Q&A | ‘It’s the largest present that is ever been executed on Miller however we may have crammed it eight instances over’

Hilary Floe is the curator of the biggest retrospective of photographer Lee Miller ever held, which is at Tate Britain till 15 February 2026.

Miller, who was born in 1907 in New York State, initially studied portray and stage design, earlier than her time as an expert mannequin impressed her to pursue pictures. During her a profession she travelled throughout Europe and Africa, creating photographs that featured in vogue magazines, newspapers, artwork books and photojournalism publications.

Her work spanned struggle reportage, portraiture, landscapes and way more. She labored with figures such because the surrealist Man Ray and film-maker Jean Cocteau and was pals with artists resembling Isamu Noguchi, Dorothea Tanning and Henry Moore.

The exhibition at Tate Britain consists of about 230 classic and trendy prints, a few of that are on show for the primary time. These are introduced alongside archive materials, together with examples of the various magazines the place Miller’s work appeared.

Why does Lee Miller resonate with individuals at this time?

Well, she had a unprecedented life, and went in all places and knew everybody. She had a present for being the place it was taking place and was working by means of among the most turbulent a long time of the twentieth century, instances which have formed our society at this time.

The recent film with Kate Winslet shed an actual highlight a selected chapter of her life, from 1944 to 1945, when she was a struggle correspondent in Europe and whereas it’s a crucial a part of her work, it’s solely a fraction of her profession. Biographical remedies resembling this have stirred a variety of curiosity in her however I believe what’s truly barely forgotten typically is her images.

She made superb work and was ready to do that as a result of she was so charismatic, clever, decided and fearless, and in addition so alive to incongruity, the surprising and the uncanny. It’s the largest present that is ever been executed on her however we may have crammed it eight instances over.

The high quality of her work could be very excessive and what we tried to do is choose photographs that present her at her most artistic, regardless of the style that she was working in, whether or not that is vogue, panorama, documentary pictures or portraits of fellow artists. And once you take a look at her most artistic work collectively, what you see is a really highly effective inventive imaginative and prescient that unifies all of these completely different our bodies of labor.

What will guests study from the exhibition?

I assume it relies upon what sort of information of her they’re coming with. I hope that lots of people might know nearly nothing about her after they come, as a result of they’re in for an unbelievable deal with. This is a good artist with so much to say. Her work is humane, accessible and playful. It’s additionally deceptively easy, however layered with that means.

And she documented fairly fascinating instances and locations, so we see the twentieth century by means of her eyes on this type of wild trip. There’s additionally a variety of completely different entry factors to the work, whether or not you include an curiosity in social historical past, army historical past, vogue, surrealism, journalism or movie. 

Can you inform us in regards to the Lee Miller archive?

It’s monumental – there’s one thing like 60,000 prints and negatives within the archive. But we have additionally introduced collectively works from different collections as a result of, even with the scale of the archive, it is not complete. I do not assume Lee Miller was a pure archivist, and wasn’t somebody who had meticulous submitting programs. She moved round a lot that I believe a few of her negatives and prints have simply bought misplaced through the years.

So we have borrowed from collections within the US and Europe and it has been beautiful to reunite issues once more. Lee’s son and granddaughter are seeing some works for the primary time, which is de facto joyous.

Away from the images, what different materials within the archive was helpful in creating the exhibition?

We’ve taken a reasonably restrained strategy, I assume as a result of we’re making an attempt to take a look at her life by means of her work, somewhat than her work by means of her life. We’re making an attempt to inform the story of the art work itself, so we did not wish to crowd it out but it surely felt actually vital to have some issues.

We have two movies and we now have quite a few magazines that illustrate how her works appeared in print, notably when she was working for Vogue. And we have her uniform as a result of we wished to herald that skilled id, that she was an accredited struggle correspondent and a member of the army.

And we included her digital camera as a result of we wished to remind those that this was very analogue. The method she made images was very completely different to how we make images at this time.

So we now have included some materials in show circumstances however we’ve executed that very selectively as a result of, above all, we wish individuals to take a look at the images.

How does the accompanying publication help the exhibition?

There’s so much within the book that we could not probably match within the exhibition – all of these years of analysis needed to go someplace.

We’ve bought great contributing writers. Deborah Levy, the novelist and critic, has written one thing actually stunning and private about her relationship to the work. Damarice Amao, a pictures curator in Paris, has written one thing great about Egypt and that interval of Miller’s life within the context of colonialism and its legacies.

Saskia Flower, the assistant curator, and I, labored on a chronology that we managed to compress down from 35,000 phrases to a mere 11,000 phrases. Weirdly, there’s by no means been a type of absolutely scholarly referenced chronology of Miller’s life and work.

And we found so many fascinating tidbits, resembling unknown publications, exhibitions and media appearances. And so hopefully will probably be a helpful useful resource for the long run.

It is surprisingly good enjoyable to learn, in my view, simply because Miller is such an fascinating, fascinating and vigorous character that it is like: “Oh my gosh, what’s she doing now?”

Project information

Supporters Lee Miller Exhibition Supporters Circle, Tate International Council, Tate Patrons, Tate Photography Acquisitions Committee, Tate Americas Foundation and Tate Members

Museum companions Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris; Art Institute of Chicago

Exhibition design Gatti Routh Rhodes

Book design A Practice for Everyday Life