Lee Miller. Man Ray

Lee Miller. Man Ray not only showcases Lee Miller as Man Ray's muse, but above all highlights her as a professional in her own right.

Model, photographer, muse, the first female war correspondent to report the horrors of the concentration camps liberated by American troops, and 20th-century icon. Lee Miller was all this and much more. She navigated life with passion and determination, and life repaid her with love and friendship, but also with pain and a posthumous, or at least belated, acknowledgement.

Through approximately 140 photographs by Lee Miller and Man Ray, along with some objets d'art and video documents loaned by Lee Miller Archives and Fondazione Marconi, this book aims to do justice to this woman who was as beautiful as she was clever and talented, taking her out of Man Ray's overpowering shadow. It will reveal a deep but complicated relationship more objectively (Man Ray was first her teacher, then lover, and in the end friend), documenting the effect they had on each other and how it inspired their work.

Published for the occasion of the exhibition in Venice, the volume features texts by the curator, Ami Bouhassane (Miller's granddaughter), and Anthony Penrose (Miller's son). It also includes portraits by Man Ray of friends and important figures of the period, such as Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, Giorgio de Chirico, Jean Cocteau, Salvador Dalí, as well as surrealist shots of Lee Miller where she seeks to investigate and reveal her soul and torments.