Lee Miller: Portraits from a Life

This collection of over 150 photographs chronicles the model-turned-freelance photographer's distinctive 30-year career, from her beginnings as a portraitist with Man Ray, through her long association with Vogue magazine. Two-thirds of Miller's oeuvre consists of portraits; while most here are of famous artists and writers (Rene Magritte, Pablo Picasso, Ivy Compton-Burnette), the most arresting portraits come from her work as a WWII photoreporter for Vogue (at the time, Vogue was one of the leading publications for war coverage). Miller's frontal-view compositions reveal her frank and unflinching attitude toward the world around her; the disturbing close-ups of female collaborators in Paris and the smashed nose of an SS prison guard in Buchenwald repel even as they compel. Calvocoressi, the director of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, introduces the book, suggesting that the ""ability to elicit feelings of disgust and sympathy at the same time is arguably what makes Miller and other war photographers... great artists."" Her greatest accomplishments, Calvocoressi maintains, are her portraits of Picasso, which were produced over a 20-year period; she catches the artist, Calvocoressi writes, ""absorbed in some activity, unselfconscious rather than posing."" Gathered for the first time in this collection, Miller's work deserves a studied glance. 157 b&w illus.