This autumn, Tate Britain is presenting the UK’s largest-ever retrospective of Lee Miller, a photographer whose life and work proceed to fascinate and encourage photographers.
Operating till February 15, 2026, it brings collectively round 230 prints, unseen archive supplies, and numerous ephemera, tracing Miller’s extraordinary evolution from surrealist muse to battle correspondent and visionary artist in her personal proper.
When you’ve learn my earlier items on the movie Lee or the current books that discover her life, you’ll already know I think about her some of the important figures in Twentieth-century pictures. This exhibition feels just like the second she takes up the house she deserves, not simply as Man Ray’s muse or as a Vogue mannequin, however as one of many nice trendy photographers.
Born in New York in 1907, Miller’s life reads like fiction: mannequin, surrealist, photojournalist, battle correspondent. After being photographed by the likes of Edward Steichen and Cecil Beaton, she switched sides of the digicam and moved to Paris, working with Man Ray, the place collectively they explored solarisation, a way that gave strange portraits a spectral, dreamlike high quality.
Tate might be displaying the newly found Sirène (Nimet Eloui Bey), which completely captures that alchemy of likelihood and management that outlined early surrealist pictures.
However what’s most fun about this exhibition is the way it reframes Miller’s work past surrealism. Her pictures of Parisian streets, Egyptian deserts, and Cairo interiors reveal a curiosity and a thoughts consistently looking for kind and which means on the planet round her. Her 1937 picture, Portrait of House, taken within the Siwa Oasis, stays one of many defining pictures of recent pictures, a literal and metaphorical window into her approach of seeing.
When the battle broke out, she reinvented herself but once more. Transferring to London, Miller started working for British Vogue, documenting life in the course of the Blitz with a way of irony and realism. Images like Hearth Masks (1941) present her potential to seek out magnificence and absurdity in chaos.
Later, as one of many few accredited feminine battle correspondents, she documented the liberation of Europe, producing pictures that also hang-out and outline the visible reminiscence of that period.
Her most well-known {photograph}, the portrait of herself bathing in Hitler’s bathtub, taken in Munich in 1945, stays some of the highly effective and sophisticated self-portraits of the Twentieth century. It’s a chunk of efficiency and journalism multi functional body.
However what I discover most inspiring about Lee Miller isn’t just her work, however her adaptability. She reinvented herself consistently, with out apology. She may transfer between style, artwork, and battle with out dropping her voice, one thing I feel all photographers can be taught from in an age that calls for we match into neat classes.
When you’re in London earlier than 15 February 2026, Lee Miller on the Tate Britain is a must-see. It’s an opportunity to expertise the complete breadth of Miller’s imaginative and prescient. I extremely suggest reserving prematurely so you may choose the very best timeslot on your go to.
