Lee Miller and Surrealism in Britain

Lee Miller and Surrealism in Britain revisits one of the most important hubs in the complex surrealist network. Through the lens of American photographer Lee Miller (1907-1977), the exhibition reveals the creative connections that emerged between British artists in the 1930s and 40s and the international surrealist network. The exhibition gathers close to 200 pieces, linking an extensive representation of Miller’s photographic work with drawings, paintings and sculptures by some of the key figures in the international surrealist circle, such as Max Ernst, Leonora Carrington, Man Ray, Yves Tanguy, Henry Moore, Eileen Agar, Roland Penrose, Salvador Dalí, Paul Nash, Giorgio de Chirico and Joan Miró. For its presentation at the Fundació Joan Miró, the show has been expanded with artworks by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Maruja Mallo, Francis Picabia, Àngel Planells and Dora Maar, who were present at the foremost surrealist exhibitions in London.

The show is the first to explore the role of photographer Lee Miller in this process. Its nine sections are built around her compelling biography. First a model and muse, she then achieved a successful career in photography, pioneering across the fields of art, fashion and journalism. The project highlights the fact that Miller played a key role and was deeply involved in shaping one of the most vibrant art scenes of the 20th century.

The exhibition opens with her early years in Paris, working as an apprentice to the surrealist photographer Man Ray, of whom she became the muse and collaborator. By 1930 Miller had her own photography studio and became a full member of the Paris surrealist scene. In this gallery, her portraits of female torsos from that period are shown next to Man Ray’s metronome Object of Destruction.

As the political situation became increasingly difficult in the interwar period, many surrealist artists flocked to London. Miller—together with her lover Roland Penrose—played a significant role in the British surrealist movement of the 1930s. In 1936, Penrose set up the first International Surrealist Exhibition in London. A considerable number of pieces from, or contemporary to, that historic exhibition are shown in this section. In 1937, Penrose orchestrated a surrealist gathering at his brother’s house in Cornwall. Lee Miller and Man Ray’s photographs captured that moment of close camaraderie with Penrose, Paul and Nusch Éluard, Leonora Carrington, Max Ernst and E.L.T. Mesens.

The group’s last exhibition, Surrealism Today, opened at London’s Zwemmer Gallery in June 1940. Miller’s travel photographs taken in Romania, Libya and Egypt were included, alongside photographs of Max Ernst and Leonora Carrington’s decorative scheme for their farmhouse in France. The photographs were seen alongside works by Henry Moore, Edith Rimmington and Roland Penrose, as shown in the sixth gallery of the exhibition. Miller’s assignments for Vogue during the Second World War traversed the boundaries of fashion and photojournalism. Miller captured the harrowing atrocities of life during wartime both in London and the European continent. An ample selection of this photographs is displayed in this gallery, revealing an enduring surrealist eye.

Later in her career, in 1953, Miller co-curated the exhibition Wonder and Horror of the Human Head, held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. Drawing attention to gendered ways of looking, and finding surprising similarities and disjunctions across diverse visual material, Miller’s approach prefigured British pop art.

Lee Miller and Surrealism in Britain is produced by The Hepworth Wakefield in collaboration with the Fundació Joan Miró, and curated by Eleanor Clayton, from the British institution. The version presented in Barcelona, sponsored by BBVA Foundation has been expanded with contributions from Martina Millà, Teresa Montaner and Sònia Villegas, from the Fundació Joan Miró. The project is complemented with an activities programme and a publication including texts by Eleanor Clayton, Hilary Floe and Patricia Allmer.