Bucket list: Britain 2

I first delved into the Lee Miller archive when producing a film on Picasso. Miller intrigued me-the precocious muse of her father (his infamous shot of her in the bathtub), then of Man Ray, then of art historian and writer Roland Penrose, but also very much her own person--a serious war photographer (she captured Hitler's bunker after his death).

Miller has walked the precarious walk of the muse who was subsumed for a while as just that. As Man Ray's lover and disciple she wasn't recognized for the talent she herself was for a long time. An exhibition on her fashion photography in a new industrial space across from her home in Sussex, Farleys House (which, like the Bloomsbury Charleston House, looks to be a splendid 'worth a detour")shows that she was even able to incorporate the Surrealist 'Rayograph" techniques she had developed with Man in her fashion work for British Vogue. This image Corsetry, from 1942, just one example.

The last Miller show at the Legion of Honor in SF in 2012 was revelatory as well but it was about Man and Miller; this will add to the solo scholarship about this beautiful, alluring woman who was able to transcend that beauty.

Copyright Lee Miller Archives, Solarised photographs, London