Lee Miller: Witnessing Women at War

It rained all day. It was cold and dark and miserable. I was rather glad that I did not have to walk today, although other people were doing festival recces.  (What a wonderful group of tough, determined volunteers we have.)

Mum had another scan today so we were in Hexham this afternoon. All was well and the ultrasonographer was lovely.  We did an Aldi shop together and then I popped into Tesco for the few extra things we needed.

This evening I went with Margret (next door) to hear a talk by Anthony Penrose at the Hexham Arts Society (formerly NADFAS). Anthony is the son of Lee Miller and Roland Penrose. He is now responsible for the archive of her photographs.

His talk was well prepared and well delivered. We saw many of her well known images from WWII, but others I had not seen before. I was mesmerized. Some of the images are very shocking, even having seen them before. For some of the audience, very painful memories were rekindled. We saw women in all sorts of occupations, playing their part in the war effort.

Anthony kindly agreed to be photographed. The flock wallpaper in Hexham Mart (function suite, not the actual mart, you understand) is horrid, so I've put him in front of the title image of the talk.

Now I want to read again my book on Lee Miller from the Imperial War Museum exhibition of 2016.

One powerful memory from tonight is when Anthony described how Lee appropriated a few items from Hitler's apartment. One was Eva Braun's compact. It has a powder puff made of ostrich feathers. Anthony said that when he opened it and smelled the powder, it made Eva and Hitler into real people for him, rather than the monsters it is easier to believe in. The famous photograph of Lee in Hitler's bath is easily accessed on the web. Here is one link to it.

( I had not realised that Eva Braun was assistant to Hitler's personal photographer and was a photographer herself.)