Lee Miller: photography, surrealism, and beyond

Abstract

"Lee Miller: photography, surrealism, and beyond" offers a major new critical discussion of the work of one of the most significant twentieth-century photographers. Applying art-theoretical analyses and insights afforded by previously unseen material in archives and collections, Patricia Allmer undertakes revisionary readings of many of Miller's works, including Portrait of Space, Severed Breast from Radical Mastectomy and the famous series of war photographs produced for Vogue. At the same time she sheds new light on Miller's relations with surrealist groups and American avant-gardes, on her experiences in Paris, Egypt and World War II Europe and on her critically neglected post-war activities. Above all, the book focuses critical attention on the works themselves. As a result it will be of great interest to students and scholars of twentieth-century photography, modernism and surrealism.

Contents

Refocusing Miller -- Severed breast from radical surgery in a place setting -- Four saints in three acts -- Shadows of herself : Miller, Picasso, and Collage -- Apertures onto Egypt -- 'Special works' : reading Miller's war photography -- The ruins of representation : Miller's war photography and the Third Reich -- Afterimage.