My Fascination with Lee Miller

Tosh's Journal: September 17, 2023

The way Lee Miller sits down is remarkable. I have this fetish for women wearing see-through clothes, but when photographed, they cover their crotch area with their hands or arms. I’m presuming that the photograph is by Man Ray, but I'm unsure. Like many, I take images off the Internet, and they usually don’t credit the photograph. And the above photo is remarkable in that it conveys a mixture of strength, ego, and eros of the sitter.

2024 promises to be the year of Lee Miller for those who are fascinated with an individual who was very much part of 20th-century aesthetics as well as growing into another figure of bravery and, of course, a combination of stunning photographs that she took as well as her being the ultimate subject matter for Man Ray and Jean Cocteau. Two different types of men focused on Miller’s stance and presence. And one feels that they needed her more than she needed them. That is a beautiful quality in a person.

When one thinks of Man Ray, one should think of it as a brand name because Lee Miller contributed her work to the American artist’s photographic techniques and aesthetic choices. As a writer, I do write my works, but I often feel like it’s a collaboration between me and my subject matters, whether they are alive or dead. I take the world and place it as a foundation. I add individual traits and a writing style, but if it’s a published work, such as my memoir, an outside editor (City Lights’ Garrett Caples) helps ‘frame’ the manuscript to make it better. Sometimes, the writer of that text can’t see the forest because that one tree blocks their view of the landscape. Andy Warhol is another prominent collaborator with other voices that enter his work. One can argue how much influence or creative work is involved with a named artist, but all art is a work of collaboration.

I find it fascinating that Lee Miller went from Fashion photography to documenting the war in Europe. And I’m interested in that bridge from both worlds. As well as her working with Man Ray and Edward Steichen, it’s quite a journey as an artist/journalist. The photographic work continued with her future husband, Roland Penrose, a critical British Surrealist figure who was an artist. Still, he and Miller set up a social world in which many avant-garde artists of that time could communicate and socialize within that world. In truth, I wish I had lived those times to ask Lee Miller to be my girlfriend: alias, wrong timing, and wrong world.