TRACES OF VITAL MOMENTS
The tantalising thing about these photo albums is they pose more questions than they answer. This assembly of photographs in two almost parallel albums is the work of Lee Miller, Roland Penrose and Man Ray, combined to record an experience shared at a moment that was a crucial point for Lee and Roland personally and as a period of world history. It was summer of 1937. On 26th April of that year the Basque town of Guernica was bombed by German and Italian aircraft at the request of General Franco and his Nationalist government. The moment was immortalised by Pablo Picasso in his painting ‘Guernica’ of that year. Roland had travelled to Spain the year before to cover the Republican forces in Catalonia. No one would print his report. Britain’s policy of non-intervention in Spain encouraged the threat of fascism to grow. Today those who care to look can see a similar pattern in the current rise of fascism and its consequent threat to our peace, freedom and justice.
In 1937 Britain was still in the grip of social and economic tensions triggered by the Great Depression following the stock market crash of 1932. By 1936, only a year before the events shown in these albums, the Hunger Marchers had tramped their angry, bitter and largely futile way from Jarrow to London. Social equality was markedly divided and the oppression of the poverty it caused was acute.
The photos in the albums show us Lee and Roland enjoying their hedonistic time in the sunshine of Cornwall and Provence. Their personal wealth, modest though it was, gave them the opportunity of life among the friends they
most valued. As we witness their enjoyment of this time, let us not judge them as feckless. As surrealists they understood the core values of society and would later resist the fascists in their own way, for some at terrible personal risk. This was their final party before Europe’s inevitable plunge into war. The period reflected in the albums was a time for reaffirming the values of peace, love and friendship. At the intimate level of Lee and Roland it was the start of a love story that endured the most frightful adversities until it forcibly ended forty years later when Lee died in Roland’s arms.
On 21st June 1937 Roland Penrose, born in London in 1900 and recently separated from his French wife the surrealist poet Valentine (nee Boué), was back in Paris, the place he loved most in the world. He had first arrived in 1922 to study art, and immediately found a total affinity with the French avant garde. It was perfect timing for him to become part of the surrealist movement as it evolved from Dada. He became friends with Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Man Ray, Paul Eluard, Andre Breton and later Pablo Picasso and Dora Maar. On this June occasion he was with Max Ernst who had news of a souper déguisé held by the daughters of the couturier Rochas in their house near the Etoile. They went disguised as clochards with their hands, feet and Ernst’s white hair dyed bright blue.
Not long after their arrival Roland famously claimed to have experienced being struck by lightning. The cause of this sensation was the sight of a woman dressed in an elegant blue couture gown. She had incredible beauty. She radiated warmth and intelligence and was clearly
at home among the surrealist artists. Roland had met Lee Miller. It was a life changing moment. He was never the same again.
Born in Poughkeepsie, NY in 1907, from 1927 Lee Miller had been a top New York fashion model and came to Paris in 1929. She became the assistant, model and lover of Man Ray, the foremost of the surrealist photographers. Within a year she had her own studio. Her work was exhibited widely and published in both American and French Vogue. Her time with Man Ray gave him some of the most striking images of his entire oeuvre and for her expert tuition. She was soon shooting fashion assignments for him. Maybe her need for further independence prompted her to return to New York at the end of 1932. Her work was exhibited by Julian Levy in his New York gallery and her Parisian cachet gave her newly founded Lee Miller Studios, Inc. great success despite the economic adversity of the time. Her images were published and she became known for being the most stylish portrait photographer in town. Perhaps the strain of running a commercial studio was too onerous. Suddenly without warning she closed the studio, married Aziz Eloui Bey a wealthy Egyptian businessman she had met in Paris and boarded a liner for Alexandria. Initially life with Aziz in Cairo was a welcome period of luxurious and carefree living. The difficulty was that the expatriate society was populated with women she described as ‘the black satin and pearls set ’. With conversation limited to the outcomes of polo matches, duck shoots, or bridge parties. Boredom began gnawing at Lee’s soul. Not even longrange desert travel and the opportunity to photograph the surrealist marvels of the desert alleviated the dullness.
Aziz, ever indulgent and knowing Lee pined for the company of her crazy surrealist friends gave her and her maid Elda a trip to Paris. On the night she arrived she heard of the Rochas’ ball and went. She was greeted with
warmth and excitement by Ernst, Eluard, Man Ray and her other friends, barely noticing the lightning struck partially blue painted Englishman. The party ended abruptly with the unexpected return of the Rochas parents who threw everyone out. It was Ernst who saved the situation. He knew Lee well, knew where to find her and invited her and Roland to dinner the following night. The next morning, they both awoke in Roland’s hotel room.
It was clearly love at first sight between Lee and Roland, conflicting with prior arrangements already in place.
Roland and Ernst had to leave for the opening of Ernst’s exhibition at the Mayor Gallery in London. A few days later they were joined by Paul and Nusch Eluard, and left for Cornwall. Roland had rented his brother Beacus’s lovely secluded 19th C. house at Lambe Creek near Turo with the intention of holding a sort of surrealist house party. A few days later Lee arrived with Man Ray and his Guadeloupian girlfriend Ady Fidelin. The artist Eileen Agar, her Hungarian partner the poet Joseph Bard and the Belgian art dealer Edouard Mesens completed the partyii.
For about three weeks they lived and loved together, saw the local sights and created works of art. Eluard completed one of his most moving poems La Victoire de Guernicaiii the last verses declaring the defiance he and the surrealists shared in the face of the Nazis.
XIII
Those whose despair
Enrages the desolate flames of hope
Let’s crack open together the last bud of the future
XIV
Outcasts the death the soil and the disgust
Of our enemies has the dull
Colour of our night
We will defeat it.iv
T: Top
L: Left
M: Middle
R: Right
TL: Lee Miller, Lambe Creek, Cornwall, England 1937 by Roland Penrose
TR: Lee Miller’s legs, Lambe Creek, Cornwall, England
1937 by Roland Penrose
BL: Ady Fidelin, Lee Miller and Nusch Eluard, Lambe Creek, Cornwall, England 1937 by Roland Penrose
BR: Lambe Creek, Cornwall, England 1937 by Lee Miller
T: Top
L: Left
M: Middle
R: Right
T: Max Ernst, Lambe Creek, Cornwall, England 1937 by Roland Penrose
TL: Lee Miller, Nusch Eluard, Joseph Bard, Eileen Agar and Paul Eluard, Lambe Creek, Cornwall, England 1937 by Roland Penrose
BL: Max Ernst, ELT Mesens and Leonora Carrington, Lambe Creek, Cornwall, England
1937 by Roland Penrose
BR: Man Ray and Ady Fidelin, Mougins, France
1937 by Lee Miller
1937
1937
T: Top
L: Left
M: Middle
R: Right
TL: Ady Fidelin and Man Ray, Lambe Creek, Cornwall, England 1937 by Roland Penrose
TR: Lee Miller, Lambe Creek, Cornwall, England
1937 by Roland Penrose
BL: Eileen Agar, Lambe Creek, Cornwall, England
by Roland Penrose
BR: Nusch Eluard and Lee Miller, Lambe Creek, Cornwall, England
by Roland Penrose
TR: Picasso, Mougins, France 1937 by Roland Penrose
BL: Paul Eluard, Mougins, France 1937 by Roland Penrose
1937
TR:
1937
1937
BR:
T: Top
L: Left
M: Middle
R: Right
TL: Ady Fidelin swimming, Cornwall, England
by Man Ray
Ady Fidelin, Cornwall, England
by Man Ray
BL: Ady Fidelin and Roland Penrose, Cornwall, England
by Man Ray
Ady Fidelin diving, Cornwall, England 1937 by Man Ray
TL: Stone feature, Royal Pavilion, Brighton, Sussex, England 1937 by Lee Miller
TM: Eileen Agar at the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, Sussex, England 1937 by Lee Miller
TR: Stone feature, Royal Pavilion, Brighton, Sussex, England 1937 by Lee Miller
BM: Lee Miller at the amusements, Brighton Pier, Brighton, Sussex, England 1937 by Roland Penrose
T: Top
L: Left
M: Middle
R: Right
TL: Lion, Porte de Malines, Anvers, Antwerp, Belgium
1937 by Lee Miller
TR: Puppets, Antwerp, Belgium
1937 by Roland Penrose
BL: L. Smets, No 11, Antwerp, Belgium
1937 by Lee Miller
BR: Puppets, Antwerp, Belgium
1937 by Lee Miller
TL: Pillars, Antwerp, Belgium 1937 by Lee Miller
TR: Obelisk with hand motif, Antwerp, Belgium 1937 by Lee Miller
BL: Pillar with hand relief, Antwerp, Belgium 1937 by Lee Miller
BR: Het Steen, Antwerp, Belgium 1937 by Lee Miller
TL: Lee Miller, Golfe Juan, Côte d’Azur, France 1937 by Man Ray
TM: Roland Penrose and Lee Miller, Golfe Juan, Côte d’Azur, France
1937 by Man Ray
TR: Nusch Eluard, Golfe Juan, Côte d’Azur, France
1937 by Lee Miller
BL: Lee Miller, Mougins, France
1937 by Roland Penrose
BR: Golfe Juan, Côte d’Azur, France 1937 by Lee Miller
T: Top
L: Left
M: Middle
R: Right
TL: Logs, Lambe Creek, Cornwall, England 1937 by Lee Miller
TR: Logs, Lambe Creek, Cornwall, England 1937 by Lee Miller
BL: Stone feature, Royal Pavilion, Brighton, Sussex, England 1937 by Lee Miller
TL: Hut, France 1937 by Roland Penrose
TM: Hut, France 1937 by Roland Penrose
TR: Ines Odorisi and Unknown, France
1937 by Lee Miller
ML: Unknown, Côte d’Azur, France 1937 by Lee Miller
MM: Lee Miller and Roland Penrose, France 1937 by Unknown
Photographer
MR: Unknown, Côte d’Azur, France 1937 by Lee Miller
BL: Dora Maar, Picasso and Lee Miller, Mougins, France 1937 by Roland Penrose
BM: Unknown, Mougins, France
1937 by Lee Miller
BR: Found Object, France 1937 by Roland Penrose
T: Top
L: Left
M: Middle
R: Right
TL: Unknown, Mougins, France
1937 by Lee Miller
TM: Ady Fidelin, Hotel Vaste Horizon, Mougins, France
1937 by Lee Miller
TR: Unknown, France 1937 by Lee Miller
ML: Victoria, France 1937 by Lee Miller
MM: Found Object, France 1937 by Lee Miller
MR: Unknown, St Tropez, France
1937 by Lee Miller
BL: Sailing boats in the Harbour, St Tropez, France
1937 by Lee Miller
BM: Unknown, St Tropez, France
1937 by Lee Miller
BR: Sailing boats in the Harbour, St Tropez, France 1937 by Lee Miller
TL: Unknown, Golfe Juan, Côte d’Azur, France 1937 by Lee Miller
TM: Found Object, France 1937 by Lee Miller
TR: Unknown, Golfe Juan, Côte d’Azur, France 1937 by Lee Miller
ML: Found Object, France 1937 by Lee Miller
MM: Unknown, St Tropez, France 1937 by Lee Miller
MR: Lee Miller, Golfe Juan, Côte d’Azur, France 1937 by Roland Penrose
BL: Thought to be Valentine de Saint-Point, Golfe Juan, Côte d’Azur, France 1937 by Lee Miller
BM: Victoria, St Tropez, France 1937 by Lee Miller
BR: Victoria, Golfe Juan, Côte d’Azur, France 1937 by Lee Miller
T: Top
L: Left
M: Middle
R: Right
TL: Paul Eluard, Lambe Creek, Cornwall, England 1937 by Lee Miller
TM: Ady Fidelin and Nusch Eluard, Lambe Creek, Cornwall, England 1937 by Lee Miller
TR: ELT Mesens, Max Ernst, Leonora Carrington and Paul Eluard, Lambe Creek, Cornwall, England 1937 by Lee Miller
BL: Leonora Carrington and Max Ernst, Lambe Creek, Cornwall, England 1937 by Lee Miller
BM: Paul & Nusch Eluard, Lambe Creek, Cornwall, England 1937 by Lee Miller
BR: Max Ernst, ELT Mesens and Leonora Carrington, Lambe Creek, Cornwall, England 1937 by Lee Miller
