Step into the life and work of Lee Miller at Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen

From 21 November 2023 to 18 February 2024, Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen presents Lee Miller in Print, a special exhibition and book about the fascinating published oeuvre of photographer and Surrealist Lee Miller.

Lee Miller (1907-1977) was in print all her life and reinvented herself again and again. Her life and work coincided with numerous social developments: photography, Surrealism, magazines and feminism, even the role of mental health: after witnessing the horrors of the Second World War, Miller sank into a depression but later returned to the spotlight once more, this time as a Surrealist cook and cookery writer.

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It is well-established that Lee Miller progressed from model and muse to become a Surrealist artist and photographer and that she reported from the front as a war correspondent during the Second World War. Saskia van Kampen-Prein, curator at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, has spent years researching Miller’s life and work to reveal the lesser-known fact that her oeuvre developed primarily though images published in countless magazines. The exhibition in Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen features dozens of examples from wide-circulation fashion magazines such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar and limited-edition Surrealist periodicals from the interwar years. The accompanying book provides an overview of Miller’s life and her career in print.  

Lee Miller in Print

The book Lee Miller in Print is published by Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and is designed by Hans Gremmen, who has also designed the exhibition in Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen. The publication reflects Saskia van Kampen-Prein’s research and contains essays by an international group of experts and is lavishly illustrated with more than ninety photographs. The book will be presented on Friday, 24 November 2023 in Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen. Journalists can register for the launch via persberichten@boijmans.nl with the subject: ‘Lee Miller in Print, 24 November 2023’.

The exhibition Lee Miller in Print can be seen at Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam from 21 November 2023 to 18 February 2024. The accompanying book, Lee Miller in Print, is published on 7 November 2023 and is available from the Depot, the museum’s webshop and from specialist bookshops.