Lee Miller was one of the most extraordinary photographers of the twentieth century, famous for her portraits and devastating photographs of World War Two, as well as for her legendary beauty. An art student and a "Vogue" model, she was a close friend of artists such as Picasso, Cocteau, Max Ernst and Paul Eluard, and became a muse of Man Ray and the Parisian surrealists. One of the few female photographers to enter Hitler's Germany, she was the first to access his Munich home and among the first to document the liberation of the concentration camps. Carolyn Burke captures Lee Miller in all her complexity, unveiling the glittering art world of the thirties and forties of which she was a central figure. Meticulously researched, beautifully written, this is an enthralling account of one of the most fascinating women of her era.
| ||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Trade in Lee Miller: On Both Sides of the Camera (Bloomsbury Lives of Women) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Learn more
|
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Review
`Burke opens up the story of Lee's life. She offers many
incredible stories and passages of considerable insight'
-- Daily Mail
`Lee Miller does its perplexingly complicated subject more than
justice, adding welcome depths and nuances to the familiar legend' -- Sunday Times
`Lee Miller was an astounding woman, brought memorably to life in
this astounding book' -- Daily Telegraph
`Miller attracts a serious, and gripping biography from Carolyn
Burke' -- Boyd Tonkin, Independent
incredible stories and passages of considerable insight'
-- Daily Mail
`Lee Miller does its perplexingly complicated subject more than
justice, adding welcome depths and nuances to the familiar legend' -- Sunday Times
`Lee Miller was an astounding woman, brought memorably to life in
this astounding book' -- Daily Telegraph
`Miller attracts a serious, and gripping biography from Carolyn
Burke' -- Boyd Tonkin, Independent
About the Author
Carolyn Burke was born in Australia. A biographer, translator and art critic, she met and interviewed Lee Miller while conducting research for her previous biography, Becoming Modern: The Life of Mina Loy. Her many articles and translations from the French have appeared in such magazines as Art In America, The New Yorker, PN Review, Pink, Hemispheres, and Poetry Flash. She lives in Santa Cruz, California and spends as much time as she can in Paris.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I bought this book after watching a programme on BBC4 about Lee Miller. In terms of subject matter, it's difficult to think of a more fascinating person to be writing about. There was so much to include that at times I felt that I was being catapulted with facts when I might have preferred more in the way of emotion. As a visual person, the lengthy descriptions of photographs did not work for me, but the fact that the book included a number of images added to the context. I felt that I got to know an awful lot about Lee Miller but that I didn't actually get to know her as well as I would have liked. The romantic in me was also saddened by the fact that the story of her life with Penrose seemed to be less of a love affair between two like-minded people than I would have hoped for and perhaps reading about her distant relationship with her son was the most difficult part of all. Even harder perhaps than her childhood rape and her first impressions of the death camps at Dachau. And yet she must have been a highly charismatic and loving person to have maintained such good relationships with with ex-lovers such as Man Ray and her ex-husband Aziz. Lee Miller remains elusive, but from this insight she was obviously one hell of a woman!
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Lee Miller's life was a very interesting yet sad one in my view. She was not only very talented but very lucky to be discovered which lead from one thing to another, taking her from modeling into surrealism art, then to photography, theatre acting, journalism and her last passion was that of gourmet cooking. However her bizarre childhood is what probably turned her into a promiscuous, unsatisfied woman which led her to not only drink heavily but also attracted her and numbed her to the horrors of WWII and into its horrendous concentration camps. Her numbness also prevented her from dedicating herself to one man only resulting in several casual affairs, which probably added to her feelings of despair when she found that infidelity was also practiced by the man she spent the rest of her life with.
This story was a very interesting read, apart from the technical art explanations which I was honestly not that interested in (yawn..), about the life of a very beautiful, quite feminist for her era, charismatic woman that notable people tripped over themselves to befriend. However her life had a very dark and lonely side to it, which I found quite unsettling at times.
This biography was meticulously researched and written with great care and the author clearly appreciates not only art but different cultures.
This story was a very interesting read, apart from the technical art explanations which I was honestly not that interested in (yawn..), about the life of a very beautiful, quite feminist for her era, charismatic woman that notable people tripped over themselves to befriend. However her life had a very dark and lonely side to it, which I found quite unsettling at times.
This biography was meticulously researched and written with great care and the author clearly appreciates not only art but different cultures.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
By Carol
Format:Paperback
What a life, what a read! I love biographies anyway, but this one was enthralling, Lee Miller is a fascinating subject but it is also very well written with just enough psychological insight. Great book.
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
