Man Ray and Lee Miller

Man Ray was an incredibly creative and imaginative artist with an adventurous life made up of many fascinating stories.
Exhibitions and publications have been dedicated to his artistic and human life, allowing us, over time, to discover some of the women portrayed by Man Ray and among them is Lee Miller.

Certainly Man Ray was not an easy man and his affair with the famous Kiki de Montparnasse is full of episodes involving jealous outbursts on his part.
More or less the same script is repeated with Lee Miller!

They met in the summer of 1929 and stayed together for three years, changing the history of photography.
Man Ray was already an established and famous artist, while Lee Miller was a young American model who had decided to go to the other side of the lens and managed to become the assistant to what was considered the most famous photographer and artist.
Man Ray was the key to entering the world of photography!

After a year, Lee Miller was moving with ease in her master’s studio, was able to take over from him in the preparation of the shoot, looked after the models and worked in the darkroom. Man Ray encouraged her and entrusted her with important work.
During these three years of cohabitation, work and love, the ‘discovery’ of solarisation also occurred, i.e. a tonal inversion where certain parts of the negative (the solarised ones) turn out to be positive after development.
In reality, solarisation had already been known for some time, but Man Ray began to use it as an aesthetic effect.
Much has been written about which of the two made the invention possible. It seems, in fact, that Lee Miller was in the darkroom and feeling something crawling on his foot he panicked, switched on the light and solarised the film. From that moment they began experimenting with the technique, trying to achieve artistic effects.
Lee Miller’s solarised face is one of the most incredible results.

By this point in their journey together Lee Miller had grown up and was much more than a pupil. She was able to invent and find creative solutions independently, but above all, she was growing her reputation in art circles.
The independence of women was always resented by Man Ray!

When Jean Cocteau, another master of Surrealism, asked Lee Miller to act in his film ‘Le sang d’un poète’, quarrels and scenes became frequent and violent.
The epilogue could only be the separation and the end of a love affair, but above all of an extraordinary artistic union.
From those three years we are left with masterpieces in which light is used like a paintbrush … works of art painted with light.
What do you think? I await your comments and contributions 🙂