive use of Lee Miller’s own words set to her photographs.
Contains some war time images which may be disturbing.
Lee Miller in Bavaria
(Sequel to Lee Miller’s War)
20 minutes 80 images Power Point
At the time of the celebrations of 60th anniversary of V.E. day, Antony Penrose went to the locations photographed by Lee Miller, and re-photographed the same scenes as they are now. The result is a poignant documentary of the healing process of time and of the German nation’s process of coming to terms with its own history.
Picasso’s Homes and Studios
Running time 55 minutes. 280 images
As a child Antony accompanied his parents, Lee Miller and Roland Penrose on their many visits to Picasso’s homes in the South of France. He was allowed to wander freely, playing with Picasso’s children, the menagerie of pets and fabulous collection of art works, gaining a unique insight into the man many regard as the greatest artist of all times. Using photographs by Lee Miller, Roland Penrose and a few of his own, Antony takes us on a visit to Picasso’s homes and studios of Villa la Galloise, Mougins, Villa la Californie, Cannes, Chateau Vauvenargues, and Notre Dame de Vie in Mougins, where he died in 1973. We also visit his Paris studio in Rue des Grands Augustins where Lee Miller photographed him on the first day of the liberation of Paris.
Farley Farm House
55 minutes 255 images
Farley Farm House was the home of Lee Miller and Roland Penrose from 1949 until Roland’s death in 1984. It is now a private museum housing a large collection of modern art and photography, including works by Picasso, Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Man Ray and many others who were personal friends. The house itself is an artwork and in appearance is as close to its original form as possible. This presentation is the story of the house right up to the present day where it is the focus for the many books, films and exhibitions that emanate from the archives and collections.
The Road to Sitges
Lee Miller, Roland Penrose and Picasso
50 minutes. 340 images on Power Point
This is about a journey that began in prewar Paris and ended in effect in Sitges, near Barcelona with Catalonia as the lens that focuses the activity. It tells of the intimate friendship of Lee Miller, Roland Penrose and Picasso, and their involvement in the Spanish Civil War, WW2 as well as the rich cultural collaboration they created and underscores that art was for them a way of life filled with political and moral significance. It is about a group of people who shared love, passion and loyalties that never died.
Contains some war time images which may be disturbing.
Back-stage at the Lee Miller Archives
50 minutes. 250 images on Power Point
A behind the scenes look at the creation of the Lee Miller Archives which houses more than 60,000 negatives of Lee Miller’s work, 10,000 vintage prints plus manuscripts and ephemera. We see how Lee Miller’s family conserve and disseminate her work and that of Roland Penrose and their collection and their home Farley Farm House, which has become a museum from which the archive produces a constant stream of books, films and exhibitions. We see major exhibitions being created, conservation and curatorial work in progress and the administration and financing of the archive which is privately run and supports itself though revenue received from its activities supplying fine prints and intellectual property rights. This story is an attestation to the 35 years of close collaboration we have had with The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, whose expertise and friendly support has been invaluable to us. It is also the human and practical face of running what has become one of the most internationally significant private collections of photography and fine art.
The Angel and The Fiend
A drama for five voices set to a constant stream of images.
Edited and devised by Antony Penrose
Under Lee Miller’s brave and beautiful exterior there lay a hidden torment which she expressed in these words;
‘I was terribly, terribly pretty. I looked like an angel but I was a fiend inside’
Lee Miller
The Angel and the Fiend is a dramatised reading of words taken from original text or dialogue by the characters and set to images edited and written by Lee Miller’s son Antony Penrose. This award winning drama has been performed widely in Britain and the US. Antony appears as himself and Lee Miller is played by her granddaughter Ami Bouhassane and the role of the Surrealist photographer Man Ray by James Leighton. Miller’s wartime buddy David E. Scherman is played by Jonathan Bailey and her husband Roland Penrose by David Burrough, who also directs the production.
The Angel and The Fiend has been performed widely in Britain and the USA where when performance by The Chance Theatre it won an award.
REVIEW:
*****stars …..one of the most powerful pieces of theatre I have seen in a very long time, a remarkable trip down memory lane, enhanced by voices and pictures from the past. Absolutely incredible…..a tight, emotional and powerful piece, a beautiful collage of photos and memories.
Chris Hislop. Brighton Fringe Review, 7th May 2009
Running time 2 hours including a 20 minute interval.
The Angel and The Fiend is copyright © Antony Penrose 2015 all rights reserved.
A Portrait of Space
A drama for six voices set to images. Written and devised by Antony Penrose
The life and loves of Roland Penrose (1900-1984)
A Portrait of Space tells the story of the life of Roland Penrose, the friend and biographer of Picasso, using words mostly written or spoken by him and his friends, edited to form a witty and emotional narrative. We learn of Penrose’s love of the three key women in his life; Valentine Boué, Lee Miller and Diane Deriaz, his passion as a Surrealist artist and later as a curator and biographer. The Surrealist heyday of the 1920’s is halted by World War 2. Penrose was a camouflage specialist, Miller a combat photographer : and Valentine went to fight with the Free French. After the war Roland rose to prominence as the Picasso’s leading biographer and curator. He and Miller made their home in Sussex at Farley Farm where he died in 1984, still making his famous collages.
A Portrait of Space is the sequel to Antony Penrose’s highly acclaimed and award-winning work on his mother, The Angel and The Fiend. Roland Penrose is played by David Burrough who also directs the production. Valentine Penrose is played by Sue Burrough, Ami Bouhassane, Roland Penrose’s, granddaughter plays Lee Miller, James Leighton plays Aziz Eloui Bey, Jonathan Bailey plays Man Ray and Antony appears as himself.
Running time 1 hour and 50 minutes including a 20 minute interval.
A Portrait of Space is copyright © Antony Penrose 2015 all rights reserved.
9th September, Birth of Antony Penrose to parents Roland Penrose and Lee Miller, London, England.
Roland and Lee move to Farleys House, East Sussex
Picasso visits Farleys and meets Antony.
Antony goes to boarding school at Bryanston
Visit to Picasso hones Antony’s photography skills
On a trip to Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) in 1962 Lee Miller was taken ill and handed Antony her Zeiss Contax to get the pictures she could not take. She explained the working of the light meter and advised, “If you drop the camera I will break your neck”.
At a time between 1962 and 1971, photography supported Antony’s journalism for Farmers Weekly magazine.
Antony begins a 3¼ year circumnavigation of the world in a Land-Rover with his lifelong friend Robert BRADEN
Peter BUCKNALL of Athos Films gave Antony his break into 16 m/m film making working on Kings Horses and Migrate to Survive. These documentaries about horses were both shot in Iran and led to Antony establishing Penrose Film Productions Ltd., with 18 produced credits for documentaries, technical films and drama shorts.
After Lee Miller dies, Antony begins archiving his mother’s work.
Having established the Lee Miller Archives Antony writes his first book ‘The Lives of Lee Miller’ published by Thames and Hudson
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