| Femmes Fatales | Apr 17 2018 |
She was one Man's ray of light.
This is a fantastic shot. One reason it caught our eye is that we've seen other photos with lacy shadows substituting for lingerie, but this one from 1930 may be the originator of the illusion. The person you see is Lee Miller. She was born in 1907 and became a fashion model in New York City during the late 1920s, before traveling to Paris with the intent of meeting the legendary photographer Man Ray. She succeeded and became his muse, lover, and frequent subject, as evidenced by this photo, which is his work.
Miller was widely acknowledged as one of the great beauties of her era, but modeling was not her career goal. Her plan had always been to become a photographer. Thus in addition to the other facets of her relationship with Ray, she also apprenticed for him. After absorbing what
he had to share she eventually went on to shoot acclaimed World War II photos, some of them during perilous live combat, and documented the liberation of the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps, helping expose Nazi atrocities to the world.
he had to share she eventually went on to shoot acclaimed World War II photos, some of them during perilous live combat, and documented the liberation of the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps, helping expose Nazi atrocities to the world. In mid-1945 she was in Munich shooting images of the immediate aftermath of the war and posed for a nude shot in Adolf Hitler's bathtub. Yeah—Hitler. Her son, Antony Penrose, later said of the shot, “I think she was sticking two fingers up at Hitler. On the floor are her boots, covered with the filth of Dachau, which she has trodden all over Hitler’s bathroom floor. She is saying she is the victor.”
The photo was of course controversial, but Miller was a pure artist, always willing to make observers see the world in a new way—through her trained eye. So while the shot at top could be seen as reductive of a complex and accomplished personality, it actually reveals an important aspect of who she was—a daring, multi-faceted woman to whom convention was merely a challenge. And it's an overwhelmingly beautiful shot besides.
ParisNew York CityWorld War IIBuchenwaldDachauLee MillerMan RayEmmanuel RadnitzkyAntony PenroseAdolf Hitlernudity
| Vintage Pulp | Jan 31 2011 |
Seeing the world in shades of Ray.
Above is the cover and several interior pages from Paris Magazine, an erotic and art publication from France. This one was published in January 1935 and features the work of the legendary photographer Man Ray in panels three, four and five. Man Ray spent most of his adult life in Paris, specifically the Montparnasse district where he had a home, but he was actually American, born Emmanuel Radnitzky in the U.S. in 1890. He moved overseas when he was thirty-one, relocated to L.A. when World War II broke out, but returned to Paris in 1951 and lived there until his death in 1976.
