From Vogue model to war photographer

Miller in 1944. Copyright Lee Miller Archive.

Lee Miller graced Vogue and counted Picasso among her friends, but also saw the worst of humanity photographing the Nazi camps, as shown in a new exhibition.

Photographer Lee Miller lead an extraordinary life which saw her on the cover of Vogue and standing at the gates of Dachau concentration camp.

	:	Vogue, art and war
See photographs from Lee Miller's diverse career

She counted Pablo Picasso among her friends and was made a Lady by the Queen when she settled in the UK.

A new book about Miller and a exhibition of the American-born photographer's work at London's Photographer's Gallery hopes to disentangle her adventures from her art.

	Lee Miller's life: 1907: Born Poughkeepsie, New York 1927: Discovered by Vogue owner Conde Nast 1929: Goes to Paris 1940: Moves to London, photographs Blitz 1944: Joins Allied invasion 1947: Marries Roland Penrose in London 1977: Dies at Farley Farm, East Sussex

"We're trying to reclaim her for art, since so much attention is given to her life," Richard Calvocoressi, author of Lee Miller, Portraits from a Life, told BBC News Online.

He says that even when Lee was following the Allied advance through Nazi-occupied Europe as a war correspondent, she remained an "art" photographer.

"Even in her raw, direct pictures of concentration camp prisoners and the perpetrators of the Holocaust, she was reminded of art from the past, the medieval brutality in Bruegel and Hieronymus Bosch."

Lee's son, Antony Penrose, says her war photographs have a lasting legacy.

"She tried to encourage us to see a more humane life. She photographed the suffering, hurt and wounded as if to say there was a better way of doing things. That's still relevant today."

Lee Miller: Portraits from a Life is at The Photographers' Gallery, 5 & 8 Great Newport Street, London. 29 November 2002 - 1 February 2003.