Lee Miller: Fearless

About This Event

Lee Miller spent the first half of her career on the other side of the camera — a Vogue cover model turned Man Ray's photographic collaborator and muse in 1920s Paris, where the two are credited with rediscovering the solarization technique together. Then World War II broke out, and she talked her way into becoming one of the only women photographing the front for Vogue itself: the liberation of the Buchenwald and Dachau camps, the fall of Berlin, and — in the photograph she's most remembered for — herself bathing in Hitler's own tub in his abandoned Munich apartment, taken the same day he died.

The war never really let her go. She spent her later decades largely out of the public eye, battling what would now be recognized as PTSD, and it was only after her death in 1977 that her son discovered roughly 60,000 negatives and prints in the attic of their family home — the body of work this show, and her rediscovered reputation, is built on. 150-plus pieces, organized by Tate Britain with the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris and the Art Institute, after runs in London and Paris.

Worth knowing: running on the same special-exhibition ticket tier as the Art Institute's other current shows — $32 non-resident, $20 resident, free for members — though Chicago-specific Lee Miller pricing hadn't posted separately as of this writing, so confirm at the door or online before you go.