The MODERN WOMEN ARTISTS collection is a series published by Eiderdown Books to outline an alternative history of art.
The books reveal the story of important female artists whose art might otherwise be overlooked, overshadowed or forgotten. Working across a range of disciplines and artistic styles in the first half of the twentieth century, all of the women included in this series were 'modern'.
Read together, these books begin to redress the untold history of modern art.
No 5: LEE MILLER by Ami Bouhassane
Lee Miller (1907-1977) was a fashion model, a photo-journalist and an artist who captured extraordinary moments of modern life.
As model and muse, Miller is too often only considered through the lens of the men she knew and loved. Yet she was an artist who forged her own path and who built a career which overturned expected social stereotypes. Her photography explored in her own unique way the objectification of the female form, and later documented the experience of women during the Second World War.
A contemporary of the British Surrealists, Miller’s contribution to the group is explored in this introduction to her work, as is her involvement in the development of the photographic technique of solorisation, previously solely attributed to Man Ray. Capturing some of the most enduring images of the early twentieth century, Miller’s work offers a record for our times.