A showcase featuring wartime images captured by Lee Miller is preparing to open to the public.
The display, named Lee Miller: A Woman at War, will be shown at the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock between May 23 and September 13.
This presentation comes after a significant exhibition of her work at London’s Tate Gallery.
Miller, who began her career as a Vogue model before becoming a surrealist photographer and war correspondent, served as a combat photographer alongside US forces throughout the Second World War, producing a distinctive historical documentation.
The exhibit will present her journey from that period, displaying her journalistic work for Vogue beginning in 1942.
She brought attention to women’s contributions to the war effort and depicted the circumstances faced by women enduring conflict throughout Europe.
The exhibit will feature photographs of medical staff taken in Oxford.
Her initial wartime assignment for Vogue documented nurses working at what was then a US Army medical facility in Headington’s Churchill Hospital.
Several of these images will be included in the exhibition, returning to the county where they were originally captured, offering insight into the earliest phase of her war photography.
Miller became one of only a handful of female photojournalists deployed to combat zones, documenting the D-Day invasion and Paris liberation.
Her photographs from the recently liberated concentration camps at Buchenwald and Dachau reached Vogue in 1945, accompanied by the statement ‘I IMPLORE YOU TO BELIEVE THIS IS TRUE.’
Her surrealist artistic sensibility frequently emerged in her work, particularly evident in her Blitz photographs.
Her famous image of herself bathing in Hitler’s bathtub in Munich on the day of his death carried profound symbolic weight.
She documented: ‘I washed off the dirt of Dachau in his tub’.
More than 60,000 negatives and records were found in her home’s upper storage space by her son, Antony Penrose, following her passing, which established her reputation as an essential figure in 20th-century art and photography.
The Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum is honored to present this pioneering collection and extends appreciation to the Lee Miller Archives and Farleys House & Gallery Ltd for making this exhibition possible.
Lee Miller: A Woman at War advances the museum’s continued mission to explore artistic interpretations of conflict alongside more conventional historical accounts, consider how mainstream culture influences our understanding of warfare, and recognize women’s roles not merely as observers of conflict but as participants in determining its direction and legacy.
Standard admission fees apply. Current pricing, special offers, and visiting hours can be found at sofo.org.uk.
Note: The complimentary entry benefit for Blenheim Annual Pass holders does not extend to the Lee Miller exhibition, though all other museum galleries remain accessible.