Gagosian presents Seeing Is Believing: Lee Miller and Pals at 976 Madison Avenue, New York. The exhibition facilities on the lengthy, fruitful relationship between American photographer Lee Miller (1907–1977) and English Surrealist painter, collector, artwork historian, and Picasso biographer, Roland Penrose (1900–1984). Along with pictures by Miller and Penrose, it options work, sculptures, pictures, and works on paper by Joseph Cornell, Max Ernst, Dora Maar, Man Ray, Henry Moore, Valentine Penrose, and Pablo Picasso—all artists of their prolonged community. Curated by Jason Ysenburg and Richard Calvocoressi, Seeing Is Believing additionally presents letters, albums, and ephemera that hint a historical past of interconnected lives and relationships.
As a mannequin for American Vogue within the Nineteen Twenties, Miller was photographed by main style and portrait photographers earlier than touring to Paris to review with Man Ray. She developed a uniquely Surrealist imaginative and prescient of portraiture and captured many arresting pictures as a correspondent throughout World Battle II. Penrose co-organized the 1936 Worldwide Surrealist Exhibition that launched the motion to the UK, cofounded London’s Institute of Modern Arts in 1946, and curated essential retrospectives of Picasso and Man Ray.
Summering within the South of France within the Nineteen Thirties, transferring to London on the outbreak of World Battle II, touring in the US after the battle, and relocating to East Sussex in 1949, Miller and Penrose cultivated enduring connections with key artists and writers, taking part in a significant function within the tradition of their period. With an emphasis on Surrealism, Seeing Is Believing paints an image of the inventive life the couple shared with their buddies.
The exhibition comes at a second of explicit curiosity in Lee Miller and her circle. Love Letters Sure in Gold Handcuffs, a group of beforehand unreleased correspondence between Miller and Penrose that reveals the romance and drama of their forty-year relationship, was revealed in the UK in July and can be launched this November in the US.
Making its international premiere on the Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition in September is LEE, the directorial debut of famend cinematographer Ellen Kuras. The movie stars Kate Winslet as Miller, with Alexander Skarsgård as Penrose. Based mostly on the e-book The Lives of Lee Miller (1985) by their son, Antony Penrose, it highlights Miller’s excellent work as a battle photographer and correspondent.
Seeing Is Believing: Lee Miller and Pals
November 11–December 22, 2023
Gagosian
976 Madison Avenue
New York, ny 10075
www.gagosian.com
