Lee Miller is one of the most remarkable artists of our generation: a celebrated photographer, respected member of the Surrealist art movement, war correspondent, model and gourmet chef. She was born in Poughkeepsie, New York in 1907 and after being expelled from school, moved to Paris aged just 18 to study lighting, costume, and theatre design at the Ladislas Medgyes' School of Stagecraft.

She began modelling in 1927, featuring on the cover of American Vogue. It was a successful if short-lived career and in 1929 she moved to Paris to work with the Surrealist artist Man Ray. She became both his collaborator and his model, often accepting assignments on his behalf so he could concentrate on his painting. During her time in Paris, Miller experimented with different forms of photographic techniques including the photogram and solarisation, producing many of her own Surrealist works.

In 1932 Miller returned to New York and set up a studio, taking commissions for clients such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubenstein and occasionally modelling. She married and relocated to Egypt in 1934, returning to Europe in 1939, just as Britain entered the Second World War. Unable to continue her work with American Vogue, in 1940 Miller volunteered to cover the war effort for British Vogue, contributing to monthly fashion shoots, pattern books and knitwear features focusing on women’s safety and styling during the war period. Later, her contributions evolve into journalistic coverage of the conflict and in 1944 Miller became a correspondent for the US Army, becoming one of only a few women to cover the frontline in Europe.

Like so many who experienced the war, Miller returned home scarred and likely with undiagnosed PTSD. In 1947, she married the British Surrealist artist and poet Roland Penrose and gave birth to a son, Antony. The family moved to Farleys House, a farm in the British countryside, where they continue to work and entertain their extended Surrealist friends and family, including Max Ernst, Elieen Agar, Dorothea Tanning, Picasso, Man Ray and Nusch and Paul Éluard.

Despite her depression, Miller continued to contribute to both written and photographic articles for numerous magazines, including her ongoing collaborations with Vogue. She was diagnosed with cancer in 1976 and passed away at Farleys House on 21st July 1977, aged 70. Farleys House continues to be a site of artistic and Surrealist interest, now run as a foundation and a gallery to continue the legacy of Lee Miller and Roland Penrose.

This print is from a limited edition selection of gelatin silver print photographs printed from Lee Miller's original negatives, selected by Mark Haworth-Booth, the curator of the 2007 V&A exhibition ‘The Art of Lee Miller’. They have been printed and published by the Lee Miller Archives to commemorate the centenary year of Lee Miller’s birth.