Viva Brighton Issue #50 April 2017

PHOTOGRAPHY
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Lee Miller
Carole Callow, Archive Curator
“Most people see her from
the outside, as a model, a
fashion and portrait photographer,
a war correspondent,
a gourmet cook and hostess,”
says Carole Callow, of Lee
Miller, who was, indeed, all of
those things.
Miller worked either side of
the camera for Vogue in the
20s, experimented with surrealism
with her lover Man Ray
in the 30s, became Vogue’s war
photographer and correspondent in Europe in the
40s, and ended up hosting a number of celebrity
artist friends in Farleys House, Chiddingly, where
she lived with her husband, the surrealist painter
Roland Penrose, until her death in 1977.
“But because I’ve got to know her more intimately,
through her photographs, I feel I know her from
the inside, through her eyes,” she continues. “Like
a friend I never met.”
For 35 years Carole has been responsible for the
Lee Miller archive, a collection of 60,000 negatives
which she has had sole responsibility for printing,
in a period in which Miller’s star has risen dramatically.
When Carole started the job, in 1982, the
American was a largely forgotten figure; now
her work regularly features in major exhibitions
around the world.
Carole’s involvement with the project was serendipitous.
“I got a job as a home help at Antony and
Susanna Penrose’s house in Chiddingly. On my
first day I found some black and white photographic
prints hung on the line to dry. Later that
morning over coffee, I revealed to Susanna that in
previous years I worked in a photographer’s studio,
and was familiar with darkroom techniques. This
came at a point when Antony was overwhelmed
with trying to document
and archive the photos.”
Since then, every official
modern print of a Lee
Miller photograph has
been created by Carole’s
hand, utilizing the original
wet process in the darkroom
or, more recently,
created digitally with
Carole’s guidance.
“My favourite period in
Lee’s career was when
she lived in Egypt between 1933 and 1939 with
her first husband. For the first time she wasn’t
shooting for commercial purposes. My favourite?
Portrait of Space, the only print on my wall at
home, gifted to me after 25 years in the job.”
Seeing Lee Miller’s world through Lee Miller’s
eyes hasn’t always been easy for Carole, who
retires in June. The photographer was extremely
damaged by the experiences she went through
during and after the war. Particularly traumatic
was the liberation of Dachau in April 1945. “It
was only after a camp survivor came to Farleys
House some years ago, that the emotional reality
hit home,” says Carole. “He told us how he met
Lee, and showed us a packet of cigarettes she had
signed for him. Suddenly I thought, ‘this is real,
it’s not just photos’. It hit me that they were depictions
of events that Lee had witnessed, and been
tremendously moved by. They started affecting
me even more profoundly, just as Lee had seen
through her lens.”
Alex Leith
Lee Miller Archives Print Room Sale, Friends Meeting
House. Part of Artists’ Open Houses festival,
weekends only, May 13th-21st, free entry.
Collectors evening, May 19th. leemiller.co.uk
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