Love Letters

Lee Miller (1907 – 1977) entered the photography world in New York as a model to the great photographers of the day such as STEICHEN, HOYNINGEN-HUENE and GENTHE. In 1929 she went to Paris and worked with Man Ray quickly succeeding in establishing her own studio. Returning to New York in 1932, she set up her own studio. In 1937 she met Roland Penrose and in December 1942 she became a correspondent accredited to the US Army. She followed the US troops overseas and was probably the only woman combat photo-journalist to cover the front-line war in Europe. It is mainly for the witty Surrealist images which permeate all her work that she is best remembered. Sir Roland Penrose is best known as a Surrealist artist and for his biography of his friend Picasso, Picasso: his life and work (1958), followed by books on Joan Miró (1970), Man Ray (1975), Antoni Tàpies (1978), and his autobiography Scrap Book, 1900 – 1981 (1981). He organised the highly acclaimed Picasso retrospective for the Tate Gallery in 1960, followed by other key exhibitions at the Tate and major galleries. He co-founded the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art) in 1947 but returned to painting in the last decade of his life, with exhibitions of his collages in London, Paris and Brighton.