Lee Miller. Beyond the Muse. A Very Modern Woman: A Woman of Her Time Gillian Joyce Stacey A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Greenwich for the Degree of Philosophy April 2017 DECLARATION I certify that the work contained in this thesis, or any part of it, has not been accepted in substance for any previous degree awarded to me, and is not concurrently being submitted for any degree other than that of Doctor of Philosophy being studied at the University of Greenwich. I also declare that this work is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise identified by references and that the contents are not the outcome of any form of research misconduct. 17.03.2017 Gillian Stacey 17.03.2017 Dr Carolyn Brown ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To my supervisor Dr Carolyn Brown: thank you for your unwavering support and faith in me throughout the whole project. Your friendship and guidance have kept me going. Thank you also to Dr Justine Baillie, my second supervisor, for your continual support. I would also like to thank my fellow PhD students, Patricia and particularly Stephanie, whose friendship and wise words have helped me through the journey. Thank you to my friends and all at the TF. To Tracy, Sarah and Maz: your friendship has kept me levelled and your encouragement has helped me complete the journey. Thank you to my family. Your belief in me and your support have been invaluable. I owe everything to you. iii ABSTRACT Fashion model, surrealist artist, muse, photographer, and war correspondent. This discourse of simple transition from model to war correspondent, influenced by Antony Penrose and the Miller estate, has dominated the reading of Miller‟s life and work, as exemplified by the Imperial War Museum‟s exhibition (15 October 2015 – 24 April 2016). This thesis challenges the dominant view of Lee Miller as defined by the familial discourse and its associated narrative arc of trauma, success and decline. It emphasises her years in Egypt and the Balkans as being formative of her engagement with documenting life and with contemporary technological and artistic developments. This provides a way to understand not only her extraordinary work as a war correspondent for Vogue but also her much-neglected work in the post-war era. I examine Miller‟s post-war writings (and practices) on domesticity, cooking and consumerism with regard to contemporary discourses in order to demonstrate how she negotiated a new life as mother and wife and reworked her own artistic practice alongside the contemporary art movements of Fluxus and nouveau réalisme. By placing Miller in a context, which emphasises her lived American and Egyptian experience, her engagement with the developments in photography, her writings as a war correspondent, and by exploring how she negotiated the challenges of her years at Farley Farm, I offer a far more complex and positive account than those of the accepted and established discourses. iv CONTENTS FIGURES .................................................................................................................................... vii Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1 The Spirit of Versatility ............................................................................................................... 1 Mythologising Miller ................................................................................................................... 5 A Very Modern Woman: A Woman of Her Time..................................................................... 12 Beyond the Muse ....................................................................................................................... 22 1. Invitations to Other Spaces .................................................................................................. 30 1.1. Miller‟s Manhattan Studio .............................................................................................. 37 1.2. A Different Perspective .................................................................................................. 42 1.3. Miller‟s Photography as Social Documentary ................................................................ 58 1.4. Other Apertures ............................................................................................................... 72 1.5. Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 74 2. Women, War and Work ....................................................................................................... 75 2.1. Fashion, Femininity and War .......................................................................................... 81 2.2. Documenting Women‟s War Work ................................................................................ 96 2.3. Women‟s Civilian Work ................................................................................................. 99 2.4. Women in the Armed Forces ........................................................................................ 104 2.5. Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 113 3. Writing the War: Combat, Civilians and Collaborators ................................................ 114 3.1. The Femme Soldat ........................................................................................................ 119 3.2. The Liberation of Europe .............................................................................................. 125 3.3. Documenting the Impact of War................................................................................... 127 3.4. France, Freedom and Fashion ....................................................................................... 130 3.5. Germany, Death Camps and Berchtesgaden ................................................................. 134 3.6. Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 143 4. Fashion, Food and Farley Farm: Discourses on Domesticity ......................................... 146 4.1. “The High Bed”: A Desiring and Desirable Maternal Body ........................................ 154 4.2. Men in the Kitchen: Negotiating Domesticity, Gender and Identity ............................ 166 4.3. Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 171 5. “Working Guests”: Farley Farm as Social Space Creating New Modes of Living ...... 173 5.1. The Role of Hostess ...................................................................................................... 178 5.2. Miller‟s Artistry at the Farm: Conviviality, Conversation and Creativity .................... 185 5.3. Establishing an Egalitarian Community ....................................................................... 191 v 5.4. Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 201 6. Lee Miller’s Cooking: Negotiating Food, Austerity and the Avant-garde .................... 203 6.1. A Tale of Two Cooks: “Spicing it up” in Austerity Britain ......................................... 210 6.2. Cooking as Artistic Practice ......................................................................................... 222 6.3. Food, Fluxus and the Avant-Garde ............................................................................... 228 6.4. Friends, Food and Eat Art ............................................................................................. 235 6.5. Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 240 7. Revisioning Lee Miller: Her Life and Legacy .................................................................. 243 7.1. Miller on Film ............................................................................................................... 243 7.2. “What They See in the Cinema”: Art, Auteurism and Autonomy ................................ 245 7.3. Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 252 8. Lee Miller: A Reconsideration .......................................................................................... 253 8.1. Reflections .................................................................................................................... 254 References................................................................................................................................... 260 Appendix .................................................................................................................................... 288 Miller‟s Recipes ....................................................................................................................... 288 Creative Cuisine ...................................................................................................................... 304 vi FIGURES Figure 1 Lee Miller, Detail of Joseph Cornell, New York Studio, New York, USA, 1933, Lee Miller Archives. 39 Figure 2 Lee Miller, Cosmetics in Colour, New York Studio, New York, USA, c.1934, Lee Miller Archives. 41 Figure 3 Lee Miller, Untitled, Greece, 1938, Lee