I went to the Lee Miller exhibition at Tate Britain in London this week. I have recently finished reading her life story, written by her son Anthony Penrose
Lee Miller was a Vogue magazine model and fashion photographer and also during WW2 a photo journalist, she had quite a career.
Originally from New York, born in 1907, she eventually married and settled in England and died in East Sussex in 1977.
The exhibition is excellent and if you get a chance to visit it before the middle of February 2026 I highly recommend it.
The exhibition is split up into 11 ‘rooms’ each one covering a different period of her life and the different themes of her photography career. One of the things I noticed with her work is how film stock and processing improved.
Comparing the images taken in the 1930’s to ones in the late 1940’s/early 1950’s the grain is much finer and the images much sharper as time went on.
Lee experimented with early versions of Kodachrome, these images stood out as nearly all the images shown are black and white.
I treated myself to the exhibition catalogue which will be a lovely reminder of a memorable visit.