WWII Captured by Acclaimed Female Photojournalist

February 2007

WWII Captured by Acclaimed Female Photojournalist

Lee Miller was one of the most extraordinary photographers of the twentieth century. In a career spanning more than three decades, she illuminated that century's darkest and most shameful episodes as well as portraying many of its creative and liberating geniuses, including Picasso.

Opening at the Tamaki Gallery at Auckland Museum on the 26th of March Lee Miller’s War is a moving selection of images from her time as the war correspondent for, among others, Vogue and Life magazines. In a time when women were forbidden from partaking in sharing the theatre of war with the world, Lee Miller captured some of the most enduring images of the greatest conflict the world has ever known.

A revolutionary of the lens and society’s expectations of her gender, Miller would have turned 100 on April 23. A portraitist and fashion photographer, by accident she found herself with the unexpected title of the first female photojournalist to report from the front lines of World War II at the siege of St Malo. Her captions from the time describe the old French beauty spot as riddled with “unexploded shells and fetid cloying smells.’

As the war progressed, she found herself following the Allied advance, covering the liberation of Paris and the march into Germany. Encountering the newly-liberated concentration camp of Dachau, she took an iconic photograph of a recently deceased SS guard floating in the canal beside Dachau, the sun glimmering on the water, rippling over his peaceful profile and bullet ridden leather coat.

When Munich was over-run, Miller allowed a moment to herself – captured in a photograph of a no-nonsense Miller, boots and uniform discarded, having a long-awaited scrub in Hitler’s bath in Munich.

After the war, Miller continued to work for Vogue, and produced the photographs for her husband, Roland Penrose, biographies of Picasso, Miro, Man Ray and the Tapies. Penrose has since become known as one of England’s earliest champion of Modern Art and his influence, and hers, is shown through striking pictures.
LEE MILLER’S WAR opens to the public from 26 March – 17 June in the Tamaki Gallery at Auckland Museum

PRICE: Free event
For more info visit the news and media section of the website www.aucklandmuseum.com

ENDS

© Scoop Media