Lee Miller’s War: Photographer and Correspondent with the Allies in Europe 1944-45

It was Lee Miller’s War. Her work for Vogue from 1941–45 sets her apart as a photographer of extraordinary ability, and the quality of her work from the period has long been recognized as outstanding. Its full range is shown here, accompanied by her brilliant despatches which combine deep personal involvement with professional detachment.

Complementing her writing are two hundred remarkable photographs from the Lee Miller Archives. With their surrealist irony, which at times verges on the horrific and at others on the hilarious, they show war-ravaged cities, buildings and landscapes, but above all war-resilient people – soldiers, leaders, medics, evacuees,prisoners of war, the wounded, the villains and the heroes.The horror is relieved by the spirit of post-liberation Paris, where she indulged in frivolous fashions and recorded memorable conversations with Picasso, Cocteau, Eluard, Aragon and Colette.

The book ends with Miller’s first-on-the-scene, sardonic description of Hitler’s abandoned house in Munich, and the looting and burning of his fortress at Berchtesgaden, which marked a symbolic end to the war.

David E. Scherman, the renowned war-photojournalist, shared many of these assignments with her, and has provided a fascinating foreword.