Lee miller (The University of Chicago Press)

Lee Miller's life embodied all the contradictions and complications of the twentieth century: a model and photographer, muse and reporter, sexual adventurer and domestic goddess, she was also America's first female war correspondent. Carolyn Burke, a biographer and art critic, here reveals how the muse who inspired Man Ray, Cocteau, and Picasso could be the same person who unflinchingly photographed the horrors of Buchenwald and Dachau. Burke captures all the verve and energy of Miller's life, from her early childhood trauma to her stint as a Vogue model and art-world ingenue, from her harrowing years as a war correspondent to her unconventional marriages and passion for gourmet cooking. A lavishly illustrated story of art and beauty, sex and power, modernism and surrealism, "Lee Miller" illuminates an astonishing woman's journey from art object to artist. This title is National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist.