Artists
Lee Miller (1907-1977)
Lee Miller
Model, muse, photographer, artist, war correspondent & gourmet chef.
Born: 23 April 1907, Poughkeepsie, New York, USA.
Died: 21 July 1977, Farleys House, Muddles Green, Chiddingly, East Sussex, England.
Lee MILLER first entered the world of photography in New York as a model to the great photographers of the day such as Edward STEICHEN, Nickolas MURAY and Arnold GENTHE.
In 1929 she went to Paris and worked with the well known Surrealist artist and photographer Man RAY and photographer Georges HOYNINGEN-HUENE. By 1930 she succeeded in establishing her own studio. She became known as a portraitist and fashion photographer, but her most enduring body of work is that of her Surrealist images. She returned to New York in 1932, and again set up her own studio which ran for 2 years and was highly successful. It closed when she married a wealthy Egyptian businessman Aziz ELOUI BEY and went to live with him in Cairo, Egypt. She became fascinated by long range desert travel and photographed desert villages and ruins. During a visit to Paris in 1937 she met Roland PENROSE, the Surrealist artist who was to become her second husband, and travelled with him to Greece and Romania. In 1939 she left Egypt for London shortly before World War II broke out. She moved in with Roland PENROSE and defying orders from the US Embassy to return to America she took a job as a freelance photographer on Vogue.
In December 1942 she became a correspondent accredited to the US Army, and teamed up with Time Life photographer David E. SCHERMAN. She followed the US troops overseas on D Day + 20. She was probably the only woman combat photo-journalist to cover the front line war in Europe and among her many exploits she witnessed the siege of St Malo, the Liberation of Paris, the fighting in Luxembourg and Alsace, the Russian/American link up at Torgau, the liberation of Buchenwald and Dachau. She billeted in both Hitler and Eva Brauns houses in Munich, and photographed Hitlers house Wachenfeld at Berchtesgaden in flames on the eve of Germanys surrender. Penetrating deep into Eastern Europe, she covered harrowing scenes of children dying in Vienna, peasant life in post war Hungary and finally the execution of Prime Minister Lazlo Bardossy.
After the war she continued to contribute to Vogue for a further 6 years, covering fashion and celebrities. In 1947 she married Roland PENROSE and contributed to his biographies of PICASSO, MIRÓ, Man RAY and TÀPIES. Some of her portraits of famous artists like PICASSO are the most powerful portraits of the individuals ever produced, but it is mainly for the witty Surrealist images which permeate all her work that she is best remembered.
Lee Miller died at Farleys in 1977.
| 1907 | Born Poughkeepsie, New York, on 23 April to Florence and Theodore MILLER. Brother John born 1905. |
| 1910 | Brother Erik born, Poughkeepsie, New York. |
| 1914 | Sexually molested and infected with VD. |
| 1925 | 30 May, departs for Paris with chaperon to attend L'Ecole Medgyes pour la Technique du Theatre. |
| 1926 | Winter, dragged home by Theodore MILLER. |
| 1927 | Discovered by Conde NASTE. Portrait of her by George LEPAPE appears on front cover of Vogue, March 1927. Photographed by STEICHEN, GENTHE, MURAY, with numerous appearances in magazines. |
| 1928 | July, image used as Kotex Ad in Vogue and other magazines. |
| 1929 | Departs for Paris, then to Florence and Rome to study art. Returns to Paris, meets Man RAY and becomes his student, model and lover. |
| 1930 | Establishes herself as a photographer in her own right with studio at Rue Victor Considrante. Erik MILLER visits Lee MILLER in Paris. Stars in Jean COCTEAU's film Blood of a Poet. December, Theodore MILLER visits Lee in Paris and they travel to Stockholm. |
| 1931 | Visits London to do stills work at Elstree Studios for 1 July issue of the Bioscope and photographs sports clothes for June issue of Vogue. Exhibits at Group Annuel des Photographes, Galerie to la Pleiade, Paris, France. Meets Aziz ELOUI BEY. |
| 1932 | 20 February - 11 March, first exhibition at Julien Levy Gallery, New York, USA. Lee MILLER parts from Man RAY and closes her studio, returning to New York in November. 30 December - 25 January, 2nd exhibition at Julien Levy Gallery, Modern European Photography. On arrival in New York sets up own studio at 8 East 48th street, New York. |
| 1933 | Meets and photographs John HOUSEMAN, Virgil THOMPSON, Joseph CORNELL, Gertrude LAWRENCE and other celebrities; 22 August, Erik MILLER marries Mary Frances ROWLEY, known as Mafy. |
| 1934 | 19 July, marries Aziz ELOUI BEY and after a honeymoon at Niagra Falls, leaves to live in Egypt. Erik packs up studio. |
| 1936 | Resumes photographing for pleasure on trips to the desert in Egypt. |
| 1937 | 4 March, Erik and Mafy MILLER arrive in Cairo to work for Aziz ELOUI BEY's company, the agency for Carrier air conditioning. Early summer, goes to Paris and meets Roland PENROSE. Travels with him to England and then to Mougins, France to holiday with Man RAY, PICASSO, Eileen AGAR and the ELUARDs. |
| 1938 | Meets Roland PENROSE in Athens, and travels with him through the Balkans photographing village life in remote areas. Returns via Beirut. |
| 1939 | Roland PENROSE visits Lee MILLER in Asyut, Egypt, and they travel to Siwa and other oasis villages. 2 June, parts amicably from Aziz ELOUI BEY and sails to London. Moves in with Roland PENROSE. They travel to the south of France to visit Max ERNST and Leonora CARRINGTON, then return to England on the outbreak of war. |
| 1940 | January, lives with Roland PENROSE at 21 Downshire Hill, Hampstead. Contributes to Vogue. Photographs fashion and scenes from the Blitz, later to be used in Grim Glory; Pictures of Britain under Fire, published in Britain and the United States. David E. SCHERMAN arrives in England as Life photographer, and moves into Downshire Hill. |
| 1942 | 30 December, becomes accredited as U.S. Forces War Correspondent. Photographs for her book Wrens in Camera. |
| 1944 | First photo-journalism article published on Edward R. MURROW in Vogue, followed by 'Unarmed Warriors' September 1944, St. Malo October 1944. Teams up with David E. SCHERMAN, publishes further Vogue stories. 'The Way Things Are In Paris' November 1944 'Loire Bridges' November 1944 'Players in Paris' December 1944 'Patterns of Liberation' January 1945 'Brussels' - More British than London' February 1945 'Colette' March 1945 'Through the Alsace Campaign' April 1945 'Scales of Justices' June 1945 'Germany - the war that is won' June 1945 'Hitleriana' July 1945 'In Denmark Now' July 1945 |
| 1945 | Vienna, covers children dying in hospital. |
| 1946 | Budapest, covers plight of deposed aristocrats, execution of Lazlo Bardossy, rural areas such as Mezokovesd, and celebrities such as STROBEL, SZENTGYORGI, etc. On to Bucharest, Romania; photographing King and Queen Mother, gets massaged by a bear, wrecks car near Sibiu. In the spring returns home via Paris to a heroines welcome from Vogue staff. Travels with Roland PENROSE to USA. Photographs Isamu NOGUCHI in New York. They travel to Arizona and visit Max ERNST and Dorothea TANNING, then to Los Angeles to visit Erik and Mafy MILLER (Erik now chief photographer for Lockheed Aircraft Corporation) and Man RAY and Juliette BROWNER, soon to become wife. Return to England, too Europeanized to comfortably settle in U.S.A. |
| 1947 | Does fashion assignment in St. Mortiz with Peggy RILEY (later Rosamond RUSSELL) and discovers she is pregnant. Moves across the street to 36 Downshire Hill. Aziz ELOUI BEY travels to England and divorces Lee MILLER. Registry office. 9 September, gives birth to son Antony and writes on the experience for December 1947 issue of Vogue. |
| 1948 | Covers Venice Beinnale for August Vogue. |
| 1949 | Writes about the Institute of Contemporary Arts exhibition, Forty Thousand Years of Modern Art for January Vogue. Farley Farm purchased. |
| 1951 | Writes on exhibition covering Picassos birthday for November issue of Vogue. |
| 1953 | Writes and photographs life at Farley Farm for "Working Guest", July issue of Vogue. |
| 1954 | Photographs for Roland Penrose's book "Picasso, His Life and Work". |
| 1955 | Exhibits in the Family of Man, Museum of Modern Art, New York (and world tour). |
| 1960 | Becomes passionately interested in cooking. |
| 1963 | Goes to Egypt to meet Aziz ELOUI BEY. |
| 1966 | Becomes Lady Lee PENROSE when Roland is knighted. Articles about Lee appear in Vogue, Studio International, and House and Garden. Travels extensively with Roland PENROSE to Japan, Spain, etc. |
| 1973 | Photographs Antoni TÀPIES for Roland PENROSE's biography of him. |
| 1976 | July, guest of Lucien CLERGUE at the Arles Photo Festival, deputizing for Man RAY. Exhibits in Photographs from the Julien Levy Collection, Art Institute of Chicago. Diagnosed as having cancer. |
| 1977 | Granddaughter, Ami, born 25 April. Exhibits in The History of Fashion Photography, organised by the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester, New York, USA. Dies Farleys House, Farley Farm, July 21. |
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Lee Miller has work in:
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England.
New Orleans
Philadelphia
Appointed Galleries
Listed are the galleries around the world that have been appointed to represent the Lee Miller Archives and hold portfolios of Lee Miller's photographs.
Lee Miller Archives
Farleys House & Gallery (Lee Miller's home 1949 to 1977)
Tel: ++44 (0) 1825 872 691
Email: images@leemiller.co.uk
www.leemiller.co.uk
UK Galleries
Offer Waterman
17 St George Street
London
W1S 1FJ
Tel: ++44 (0)20 7042 3233
Email: info@waterman.co.uk
Website: www.waterman.co.uk/exhibitions/
European Galleries
Clair Gallery - France
°CLAIR Galerie 1
Rue de la Tour
Saint Paul de Vence
F-06570
France
Tel: ++33 (0)6 64 75 77 89
Email: info@clair.me
Website: www.clair.me
Clair Gallery - Germany
° CLAIR Galerie und Kunsthandel ein Unternehmen der Circles GmbH
Franz-Joseph-Str.10
80801 München
Germany
Tel: ++49.(0)1 75 83 82 777
Email: info@clair.me
Website: www.clair.me
Roland Penrose (1900-1984)
Born: 14 October 1900, St Johns Wood, London, England.
Died: 23 April 1984, Farleys House,Muddles Green, Chiddingy, East Sussex, England.
Roland PENROSE's father James Doyle Penrose was a moderately successful Irish Victorian portrait painter, a Quaker who had met his future wife, Penrose's mother Josephine Peckover, while he was painting portraits of her family at their home Bank House (now Peckover House, a National Trust property) in Wisbech, England. Josephine was the daughter of Lord Peckover, the head of the renowned Quaker banking firm that bore his name. PENROSE was brought up in very strict Quaker traditions in his family home, Oxhey Grange, near Watford.
Artistic Influences and Techniques
Penrose's work as an artist was much influenced by ERNST. Many early drawings show his use of the technique of frottage, which he learned from ERNST. The paper or canvas is held against a textured surface like exposed wood grain or the embossed cover of a book and rubbed with crayon, pencil or other colour media like a brass rubbing, thus recording an impression of the surface beneath. PENROSE also used a process called grattage, which is the reverse of frottage. The painted canvas is held against a textured surface and the colour scrapped off with a knife or the edge of a piece of glass. ERNST was also well known for his collages, which are composite images made by cutting and pasting illustrations that he mainly took from the engravings that illustrated 19th and early 20th century periodicals. Both PENROSE and BOUÉ adopted collage in their own ways.
Apart from a brief period in 1936 when PENROSE produced abstract work influenced by Jean HELION, his work shows his strong and consistent commitment to Surrealism. He held a great affinity for the Surrealist moral, social, philosophic and artistic ideals, but unfortunately this created tension between him and Boué. She had become deeply involved with the study and practice of Indian religions, and her desire to pursue a path of renouncing all worldly ways conflicted with Penrose's longing to seize life and change the world through art. They separated in 1936, with BOUÉ going to India and Penrose returning to London the following year. He met the American photographer Lee MILLER at a party in Paris in June 1937. They fell in love and during the years that remained before the war they travelled extensively together in Romania and Egypt where Lee was living, married to Aziz ELOUI BEY. She left Eloui in 1939 and moved to London to be with Penrose just as war broke out.
Friendship with Picasso
In 1936 ÉLUARD introduced Penrose to Picasso, and in 1937 facilitated his purchase of the painting Nu sur la Plage (1932). This was the beginning of PENROSE's close friendship with PICASSO which endured until the artist's death. Initially the relationship was purely a friendship between two artists, but PENROSE soon became an ardent promoter of Picasso's work, playing a major part in touring Picasso's Guernica in England in 1938. After the war PENROSE was able to resume contact with PICASSO and other French friends. When PICASSO visited England in 1950 he stayed with PENROSE and Lee MILLER in London and visited Farley Farm House their Sussex home. 
PENROSE organised several exhibitions of PICASSO's work at the ICA, and PICASSO generously supported the ICA, giving valuable works for fund raising auctions. When PENROSE wrote PICASSO - His Life and Work (Gollancz 1958) it brought him into even closer contact with PICASSO, which helped him to secure the loans for the 1960 Tate exhibition. PENROSE frequently
Return to England in 1936
On returning to England, PENROSE bought the house 21 Downshire Hill, London in 1936. He was attracted to Hampstead by the large number of avant garde artists, architects, writers and intellectuals already there. It was probably in Paris that he met Erno GOLDFINGER, the architect who built his now famous house nearby in Willow Road (a National Trust property) and who may have made him aware of the delights of Hampstead. Henry MOORE was another close friend with whom he visited PICASSO while the latter was painting Guernica in 1937. MOORE's sculpture Mother and Child caused a scandal when PENROSE located it in front of the house in 1938 and there was a brief press campaign against it. PENROSE also knew the sculptors Barbara HEPWORTH and Naum GABO, and was on friendly terms with the architects Wells COATES and Walter GROPIUS, and the painters Piet MONDRIAN, Paul NASH and Ben NICHOLSON. The publisher and editor of poetry Geoffrey GRIGSON and the art critic and writer Herbert READ were later to become co-founders with PENROSE of the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts).
Meeting Lee MILLER
In 1937 on a visit to Paris Roland PENROSE chanced to meet Lee MILLER, the former American fashion model who had been MAN RAY's mistress and pupil from 1929 to 1932. She had become a Surrealist photographer in her own right and ran her own studio in New York from 1932 to 1934 where she mainly concentrated on portraiture and fashion. At the time PENROSE met her she was married to Egyptian businessman Aziz ELOUI BEY.
PENROSE and MILLER fell in love and travelled together first to Cornwall, England and then to Mougins in the South of France. Here they joined PICASSO, Dora MAAR, MAN RAY, Ady FIDELIN, Paul and Nusch ÉLUARD, Eileen AGARand Joseph BARD for a holiday at the Hotel Vaste Horizon. PICASSO, who was greatly impressed by Lee MILLER's beauty and personality painted her portrait six times, and one version is on loan to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh. He also painted PENROSE's portrait, but the location of the work is currently unknown.
PENROSE’s Contribution to Surrealism in Britain
Roland PENROSE is considered to be a significant British Surrealist in his own right. One of the distinctive qualities of his work derives from his closeness to the members of the French Surrealists. Strong traces of the influence of Max ERENST and Paul ÉLUARD are frequently evident in a manner not evident among the British artists. As an artist it is perhaps ironic that his greatest contribution was his role in the organisation of First International Surrealist Exhibition in London, 1936 which can be seen as the start of the movement in Britain.
First International Surrealist Exhibition in London, 1936
When PENROSE arrived at 21 Downshire Hill he almost immediately began planning the First International Surrealist Exhibition which was held in the summer of 1936 at the New Burlington Galleries. Initiated by PENROSE and the poet David GASCOYNE, committee members included Henry MOORE, Paul NASH, Ben NICHOLSON and the film maker Humphrey JENNINGS. This exhibition, opened by Andre BRETON at an event attended by Salvador DALI, Paul and Nusch ELUARD and the British Surrealists S.W. HAYTER and Eileen AGAR among others, marked the beginning of Surrealism in Britain. It was an outstanding success, attracting huge attendance and the scorn of the critics and the establishment such as the Tate Gallery.
Surrealism as a cohesive movement ended after the war, but as a style and an influence it remains an important driving force today. It lies at the root of many of the bold and witty images we see continually in advertising, fashion and design. Significantly, many of the works that were exhibited in the 1936 exhibition are now in the Tate Modern, The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and other collections of similar importance. PENROSE himself contributed a collage titled Beauty Prize and an object, Captain Cook's Last Voyage, the latter now in Coll. Tate Modern.
The London Gallery 1938-1950
In 1938 Roland PENROSE bought the London Gallery in Cork Street and ran it with the Belgian Surrealist E.L.T. MESENS until the war forced its closure in 1940. During this period they produced The London Bulletin, which showcased Surrealism and modern art. It was through the London Gallery that PENROSE and MESENS organised the 1938 British tour of PICASSO's painting Guernica and its associated works. The money raised by the exhibition was donated to the Spanish Republican cause. The following year the London Gallery published PENROSE's image diary of the Balkans titled The Road Is Wider Than Long, which recorded a journey through Greece and Romania he had made with Lee MILLER in 1938.
The War Years
Although he retained his Quaker beliefs in pacifism, Roland PENROSE continued to do what he could to support Republican Spain and was later active in the Artist's Refugee Committee (ARC) with his neighbour in Downshire Hill, Fred UHLMAN. The ARC enabled about thirty artists to escape from Nazi Germany, finding them work and security in Britain.
In 1939 Lee MILLER left Aziz ELOUI BEY and moved in with Penrose in London. She was a photographer for Vogue magazine until after D-Day when, as an accredited war correspondent, she went to Europe, following the US Army. Her photographs of the liberation of the death camps of Buchenwald and Dachau remain as some of the most searing documents of the war.
During the war, PENROSE served as an ARP warden, and then became involved with the Home Guard Camouflage unit at Osterly Park as a lecturer, eventually becoming commissioned as a Captain and placed in the post of senior lecturer at the Eastern Command Camouflage School in Norwich. PENROSE and MILLER were known for their hospitality and 21 Downshire Hill was the focus for gatherings of artists, politicians, journalists and even spies, although they were not known to be at the time. More notably, the artists and poets André BRETON, MAN RAY, Paul ÉLUARD, Max ERNST, and S.W. HAYTER were all frequent visitors. During the war E.L.T. MESENS and his wife Sybil, Freddy and Pamela MAYOR of the Mayor Gallery, LIFE Magazine photographer David E. SCHERMAN and journalist Kathleen McCOLGAN all lived there for a while. Valentine PENROSE also arrived in London in 1940 after the fall of France. She became close friends with MILLER and also lived in Downshire Hill until she went to Algeria with the Free French forces.
The Beginnings of the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art)
PENROSE's two major one-man exhibitions bracket his Downshire Hill period. His first was at the Mayor Gallery in 1939, the second in 1947 at the London Gallery, newly re-opened after the war. It was to be his last exhibition for 33 years, as he became more interested in promoting the works of others. The London Gallery re-opened in 1946 in Brook Street with Penrose as a Director and MESENS organising its programme of exhibitions, but lack of buyers for modern art forced its closure in 1951. Determined nevertheless to bring international modernism to London, PENROSE, MESENS, Herbert READ and others had founded the ICA in 1947 as a space for new and experimental art of all kinds.
PENROSE remained a guiding force in the ICA for thirty years, which began in 1948 with its first show in a rented hall that was part of the old Academy Cinema in Oxford Street. Titled 40 Years of Modern Art, it was followed by 40,000 Years of Modern Art.
Both shows were regarded as being key ground breaking events, presenting modern art, cave paintings and ethnographic art to a British public who were still struggling to assimilate Post-Impressionism. The ICA continued its pioneering work from its first premises in Dover Street, presenting shows that ranged from Picasso and Ernst's work to that of many young artists including Richard HAMILTON, Eduardo PAOLOZZI and other members of the Independent Group.
In 1968 PENROSE was instrumental in raising the money needed to move the ICA to its present location at Nash House in Carlton House Terrace on the Mall. He was responsible for some of the key shows of that period including Illusion in Nature and Art and Man Ray - Inventor, Painter, Poet. The transition to a large scale organisation funded by the Arts Council brought with it administrative and management difficulties that resulted in PENROSE's resignation in 1976. In 1980 he was invited by the then Director Bill McALISTER to return as President of the ICA.
Farleys 1949 to 1984
In 1949 Roland PENROSE and Lee MILLER bought Farley Farm, a small dairy farm in East Sussex with a large 18th century house which became a well-known gathering place for many artists and other figures from the art world. Pablo PICASSO visited in 1950, and Paul ÉLUARD, MAN RAY, MIRO, Max ERNST, Henry MOORE, and other old friends were frequent visitors. Valentine, PENROSE's first wife was among the first to arrive and stayed for long periods. PENROSE and MILLER’s son Antony, born in 1947, grew up on the farm, cared for during his parents' long absences overseas or in London by Patsy Murray, the housekeeper.
PENROSE and MILLER filled the house with works of art, which hung on walls that were painted bright blue, yellow or a rich earthy red. In 1950 PENROSE decorated the inglenook fireplace in the dining room with a mural. Over the years Penrose landscaped the garden and added sculptures. Most notably Henry MOORE's Mother and Child stood on the front lawn, gazing across the farmland to the prehistoric giant, The Long Man of Wilmington, who is incised into the turf of the South Downs 8 miles to the south. Today many of the rooms of Farleys House have been restored to the way they were in PENROSE and MILLER's days, and the house with its garden are currently open for guided tours through the summer and autumn.
Final years at Farleys
MILLER died at Farleys in 1977, followed by BOUE in 1978. Their deaths affected PENROSE profoundly, and he was also afflicted with a stroke that made writing impossible for him, but in his eighties he began working as an artist again, concentrating on his postcard collages. A show of new work titled Roland Penrose - Recent Collages was mounted in Paris, London and Brighton. The works reflect the places he visited; Trouville in France, Kenya, Sri Lanka, and the Seychelles.
Roland PENROSE died at Farleys in 1984 on 23rd April, which was Lee Miller's birthday.
Roland Penrose’s art and writing
Postcard Collages
It was during his stay at Mougins in 1937 that Roland PENROSE made the first of his collages using picture postcards, which form the more distinctive body of his work. Postcards with banal images and fragments of printed paper from newspapers or catalogues became reduced to patches of colour when cut and assembled in rhythmic patterns, liberating their colour and producing unexpected new forms. As he describes in his essay Why I am a Painter it is a technique that owes much to Cubism. A key example is the work The Real Woman, inspired by Lee MILLER which also uses elements cut from paper prepared with frottage and gouache. He used other items of mixed media like bits of vegetation, scraps of metal or plastic, and even parts of other paintings as seen in Magnetic Moths. Although he painted little after the 1950s he continued to make collages, returning wholeheartedly to the media in the last years of his life in the 1980s, completing The Last One a few weeks before he died.
Paintings and Objects
Roland PENROSE's paintings and objects of the late thirties mark his strongest period as a Surrealist artist. The happiness he derived from his new romance with MILLER was clearly the direct source of inspiration for a new surge of creativity, and several works refer directly to her, such as Night and Day and Good Shooting;
Egypt recalls his visit to Lee MILLER in Egypt in 1939. Octavia, The Invisible Isle, and the object The Dew Machine all celebrate his fascination with women, in particular with their eroticism and mystery. The threatening qualities of Black Music refer to the terrors of the Blitz in 1940 during which time he was an Air Raid Protection warden. In 1947 he married MILLER, who was by that time pregnant with their son Antony. MILLER's changing shape fascinated PENROSE and she became the object of a number of studies that culminated in First View. Two years later his dilemma as to whether he should continue as a painter or become more involved with the ICA found expression in Don't You Hate Having Two Heads? The painting shows him wearing heavy armour, no doubt as a defence against his detractors. The Flight of Flies marks the end of a brief series of works that explore the graphic tracking of movement. The Third Eye is one of his last oil portraits of Lee MILLER. The single eye as her head refers to both Object to be Destroyed, MAN RAY's metronome object that had Lee MILLER's eye pasted to the bob weight, and to the way he frequently substituted the monocular vision of her camera for her eyes. In all interpretations, it acknowledges the importance of sight to them both. In 1975 Penrose created Hommage to MAN RAY where we again find an eye motif in the composition.
The only major exhibition of PENROSE's work in his lifetime was organised by the Arts Council in 1980. It contained 74 works and toured six venues, ending at the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona. The Long Man of Wilmington inspired the poster he produced for advertising the exhibition.
Photography
For Roland PENROSE photography was more an art in itself and also an aide memoire than a means of recording people and places. Some of his photographs provide source material for drawings or paintings while others explore the Surrealist penchant in finding the marvellous in the everyday. His shots are often quirky observations and suggest an innate rebellion against conventional portraits and landscapes. His friends and surroundings appear in a humorous style with some excellent portraits. It was the influence of Lee MILLER who he met in 1937 that inspired his most exciting photography, mainly during their travels in Greece and Romania in 1938. Some images are documentary, of Roma gypsies or the funeral of a peasant child, taken with distinctive penetration and compassion. Most are Surrealist found images and he used both styles in his book titled The Road is Wider Than Long – an image diary of the Balkans July – August 1938.
PENROSE’s first camera in about 1926 was probably a Kodak Brownie producing 2¼ x 3¼ negatives on 120 film. By 1934 he had a 35m/m camera and although he occasionally returned to medium format this remained his preference. He did not print or develop his own photos. Today the estimated 2,500 negatives of his photographic work remain at The Penrose Collection at Farley Farm House.
Books by Roland Penrose From 1950 to 1980 Roland PENROSE produced few art works due to his involvement with the ICA, writing and organising of exhibitions. His biography of his friend PICASSO, Picasso - His Life and Work (1958) was followed by books on MIRO (1970) MAN RAY(1975) TAPIES (1978), and his autobiography Scrap Book, 1900-1981, (1981), which is full of anecdotes about his friends. He also wrote many catalogue essays and lectured internationally on PICASSO and ERNST.
Major Exhibitions organised by Roland Penrose
PENROSE organised the highly acclaimed PICASSO exhibition for the Tate Gallery in 1960, followed by the exhibitions of Max ERNST in 1961, and MIRO in 1964. In 1975 he played a key role in bringing the MAN RAY. Inventor, Painter, Poet exhibition to the ICA, and made an important contribution to Dada and Surrealism Reviewed in 1978. After PICASSO's death, he was also on the selection committee for the Dation PICASSO, responsible for choosing the works from PICASSO's estate given to the French nation in satisfaction of tax.
Roland Penrose Honours
Penrose was awarded the CBE in 1960 following the Picasso exhibition at the Tate. He was knighted in 1966 for his Services to Contemporary Art. In 1980 the University of Sussex honoured him with an Honorary Doctorate of Literature.
Bibliography -Select Bibliography
Ades, Dawn. Dada and Surrealism Reviewed. Arts Council of Great Britain. 1978.
Agar, Eileen. A Look At My Life. Methuen, 1988.
Gascoyne, David. Journal 1937-1939. Enitharmon Press, 1978.
Gilot, François. Life With Picasso. McGraw Hill, New York, 1964.
Gonzales, Sylvie (Editor). Paul, Max et les Autres. Éditions de lAlbaron, 1993.
Guggenheim, Peggy. Out of This Century. The Dial Press, New York, 1946.
Massey, Anne. The Independent Group. Manchester University Press, 1995.
Melly, George. Photographs by Michael Woods. Paris and the Surrealists. Thames & Hudson, 1991.
Melly, George. Its All Writ Out For You: The Life and Work of Scottie Wilson. Thames and Hudson, 1986.
Melly, George. Don't Tell Sybil: an Intimate Memoir of E.L.T. Mesens. Random House UK Ltd, 1997.
Morris, Desmond. Animal Days. Cape, 1979.
Penrose, Antony. The Lives of Lee Miller. Thames & Hudson, 1985.
Penrose, Antony. Roland Penrose, The Friendly Surrealist. Prestel. 2001.
Penrose, Antony, with special photography by Tony Tree. The Home of The Surrealists. Lee Miller Archives 2016. First published by Frances Lincoln 2001.
Penrose, Antony, The Boy Who Bit Picasso, Thames and Hudson 2010
Penrose, Antony, Miró’s Magic Animals, Thames and Hudson 2016
Penrose, Roland. The Road is Wider Than Long. London Gallery Editions, 1939.
Penrose, Roland. Picasso His Life and Work. Gollancz, 1958.
Penrose, Roland. Portrait of Picasso. Lund Humphries, 1956.
Penrose, Roland. Miro. Thames & Hudson, 1970.
Penrose, Roland. Man Ray. Thames & Hudson, 1975.
Penrose, Roland. Tàpies. Thames & Hudson, 1978.
Penrose, Roland. Scrap Book 1900-1981. Thames & Hudson, 1981.
Penrose, Valentine. Poems and Narations. Translation and Foreword by Roy Edwards. Carcanet Press and Elephant Trust, 1976
Remy, Michel. Surrealism in Britain. Ashgate, 1999.
Read, Herbert. Surrealism. Faber & Faber, 1936.
Richardson, John. The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Knopf, New York. 1999.
Surrealism in England in 1936 and After. Catalogue of Exhibition at the Herbert Read Gallery, Canterbury College of Art, 1986.
Trevelyan, Julian. Indigo Days. Scolar Press, 1957.
Antony Penrose, with thanks to Michael Sweeney for his original research on Roland Penrose.
copyright- Antony Penrose Estate, England 2016. The Penrose Collection. All rights reserved.
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Roland Penrose has work in the following collections:
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, England.
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Scotland.
Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, Yorkshire, England.
Southampton City Art Gallery, England.
The Tate, London, England.
Appointed Galleries
Roland Penrose as an artist & photographer is represented by:
UK Galleries
The Penrose Collection & the Lee Miller ArchivesFarley Farm (his home from 1949-1984)
Muddles Green, Chiddingly
East Sussex
BN8 6HW
Tel: ++44 (0) 1825 872 691
Email: images@leemiller.co.uk
Website: www.leemiller.co.uk & www.rolandpenrose.co.ukThe Mayor Gallery
22A Cork Street
London
W1S 3NA
BN8 6HW
Tel: ++44 (0)20 773 43558
Fax: ++44 (0)20 774 941377
Website: www.themayorgallery.com
Farleys House and Gallery
Lee Miller, Roland Penrose and their son Antony Penrose moved to Farleys in 1949 and their Sussex home soon became a meeting place for some of the leading figures from the world of twentieth-century modern art.
Pablo Picasso stayed in 1950, and Max Ernst, Joan Miro, Man Ray Leonora Carrington and Antoni Tapies visited from overseas whilst Eileen Agar, Kenneth Armitage, William Turnbull, John Craxton and Richard Hamilton formed the British contingent.
Works by many of these artists are displayed in the house in a selection that regularly changes as items are loaned to exhibitions in galleries around the world.
For the most part the house is just as it was when it was occupied by the Penrose family. Lee Miller’s kitchen looks as though she has just popped out to gather vegetables from the garden and Roland Penrose’s study only lacks the aroma of his cigar smoke.
Farleys House remains alive and vibrant today as it documents Surrealism and modern art and in so doing informs our present day culture.
Farleys is the centre of the Lee Miller Archives and The Penrose Collection from which books, exhibitions and reproduction rights are privately managed by the family who are dedicated to the conservation and dissemination of Lee Miller and Roland Penrose’s work.
The house and archive receive no public funding. It is your support through the purchase of tours tickets and books and prints from our gift shop and picture library which allow us to continue our work in sharing the extraordinary legacy of Lee and Roland.
Visiting Farleys
Every Thursday, Friday and Sunday between 4th April to 31st October visitors are invited to visit the home of Lee Miller and Roland Penrose taking a tour of the house, exploring the sculpture garden and enjoying exhibitions in the adjacent galleries.
The Farleys House Tour is led by a trained guide and introduces visitors to the lives and art of Lee Miller, Roland Penrose and their friends. The tour takes 50 minutes and begin at half past the hour from 10.30am until 3.30pm with a maximum of 10 guests on each tour.
2024 Season admission is £23.00 per person and tickets are available on the Farleys website. Please see farleyshouseandgallery.co.uk for more information
Private View tours led by Lee Miller and Roland Penrose's family are also available to book on some days. For more information on these and the Workshops at Farleys please visit Farleys website
Farleys House & Gallery
Farley Farm
Muddles Green
East Sussex
BN8 6HW
Find us on Google Maps here
Directions from London by road
> M25 junction 6 > A22 towards East Grinstead & Eastbourne > OR M25 junction 7 > M23 south towards Brighton > junction 10 - A264 towards East Grinstead > A22 turn right towards Eastbourne > THEN once on A22: through Forest Row, Nutley, Uckfield by-pass, through Halland and Whitesmith> turn left immediately after BP garage at Golden Cross> turn right at T-junction> follow signs for Village Shop which is located in the car park at Farleys.
From Lewes by road
> B2192 to Ringmer> B2124 via Laughton> T-junction with A22, turn right> turn next left at BP garage at Golden Cross> turn right at T-junction>follow signs for Village Shop which is located in the car park at Farleys.
From Eastbourne by road
> A22 north towards London > turn right at Golden Cross, just before BP garage> turn right at T junction> follow signs for Village Shop which is located in the car park at Farleys.
Parking
Free parking is available in the farmyard next to Farleys Gallery and the village shop.
Train & Taxi
Our nearest train stations are Lewes and Berwick. There is a direct train from London Victoria to Lewes that leaves roughly on an hourly basis. It is approximately a 20 minute taxi journey from Lewes station and currently costs approx £25 each way. There is a taxi rank at Lewes station.
For suggestions of where to stay and eat when visiting Farleys House and Gallery please see farleyshouseandgallery.co.uk
David E Scherman (1916-1997)
David E. SchermanBorn: 2nd March 1916, Manhattan, New York, USA
Died: 5th May 1997, Stony Point, New York, USA
David E. SCHERMAN was the longest serving staff member of LIFE Magazine. Shortly after graduating from Dartmouth College in 1936 he bought a Leica camera, impressed editors at the magazine with his shots of Manhattan and was hired as a copy boy. SCHERMAN worked his way up to become the only staff photographer to become an editor and continued with the magazine until it folded in 1972.
In 1941, SCHERMAN was on board an Egyptian liner called the Zamzam, heading for an assignment in South Africa. The ship was attacked and sunk by a German war ship disguised as a merchant vessel. SCHERMAN took pictures from the lifeboat and when he was taken prisoner by the Germans hid the films in tubes of shaving cream and toothpaste which he later smuggled back to LIFE Magazine to publish. The pictures of the ship enabled the British Navy to track down the surface raider and sink it.
SCHERMAN then worked as a war correspondent for LIFE in London, where he first met Lee MILLER. He moved in with MILLER and Roland PENROSE in their Hampstead home. There started his relationship with MILLER which, with PENROSE’s blessing, became more than just friendship and lasted throughout World War II.
With SCHERMAN working for LIFE Magazine and MILLER for Vogue their paths continually crossed in Europe after D-day, most notably at the siege of St Malo, the Liberation of Paris and at the link-up of Russian, British and US troops in Torgau. By the time they entered Dachau concentration camp in 1945, recording the horrors before them and later experiencing the luxury of hot water and soap in Hitler’s apartment in Munich, they had become one of the most highly regarded and often envied photo-journalist duos of the war.
After being recalled to New York, SCHERMAN married Rosemary REDLICH in June 1949 and had two sons John and Tony.
In 1973 Scherman edited a hugely successful series of TIME LIFE books including The Best of LIFE. His final writing assignment was the introduction to the book Lee Miller’s War edited by Antony Penrose.
After TIME Inc. closed their doors Scherman’s second career began as a contractor. He built 28 houses for his friends on Cape Cod, Long Island, Rockland and New Jersey and his own home Stony Point.
David E. SCHERMAN died in 1997, aged 81, of Cancer at his home Stony Point, USA
1916 Born 2 March, Manhattan, New York, USA.
1936 Graduates from Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA
Starts work as Copy Boy, Life Magazine, New York.
1941 17 April Scherman was on board an Egyptian liner called the Zamzam
Scherman as war correspondent for LIFE magazine arrives in England.
1942 30 December: Lee accredited as War Correspondent contributing to Vogue magazine.
1943 Author of Literary England.
1945 Lee and SCHERMAN photograph Nazi death camps.
1949 11 June marries Rosemarie Redlich.
1955 Author of Literary America.
1972 11 June LIFE ceases publication
1973 Edits The Best of LIFE that sells over 1 million copies in six months
1975 Writes successful anthology Life Goes to the Movies
1977 Writes successful anthology Life Goes to World War II
1989 Collaborates with Soviet journalist Grigori Chudakov on Allies a history of Russian –American war pictures.
1992 Writes introduction for Lee Miller’s War by Antony Penrose.
1997 5 May Scherman dies aged 81 of Cancer, Stony Point, New York, USA
Antony Penrose (1947-)
Antony Penrose
Film maker, photographer, author, artist, photo curator, co-founder of the Lee Miller Archives and The Penrose Collection.
Born: 9 September 1947, London, England.
Antony's photographic career began at an early age when peering through the view finder 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, and that was the beginning of his fascination with the medium.
His mother was a good mentor. At the age of 14 a family visit to PICASSO produced some amateur images which later became widely published. On a trip to Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) in 1962 she 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". Only recently have any of those pictures been published, which reminds us that the historical content of a photograph can compensate for the photographer's early lack of expertise. Later images from the 1960’s of artists such as PICASSO, Joan MIRÓ and Man RAY are now widely known.
Antony's first camera was a Kodak using 121 film to make 1 1/4 " square negatives. Later Antony used mainly 35m/m and medium format and today shoots digital and DVD but is still nostalgic about analogue.
Initially photography supported his journalism for Farmers Weekly magazine, particularly during his 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.
Antony's photography continued as production stills, documentary and occasional fashion work with subjects including farming, forestry, contemporary dance, portraits and his sequences on windows and trees. With the rise of the Lee Miller Archives and The Penrose Collection much of his work was shooting copy work or documentary connected to the collections, and for inclusion in his lectures on the international circuit. His work comprises about 15,000 images and is housed by The Penrose Collection & the Lee Miller Archives.
His main activity is writing and lecturing on photography and fine art.
Antony Penrose
(C) Antony Penrose 2013 All rights reserved
Antony Penrose has dedicated a large part of his life to research into the lives of his parents Lee MILLER & Roland PENROSE and their circle of artists friends. He lectures from the unique stand point of a person who personally knew many of the artists and illustrates his talks with documents and images from the Lee Miller Archives and The Penrose Collection.
An accredited NADFAS lecturer, he has also lectured for institutions such as the V&A, Tate Britain, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Museu Picasso Barcelona, Museum Ludwig and The Art Gallery of Ontario.
He also presents study days and contributes to seminars. One of his performance pieces, The Angel and The Fiend on the life of Lee Miller, has been staged widely in the USA and UK.
For available lectures, seminar & performance details please see catalogue below.
For bookings please email 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 skilful 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.
- Created for the exhibition The Indestructible Lee Miller. Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA 2015
- Contains highly disturbing images of the holocaust, war and its consequences
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, photo-journalist, combat photographer and finally a gourmet cook. She is now rightfully recognised as a woman 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 distrubing 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 2. 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.
• Originally created for Petersfield NADFAS Study Day 2015
• Coincides with the 2015 Imperial War Museum exhibition Lee Miller, A Woman’s War
• Contains highly disturbing images of the holocaust, extreme violence and depravity
RECOMENDED FOR NADFAS AUDIENCES:
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.
• Toured in UK, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, Scandinavia, Bermuda, and Europe.
• Very well received by NADFAS audiences.
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.
• Created for Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz at the time of their exhibition Picasso’s Women, 2002.
• Very well received by NADFAS audiences.
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.
• Originally created for Gloucestershire DFAS May 2010, then performed for National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh and Victoria and Albert Museum London.
• Very well received by NADFAS audiences and at literary festivals.
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.
• Developed for Haverford College, Pennsylvania.
• Very well received by NADFAS audiences.
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
• Created for Perth DFAS May 2009.
• Very well received by NADFAS audiences.
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 Conde 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.
• Created for Societé des amis du Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva, 2008.
• Suits an audience with an interest in fashion and photography
• Toured in UK, New Zealand, Australia and USA
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 recent 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.
• Created for Drexel University, Philadelphia, 2009
• Contains war and holocaust images that are highly disturbing
• Suits an audience with an interest in Egypt and the 1930’s
• Presented at South Mercia DFAS Study Day January 2011
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.
• Created for Fine Art Museum, San Francisco on the occasion of the symposium for the exhibition Man Ray and Lee Miller, 2012.
• 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.
• Created for the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh on the occasion of their exhibition Picasso and Modern British Art, 2012
• Contains war and holocaust images that are highly disturbing
MUSEUM AND SEMINAR LECTURES:
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 to-day and don’t look away but choose on whose side you are on. “If you have tears, prepare to shed them now” (Julius Ceasar)'
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.
STUDY DAY, SEMINAR AND PERFORMANCE LECTURES:
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 the only woman combat photographer with 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.
• A tough and hard hitting production best suited for colleges and history societies.
• Can be presented as a 90 minute performance piece with Ami Bouhassane, Lee Miller’s granddaughter as the voice of Lee Miller.
• Often presented by museums in conjunction with a Lee Miller exhibition or as part of a study day
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.
• Originally created for South Mercia DFAS Study Day January 2011
• Well received as part of a study day
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.
• Originally created for Brighton Museum and Art Gallery
• Well received as part of a study day
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 pre war 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.
• Created for the seminar accompanying the Lee Miller i Picasso en Privat exhibition at the Museu Picasso, Barcelona.
• Very well received by NADFAS audiences with an interest in the history of modern art and Catalonia.
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 Archive 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.
• Created for Creative Scotland Oxygen 2 Event, Edinburgh 2nd June 2014.
• Goes well as part of a study day
PERFORMANCE PIECES:
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 imagesWritten 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.
Publications by Antony Penrose
• The Lives of Lee Miller by Antony Penrose Thames & Hudson 2012 ISBN 9-780580-275092
• Lee Miller’s War edited by Antony Penrose, Foreword by David E Scherman. Thames & Hudson 2014 ISBN 978-0-500-29154-2
• Rolsnd Penrose the Friendly Surrealist by Antony Penrose, Prestel 2001 • The Home of the Surrealists. Antony Penrose. Francis Linccoln 2011, Penrose Film Productions Ltd 2016 ISBN 9-780953 238910
• Das Rätsel Lee Miller . Apropos Lee Miller Verlag Neue Kritik 1995 ISBN 3- 8015-0278-3
• The Boy Who Bit Picasso by Antony Penrose Thames & Hudson 2010. ISBN 9 780500 238738
• Miro’s Magic Animals by Antony Penrose Thames & Hudson 2016 ISBN 9 780500 650660
Contributions to other publications
• The Surrealist and the Photographer Catalogue essay Friends and Raiders. Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 2001.
• The Surrealists in Cornwall. Catalogue essay The Boat of Your Body. Falmouth Art Gallery, 2004.
• Lee Miller: Picasso en Privat. Catalogue essay The Boy that Bit Picasso Museu Picasso Barcelona, 2007.
• Lee Miller and Picasso. Catalogue essay The Boy that Bit Picasso Camara Municipal de Portimao, 2008.
• Mirar de Reojo y el Surealismo. Catalogue essay The Interior Life of Roland Penrose. Fondaçion Pablo Ruiz Picasso, Malaga, 2009.
• Lee Miller. Catalogue Essay Lee Miller, Surrealist at Heart. Mjellby Konstmuseum, Halmstad, 2009.
• Lee Miller y Picasso Evocación y Recuerdo Catalogue essay The Boy That Bit Picasso. Fundación Picasso Casa Natal, Malaga 2009.
• Man Ray / Lee Miller: Partners in Surrealism by Phillip Prodger, Lynda Roscoe Hartigan and Antony Penrose. Merrell 2011 ISBN 978-1-8589-4557-6
• Lee Miller at Farley Farm Farley Arts Trust 2008 (Extended Captions)ISBN 978-08-9559599-0-5
• Picasso at Play Farley Arts Trust 2012 (Extended Captions) ISBN 978-0-9559599-3-6
• Roland Penrose’s Surrealist Camera Farley Arts Trust 2011 (Extended Captions) ISBN 978-0-9559599-2-9
• A Childhood with Surrealists Catalogue essay Making Things. Falmouth Art Gallery, 2011.
• Totemic friends. Wifredo Lam, Roland Penrose and other fellow travellers. Galerie Gmurzynska AG, 2011.
• Dylan Thomas: A Centenary Celebration. Essay Dylan Thomas among the Surrealists. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2014.
Academic Papers
Roland Penrose and the Impulse of Provence for Provence and the British Imagination University of Aix en Provence 2011
Lee Miller’s Indelible Images for Holocaust Week at the University of Essex 2014
Hemline to Frontline Lee Miller’s wartime role in British Vogue Magazine for The Business of War Photography, University of Durham 2014.
Chronology test
Theodore Miller (1871-1971)
Theodore Miller
Engineer, inventor and amateur photographer.
Born: 3 June 1871 Richmond, Indiana, USA.
Died: 5 May 1971 Poughkeepsie New York, USA.
Theodore MILLER was above all an engineer and an inventor. He had boundless curiosity on all things mechanical and scientific, and loved innovation and change. In his professional life as the Works Superintendent of the De Laval Separator Co in Poughkeepsie he was known for the value he placed on ingenuity. He found it was often the small things that made the biggest differences. This love of intricate details, his fascination with technology and his desire to record events led him naturally to another emerging technology, photography.
Theodore’s first camera in around 1900 was probably George Eastman’s newly produced Box Brownie, which sold for $1 and could be daylight loaded with film costing 15c a roll. He probably began by having his processing and printing done in a lab, and then quickly began doing his own printing and later developing in his home darkroom. He also had access to a larger plate camera but few examples of this work remain.
His first subjects were engineering marvels he admired. The lofty trestle Railroad Bridge across the Hudson River, ships, locomotives and the "First flight in a heavier than air machine", the pioneer Glen Curtis who landed near the Hudson in 1910, all feature. He meticulously pasted his photographs into his albums, and interspersed with the engineering we see the family snaps. Lee’s ‘three month birthday’, lovingly recorded with a typed caption, is part of an ongoing series that commands far more attention than machines or even the other members of the family.
Theodore’s favourite camera was stereoscopic[i] of unknown make. At this point despite the popular success of George Eastman’s Kodak brand, photography was still seen as a technical miracle and Theodore would have enjoyed both the challenge and the social cachet of being in the avant-garde. To achieve the stereoscopic effect each image is simultaneously photographed twice on adjoining negatives and the prints are usually viewed through prisms in a hand held Holmes viewer[ii]. The stereoscopic camera seems to have come into his life around 1920 and remained his preference for the next 20 years. In later life he adopted a 35m/m camera and shot mainly transparencies which he customarily annotated in handwriting now shaky with age.
Theodore can be regarded as a gifted amateur who justified a position of distinction among his contemporaries but whose contribution to photography is mainly remarkable for the fame achieved by the subjects he photographed and the temporal and social changes of their surroundings.
© Antony Penrose 2013. All rights reserved.
| date | description |
1871 Born June 3rd in Richmond, Indiana. His father was a bricklayer, descended from Hessian mercenaries fighting for King George during the American Revolution.
c.1890 Became a wood machinist making wooden wheels for roller skates. Took courses in engineering through the International Correspondence School.
1895 Went to Mexico to work in a steel mill in Monterey, contracted typhoid.
1896 Returned to the USA and took a job as foreman of the Merganthaler Linotype Company in Brooklyn, New York, USA.
1901 Appointed general manager to the Utica Drop Forge and Tool Company. Gets apendicitis and in hospital he meets Florence MacDonald, a Canadian nurse at Saint Luke’s Hospital, the daughter of Scottish/Irish settlers born in 1881-1954 in Brockville, Ontario, Canada.
1903 Appointed works superintendent of De Laval Separator Company, with 500 employees founded in 1892 in Poughkeepsie, New York, USA. Becomes member of the Amrita Club.
Becomes an amateur photographer, photographing bridges, locomotives and his future wife.
1904 10 August: Married Florence MacDonald (who became known as Mimi) in Poughkeepsie, New York, USA. They live at 40 South Clinton St. Theodore builds a darkroom.
1905 15 December: son John Miller born.
1907 23 April: Daughter (Elizabeth) Lee Miller born.
1910 22 May: Son Erik Miller born. Photographs the first airplane flight he witnessed.
1912 Moves to Cedar Hill Farm four miles south of Poughkeepsie, New York, USA.
1915 14 April: takes first nude photograph of Lee Miller in snow titled December Morn.
1916 Begins taking stereoscopic photographs and invents a device for projecting stereoscopic images on a screen.
1921 Moves to Kingwood Park, a large house with some farmland on the outskirts of Poughkeepsie. Theodore moves his darkroom to the small space under the stairs.
1923 Takes Lee with him on a business trip to Puerto Rico to inspect centrifuges used in the sugar industry. Photographs widely.
1925 Lee goes to Paris. Theodore and Florence follow.
1930 25 November: Goes to visit Lee, now in Paris with Man Ray, and goes on to Stockholm with Lee.
1931 Returns to Paris with Lee. Photographs Man Ray.
1945 Retires from the De Laval Separator Company.
Gives Kingwood Park to John and moves to South Hamilton Street and then 12 Forbus Street, Poughkeepsie.
1946 Welcomes Lee who visits Poughkeepsie with Roland Penrose as part of her US tour for Conde Nast Vogue Magazine.
1947 Grandson Antony born 9th September to Lee and Roland Penrose.
1948 With Florence visits England to meet grandson.
1954 Florence is diagnosed with cancer and dies 11th September.
1955 Visits Lee and her family in England for three months.
1961 August: Goes to Rome and Venice with Lee.
1963 Visits Lee and her family in England.
1965 Visits Lee and her family in England.
1967 Makes last visit to England aged 95.
1969 Suffers minor stroke. Lee visits him in Poughkeepsie 25th September.
1971 Goes on Caribbean cruise with Lee in January.
5 May: Death of Theodore in Poughkeepsie only one month before his centenary.
© Antony Penrose 2013 All rights reserved.
A selection of Theodore MILLER's work is available for sale through the Lee Miller Archives Print room.
Andrew Lanyon (1947-)
Andrew Lanyon
Contemporary Artist
Born: 1947, St Ives, Cornwall, England
Son of artist Peter Lanyon, Andrew Lanyon was brought up in West Cornwall.
Although educated at Port Regis and Bryanston he was mainly brought up in his grandfather’s converted darkroom in St Ives. From an early age he developed and printed his own photographs, made using a battered Leica and other improvised equipment. He was influenced by the acute observation of Man Ray, and Cartier Bresson. As a student he visited Man Ray in his Paris studio and took a portrait of him. On seeing the print Man Ray declared it was the photograph of himself he liked the most.
Lanyon studied at the London School of Film Technique and for several years made experimental surrealist inspired films before starting to publish his own books in 1987. His work is in public and private collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum, London and The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Today although he still photographs, he is best known for his paintings and books, many of which contain his photographs.
Selected Solo Painting Exhibitions:
The only non-slip dodo mat in the world, Falmouth Art Gallery, Cornwall 30 Nov 2013 - 01 Feb 2014
A Surrealist Childhood (in collaboration with Antony Penrose) Falmouth Art Gallery, Cornwall 21 Jan – 3 March 2012
New Arts Centre, London 1995-2005
Beaux Arts, Bath 1995 – 2005
Gordon Hepworth, Devon 1995- 2005
Newlyn Orion, Cornwall 1995 -2005
Will’s Lane Gallery, Cornwall 1995 - 2005
Plough Arts Center, Devon 1995 -2005
Thomas Henry Fine Art, London 1995 -2005
The Book Gallery, St Ives 1995
Holsworthy, London 1988
Sheila Harrison, London 1988
Gilbert Parr, London 1981
Marjorie Parr, London 1979
The Rooks of Trelawne at The Photographer’s Gallery, London 1976
Archer Gallery, London 1973
The Rowley Claimant 2017
The Musings of Creatures Imagined in a Barren Land 2016
The only non-slip dodo mat in the world, Falmouth Art Gallery, 2013
Bifurcated Thought, 2013
Exquisite Corpse, 2011
Von Ribbentrop in St Ives ,2011
The Daughters of Radon, 2011
A Fairy Find, 2006
A Persistence of Visions, 2002
Second Nature, 1989
Another ABC With foreword by Rosa Levin, 1989
Dead Pan, 1987
The Vanishing Cabinet, 1981
Roundabout West Cornwall.