Lee Miller and her sisterhood

Lee Miller had a wonderful network of women around her throughout her life.

Often framed for her achievements by the male artists that Lee Miller inspired and worked with this talk looks at her sisterhood. Some were friendships from her childhood, or professional relationships with women also working, or in a similar situation, others simply shared her love of creativity. Not all were lifelong friends but many played an important part in Lee's life and career, inspiring, advising, collaborating and being there for her in more difficult times. Some of these friendships were unexpected like the close bond she had with her husband’s first wife, the Surrealist poet Valentine Penrose (nee Boué), or incredibly powerful like her working relationship with British Vogue editor Audrey Withers. There are also those that were based on an artistic understanding or a mixture of things like her friendship with Dorothea Tanning.

Different kinds of friendships, that together helped Lee Miller in becoming the legendary figure she is today:

The model that made it to the other side of the camera, in Lee's photographic career shooting fashion, pack shots and portraits she had work published in Vogue within a year of becoming a photographer. Lee had her own successful studios in Paris in the early 1930s and then in New York 1932-1934. During WWII she bore the weight of being British Vogues main fashion photographer for 4.5 years before going to Europe after D-Day to report on the Allied advance. In Lee's own work she protests against the comodification of women, records extensively the women’s war efforts and observes their suffering on the front in Europe.

This 45 minute illustrated talk by Ami Bouhassane, Lee Miller's granddaughter and Co-director of the Lee Miller Archives will be followed by a Q&A.