Lee MillerStati Uniti, 1907–1977Nude Bent Forward, Paris
Sull’opera
Lee Miller began her career as a model in New York during the 1920s, eventually posing for celebrated photographers Edward Steichen and Arnold Genthe. In 1929 she moved to Paris, where she began to develop her own artistic ideas while assisting and then collaborating with Man Ray, a key member of the Surrealist movement. Miller mastered lighting and printing techniques; she also gained a reputation for portraits, fashion photography, and experimental compositions, such as this nude study, with Surrealist themes. In this picture the nude is presented as a modernist sculpture: armless, legless, and with an upended backside that suggests a profound reorientation of the human body. Her male contemporaries—Man Ray, but also Edward Weston—created similar works, but with more overtly erotic connotations. Miller, by contrast, deployed the camera’s potential to render anatomy disquieting while avoiding the offering of sexual titillation.
Art Institute of ChicagoCC BY 4.0
Scheda
- Numero di inventario
- 1988.157.54
Nel frattempo, nella vita di Lee Miller
Tutta la vita1927–1929
New York's most sought-after model
For the next two years Miller was one of the most sought-after models in New York, photographed by Edward Steichen, Arnold Genthe, Nickolas Muray and George Hoyningen-Huene. A photograph of her by Steichen was used without her knowledge to advertise Kotex menstrual pads, causing a scandal.
1929
“I'm your new student”: Man Ray in Paris
In 1929 Miller travelled to Paris intending to apprentice herself to the Surrealist artist and photographer Man Ray; although he insisted he did not take students, she soon became — announcing “I'm your new student” — his model and collaborator, as well as his lover and muse. Some photographs taken by Miller are credited to Man Ray.
c. 1930
Rediscovers solarisation with Man Ray
Together with Man Ray, Miller rediscovered solarisation, by an accident variously described — in one of her accounts a mouse ran over her foot and she switched on the darkroom light mid-development. The technique became the couple's visual signature: Man Ray's solarised portrait of Miller (Paris, c. 1930) and her own portraits of Meret Oppenheim (1930), Dorothy Hill and Lilian Harvey (1933).
1930
A statue in Cocteau's “The Blood of a Poet”
Miller's friends included Duchess Solange d'Ayen, fashion editor of French Vogue, Pablo Picasso, Paul Éluard and Jean Cocteau. Cocteau was so mesmerised by her beauty that he turned her into a plaster cast of a classical statue for his film “The Blood of a Poet” (1930).
