Lee Miller - Künstlerporträts. Porträtfotografien von Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst und der künstlerischen Avantgarde von 1929 bis 1973.

Abstract

‘Max Ernst, Éluard, Picasso, Breton, Cocteau or Man Ray: the list of her friends reads like a register of cultural history of the 20th century.’ With these words Michael Koetzle describes in the German edition of Vogue the american photographer Elisabeth ‘Lee’ Miller (1907-1977). In 1929 Miller became pupil and assistant of Man Ray and took her first portraits of artists. She completed her work in 1973 with the photographs of the catalan painter Antonio Tapiès. From the beginning of her career Miller was an extraordinary skilled photographer and created during the four decades of her photographic work pictures of an outstandig artistic quality and topical diversity. Fashion and landscape were subject of her photographs as well as surrealistic and experimental themes. As photographer for British Vogue and correspondent for the US-Army she also covered World War II in Europe. But with two-third of her production portraits and pictures of peoples play a major role in her work. Not only her war photographies are contemporary documents of great historic importance but also the numerous portraits of artists, today seen as icons of the 20th century and most of all for years very close friends of her. These portraits which Miller took as an insider, gives us today information about the self-conception of artists like Picasso, Max Ernst, Isamu Noguchi, Joseph Cornell, Eileen Agar or the Surrealists, among others. Miller shows us not only how these artists see themselves but also how they will be seen by others. Her photographs deliver insight in their studios and the process of their artistic work. Miller photographed the artists not only in an artistic context, but also as ‘normal’ people living an ‘normal’ life and gives in this way a deep insight in the personality of the portrayed artists.