Lee Miller's War

Lee Miller's War highlights Lee Miller's work for Vogue from 1941-1945, establishing her as a photographer and writer of extraordinary ability. The quality of her photography from this period has long been recognised as outstanding, and its full range is showcased here, accompanied by her brilliant despatches.

Starting with her first report from a field hospital soon after D-Day, the despatches and nearly 160 photographs reveal war-ravaged cities, buildings, and landscapes, but above all, they portray the war-resilient people—soldiers, leaders, medics, evacuees, prisoners of war, the wounded, the villains, and the heroes.

The raw edge of combat is depicted at the siege of St Malo and in the bitterly fought Alsace campaign. The disbelief and outrage Miller describes on witnessing the victims of Dachau are palpable. The war's horror is alleviated by the spirit of post-liberation Paris, where she indulged in frivolous fashions and recorded memorable conversations with Picasso, Cocteau, Eluard, Aragon, and Colette.

The book concludes with Miller's first-on-the-scene report, providing a sardonic description of Hitler's abandoned house in Munich, and the looting and burning of his alpine fortress at Berchtesgaden, marking a symbolic end to the war.

David E. Scherman, the renowned war photojournalist who shared many of Miller's assignments, contributes a foreword.