Vogue photographer's World War II
"Lee Miller: A Woman's War," a new major exhibition at the Imperial War Museum (IWM) in London, on display until April 24, 2016, highlights Vogue model-turned-WW II photographer Lee Miller's view of women's experiences in World War II, on the 70th anniversary of the war's end.
The American-born Miller made the leap to photography after being a Vogue cover girl and one of New York's top models in the 1920s. She lived a glamorous and exotic life, picked up a camera, trained with Surrealist Man Ray and later went on to document terrible scenes of death and destruction during the war, including the London Blitz and stark images of the liberation of Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps. She was one of only four women photographers who received official military accreditation as war correspondents by the U.S. during WW II.
Photo - Lee Miller in Hitler's bathtub in his apartment in Munich, Germany, 1945. The photo was taken by Life Photographer David E. Scherman, Miller's companion during the war, later in the day after Miller entered Dachau with American forces on April 29.
"Lee Miller: A Woman's War"
Fire Masks, Downshire Hill in London, England 1941
In the bathtub photo, one can see her muddy combat boots on the bathmat and a photo of Hitler on the edge of the tub. Miller's son, Anthony Penrose, describes the image as one in which she was "sticking two fingers up at Hitler." He told the Telegraph, "On the floor are her boots, covered with the filth of Dachau, which she has trodden all over Hitler's bathroom floor. She is saying she is the victor. But what she didn't know was that a few hours later in Berlin, Hitler and Eva Braun would kill themselves in his bunker."
"Lee Miller: A Woman's War"
A woman accused of collaborating with the Germans, Rennes, France 1944
The exhibition includes many previously unpublished photos as well as artifacts and papers. Among those items are some belonging to Hitler's mistress Eva Braun, including Braun's powder compact and a large Art Deco-style perfume bottle, which Miller took from Hitler's apartment.
Though a fashion magazine, Vogue appointed her their war correspondent and published her images, including horrific ones of the Holocaust. One well known photo in the exhibition is of a group of women forced into prostitution in Dachau.
"Lee Miller: A Woman's War"
Irmgard Seefried, Opera singer, singing an aria from 'Madame Butterfly', Vienna Opera House, 1945.
After the war, Miller continued to work for Vogue for two years photographing fashion and celebrities. According to the magazine, though, she suffered badly from clinical depression, later known as PTSD, and alcoholism after the war.
Miller's son, Anthony Penrose, actually grew up with no knowledge of his mother's career as a photographer and war correspondent. His wife Suzanna discovered around 60,000 of his mother's prints, negatives and articles in the attic of the family's home in East Sussex, England in 1972.
Since the discovery, Penrose has promoted his mother's photography through exhibitions and archived much of her work online.
"Lee Miller: A Woman's War"
Published in conjunction with the exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, the book tells the story of women whose lives were affected by World War II.
Miller died of cancer at the age of 70 in East Sussex, England in 1977.
The Imperial War Museum exhibition, Lee Miller: A Woman's War, is open until April 24, 2016.
For more of Miller's photos: Lee Miller Archives
By CBSNews.com senior photo editor Radhika Chalasani