The Persistent is available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox. Which—how shall I put this? Lee was born in Poughkeepsie, N. She moved to Paris as a young woman, and began her career as a fashion model and muse to artists such as Man Ray and Picasso.
She then became, in her late 30s, a pioneer in the field of female war photographers as well as a hero—along with the likes of Margaret Bourke-White and Gerda Taro—to those of us who followed in their footsteps. Lee was one of the first photographers, female or male, to document the horrors of Dachau.
She was able to pursue this line of work—and for Vogue , unbelievably, at that—because Audrey Withers, then editor-in-chief of British Vogue , not only encouraged Lee but, critically, funded her work in Great Britain, France, and Germany during World War II. Kate, too, had a team of female collaborators to back up her vision: her co-producer and co-Kate , Kate Solomon; screenwriters Liz Hannah and Marion Hume; and director Ellen Kuras, the brilliant cinematographer she met on the set of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind , who has shot dozens of well-respected films but—I had to fact check this twice—is only now making her feature film directorial debut with Lee and FFS, Hollywood, may it lead to many more.
Hers is a role that presents woman as we actually are—complicated characters with agency, depth, contradictions, and flaws—and not as anodyne sex objects to be acted upon by others. Femininity isn't a flowery dress and a tiny little figure and a full face of makeup. Femininity is resilience and courage and power and passion and sisterhood and standing up for oneself.
And for me that's who Lee Miller was. Picture this: I am taking the subway downtown to Random House, my publisher, to drop off a cardboard box containing the hard copy manuscript of my first memoir along with the requisite floppy disc.
