Writes successful anthology Life Goes to World War II

14th October. Birth of Roland Algernon Penrose to parents James Doyle and Elizabeth Josephine Penrose and elder brothers Lionel and Alec in London, England.

Rolands younger brother Bernard, known as ‘Beacus’ is born.

23rd April, Birth of Elizabeth [Lee] Miller to parents Theodore and Florence Miller and older brother John, in Poughkeepsie, New York, USA

Lee Miller’s younger brother Erik is born.

The Miller family move to Cedar Hill Farm, Poughkeepsie, New York, where Theodore installs a darkroom.

Roland’s family are pacifists. Lionel and Alec register as conscientious objectors and serve with Friends Ambulance Unit on the Western Front.

Roland studies architecture at Queens College, Cambridge, England. He finds m0dern art more interesting and discovers the work of Picasso.

Roland moves to Paris. He studies painting, becoming increasingly interested in Surrealism, and befriends Man Ray.

Roland meets Valentine Boué, a French Surrealist Poet who introduces him to Paul Éluard.

Roland and Valentine are married.

Leaving school, Lee travels to Paris, France and enrolls at L’École Megyès pour la Technique du Théatre.

Roland has his first solo exhibition in Paris, France. Here he meets and starts life-long friendships with Max Ernst and Joan Miró.

Lee moves to Paris, France and becomes Man Ray’s student, model and partner. Through an accident she re-discovers the Sabatier effect, which Man Ray calls Solarisation.

Roland befriends André Breton and through Max Ernst begins to use the technique of Frottage.

Asserting her independence from Man Ray, Lee establishes her own studio (12 rue Victor Considérante) and performs in Jean Cocteau’s film ‘Blood of a Poet’.

In her September, her work begins to appear in French Vogue, and she has her first self-portrait published in American Vogue.

She has a part-time job photographing operations for a Paris surgeon.

Exhibits at Group Annuel des Photographes, Galerie to la Pleiade, Paris, France.

Lee models in the Man Ray shot advert for Jean Cocteau’s film Le Sang d’un Poète (The Blood of a Poet),

The American gallerist Julien Levy buys several Lee Miller works on a visit to Man Ray’s studio.

In November, Lee exhibits at Levy’s New York gallery as part of his American Photography Retrospective exhibition.

Lee leaves Paris and establishes her commercial studio ‘Lee Miller Studios, Inc. on 8 East 48 Street, New York, USA. Lee’s work is exhibited at the Julien Levy Gallery.

The death of Roland’s parents secures him financial independence. He and Valentine visit India.

Lee’s commercial studio is a success, and she is commissioned to photograph the cast of Four Saints in Three Acts. Lee also exhibits at Julien Levy Gallery.

Lee is hailed by Vanity Fair magazine as being one of America’s 7 most distinguished photographers. Lee exhibits as part of a group show in Luckey, Platt and Company department store, Poughkeepsie, New York, USA.

19th July, Lee marries Egyptian businessman Aziz Eloui Bey and after honeymooning at Niagra Falls, moves to Cairo, Egypt, abandoning her New York studio.

Roland and Valentine decide to separate.

Lee revives her passion for photography & enjoys creating images for her own pleasure.

Her New York studio photographs continue to be published in magazines such as House & Garden in America.

Roland stages the First International Surrealist Exhibition at New Burlington Galleries, London, England.

Graduates from Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA. Starts work as Copy Boy, Life Magazine, New York.

Lee holidays in Cornwall – then the South of France – with Roland and other artists such as Man Ray, Dora Maar, Eileen Agar, Max Ernst and Leonora Carrington. Picasso paints her portrait 6 times.  Lee exhibits Surrealist object ‘Le Baiser’ in Objects and Poems Exhibition, London Gallery, England.

Bored of Egyptian expat society, Lee travels to visit friends in Paris and meets the British artist Roland Penrose at a Surrealist fancy dress party.

Roland meets Lee Miller at a Surrealist fancy dress party in Paris, France. He paints first portrait of Lee: Night and Day

In June, the London Bulletin publishes two Lee Miller images – Portrait of Space and Eileen Agar’s Shadow.

Lee and Roland tour the Balkans together and the trip inspires Roland to write his publication The Road is Wider Than Long.

Lee’s work is published in London Bulletin. She becomes associated with Egyptian Surrealist group Art et Liberté.

2nd June, Lee leaves Aziz Eloui Bey to be with Roland in London, England.  They visit their friends in Europe returning to London as Britain enters World War II.

Refusing to return to US, Lee continues volunteeing as photographer for British Vogue. Contributes work to Surrealism Today exhibition at Zwemmer Gallery, London, England.

Lee’s images of the London Blitz feature in the propaganda publication Grim Glory:Pictures of Britain under Fire, and are exhibited at MOMA in their Britain at War exhibition.

Roland publishes the Home Guard Manual of Camouflage.

June, Audrey Withers credits Lee as having ‘borne the whole weight of our studio production through the most difficult period in Brogue’s [British Vogue‘s] history’.

Lilliput in October- Lee’s first published written piece; I Worked with Man Ray

17 April, Scherman was on board an Egyptian liner called the Zamzam. Scherman as war correspondent for LIFE magazine arrives in England.

30 December, Lee accredited as War Correspondent contributing to Vogue magazine on Scherman’s advise.

Lee continues to contribute significantly to the pages of Vogue, including their pattern book and knitwear book.

David E. Scherman moves in with Roland and Lee. All three colaborate and photograph Lee in camouflage, Highgate, London.

December, encouraged by Life Photographer David E. Scherman Lee becomes accredited to the US armed forces as an official war correspondent.

She continues to contribute multiple fashion images every month.

Author of Literary England.

Lee’s photojournalism progresses with a feature on US Army nurses in Oxford. She also gathers material for her book Wrens in Camera.

Roland is commissioned as an officer in the British Army. He is placed in command of the Army School of Camouflage, Eastern Command, Norfolk, England.

From July, Lee is in Europe covering the war and experiences front line combat in St Malo as it is liberated from German occupation.

Roland visits Lee at Hotel Scribe during the Liberation of Paris.

Lee witnesses the Liberation of Paris and Luxembourg, covers fighting in the battle of the Bulge, visits Belgium whilst also being a key figure in re-launching French Vogue. Published in Cadran, LIFE magazine and Illustrated.

Lee visits Ardurf and Pening camps, going on to cover the fighting in Alsace.  She finds a brief respite from battle at the liberation of Denmark.

WRENS in camera is published, celebrating the contribution to the war effort of the Women in the Navy, illustrated solely by Lee Miller’s photographs.

Lee and SCHERMAN photograph Nazi concentration camps and Hitler’s Apartment

Travelling with the advancing US Army, Lee stays with the action and is at the liberation of two concentration camps: Buchenwald and Dachau. She is one of the first journalists to enter Dachau and does not hold back from capturing the horror of the camp.

Lee’s invited on a celebrity tour of US & is interviewed by CBS radio about her war coverage. She uses the occasion to reunite with old friends: Man Ray, Julien Levy, Yves Tanguy and Max Ernst & meets artists Dorothea Tanning, Kay Sage, Isamu Noguch, Stella Snead and Muriel Levy.

In December, she photographs the poet Dylan Thomas for Vogue.

The war for Lee is not over. She continues to travel through Romania and Hungary reporting on the devastation she discovers. Roland and Scherman plead with her to return home.

Lee returns exhausted to Roland. De-mobbed from the army, he travels with her to USA to be reunited with family and friends.

On a Vogue fashion assignment in Switzerland Lee discovers she is pregnant. Back home in London, England Lee and Roland get married and their son Antony is born.

9th September, Birth of Antony Penrose to parents Roland Penrose and Lee Miller, London, England.

Lee is invited by Robert Capa to join Magnum.  Writes her first lifestyle article ‘Batchelors Entertaining‘ for British Vogue. Shoots for 10 page holiday feature ‘Vogue’s Eye View of Travelling at Ease’ and ‘In Sicily’.

May 29 – 25 June, Lee exhibits in ‘Hampstead Seen by Artist, Architect and Camera’ at Studio House, Hampstead, London.

Lee and Roland move to Farleys House in East Sussex. Lee struggles with life in the country and suffers from depression.

Roland and Lee buy Farley Farm in East Sussex, England and begin renovating Farleys House.

Roland and Lee move to Farleys House, East Sussex

Picasso visits Farleys and meets Antony.

Lee works freelance for Picture Post magazine contributing to several issues, whilst also still contributing to Vogue (including an illustrated article on ‘Joyce’s Dublin’).

Lee continues to shoot fashion for Vogue and enjoys a visit from Picasso at Farleys House.

Roland stops producing art to concentrate on running the Institute of Contemporary Art. Picasso visits Roland and Lee at their home.

Lee attempts to re-invent herself as a food and hospitality writer with her unpublished manuscript – Sunday Lunch on the Farm.

She writes about an exhibition covering Picasso’s 70th birthday for Vogue.

Lee writes A thirteen meal Christmas for British Vogue, the first of her articles around food and entertaining containing her own recipes.

Roland is appointed to the British Council’s Fine Arts Committee. Henry Moore’s Mother and Child sculpture is installed in Farleys garden.

In April, Lee writes an article for British Vogue to publicise the ‘Wonder and Horror of the Human Head’ exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), which she also c0-curates.

In July, Lee’s last major feature accompanied by her photographs is published in Vogue, a ‘tongue in cheek’ piece called Working Guests.

She is suffering from what would probably now be diagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorder.

Roland begins work on his authorised biography of Picasso.

Lee takes photographs for Roland Penrose’s book ‘Picasso, His Life and Work’.

She turns down a job offer as a ‘Critical Advisor’ for Spam, the Luncheon Meat company.

12th September, Lee’s mother Florence dies.

Author of Literary America.

Lee attends a 3-month Cordon Bleu cooking course in Rue Léon Delhomme, Paris, France, given to her as 50th birthday gift by Roland.

Roland publishes Picasso: His Life and Work.

Lee writes an essay for a booklet & organises food for a gala event at an ICA celebration of the Picasso exhibition at the Tate, curated by Roland.

Roland curates an exhibition of Max Ernst’s work for Tate Gallery, Britain.

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”.

British Vogue hails Lee’s cooking & hosting skills in the article, A second fame: Good Food, Lee and Roland Penrose by Ninette Lyon. Lee wins a major prize, a trip to Norway, for an Open Sandwich cooking competition.

Roland is knighted for his sevices to the arts.

Lee and Bettina McNulty travel to Norway. Roland is knighted for his contribution to the Arts and Lee becomes Lady Penrose.

Articles about her cookery appear in Studio International and House and Garden. 

In October she is featured in a ‘Who’s Who in Vogue 1916-66’ article and a short section of her article on St Malo is republished as part of British Vogue’s Golden Jubilee.

Antony begins a 3¼ year circumnavigation of the world in a Land-Rover with his lifelong friend Robert BRADEN

Lee’s cookery is featured in House and Garden magazine and in American Vogue. She begins to write her own cookbook.

She photographs Antoni Tàpies for Roland Penrose’s biography of the artist.

Lee attends Rencontres internationales de la photographie d’Arles in place of Man Ray who was guest of honour.

Roland’s biography on Tapies is published including recent photographs of the artist by Lee.

Lee and Roland’s first granddaughter is born. Lee dies at Farleys House.

Exhibits in The History of Fashion, organised by the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester, New York, USA

Lee passes away at Farleys House on 21st July.

Roland’s second granddaughter is born.

Roland returns to ICA as honourary president. Roland Penrose Arts Council Retrospective exhibition tours Britain.

Roland Penrose Arts Council Retrospective exhibition opens at Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain. Roland’s autobiography, Scrap Book 1900:1981 is published

Roland Penrose, Recent Collages opens at the Mayor Gallery, London, England.

Roland dies at Farleys House.

Having established the Lee Miller Archives Antony writes his first book ‘The Lives of Lee Miller’ published by Thames and Hudson

 Writes introduction for Lee Miller’s War by Antony Penrose.

Writes introduction for Lee Miller’s War by Antony Penrose.