Long description:

Lee Miller not only Man Rays muse, but above all 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 went through life with passion and determination and life repaid her with love and friends, but also with pain and posthumous, or at least tardy, acknowledgement.

Through approximately 140 photographs by Lee Miller and Man Ray, some objects dart, and video documents loaned by Lee Miller Archives and Fondazione Marconi, this book intends to do justice to this woman as beautiful as she was clever and talented, taking her out of Man Rays 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), and document the effect they both had on each other and how it inspired their work.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition in Venice, the volume features texts by the curator, Ami Bouhassane (Millers grand-daughter), and Anthony Penrose (Millers son). Moreover it includes portraits by Man Ray of friends and important protagonists of the period (Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, Giorgio de Chirico, Jean Cocteau, Salvador Dalí), as well as surrealist shots of Lee Miller in which she seeks to investigate and reveal her soul and torments.