Glass Tears, Gold Lips: Love Story of Man Ray and Lee Miller at the Legion of Honor San Francisco

By Emma Krasov

A story of love, jealousy, and power struggle that turn into striking artwork is closely followed in the new show Man Ray/Lee Miller, Partners in Surrealism now on view at the Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

While the Man Ray’s and Lee Miller’s passionate love affair in the 1930s Paris ignited, exploded, then reincarnated as a life-long friendship, their working relationship rapidly developed from that of a mentor-student and artist-muse into a partnership of equally important creators of Surrealist legacy, and prominent figures in the history of modern art.

Iconic images of bending nudes, floating lips, and metronome eyes stem from this endlessly fruitful collaboration, circling back into the mutual influences that sustained the damage of time, distance, and war years, and never lost their allure.      

Organized by the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, this exhibition combines more than a hundred of photographs, paintings, drawings, letters, and three-dimensional objects produced by Man Ray and Lee Miller during and after their cohabitation in Paris in 1929-1932. 

Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky, 1890–1976) was an established photographer, painter, and a leader of Surrealism and Dada, when Lee Miller (1907–1977) who primarily worked as a fashion model in New York, then moved to Paris, asked him to instruct her in photography.

In their ensuing collaboration, each artist pursued his or her individual style. Man Ray created his dreamlike paintings and haunting photo images in the studio, while Lee Miller preferred to seek her unusual subject matter in the everyday happenings on the streets.

After they parted, she continued working as a photographer, and during World War II as war correspondent for Condé Nast publishing. She witnessed the liberation of concentration camps that uncovered the horrors of European genocide unknown to the American public at the time. She took pictures practically on the battlefield in German towns in the last days of war before the surrender of the Nazi leaders.

Later in life, Lee Miller suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder that affected her career and her health. Married to Roland Penrose, a British Surrealist painter, she continued to correspond with Man Ray who, also married at the time, sent her “consoler” gifts and continued to express his feeling for her by way of art and artwork.

The majority of artwork and memorabilia on display comes from the Lee Miller Archives and Penrose Collection in Sussex, England, as well as from public and private holdings in America.

Various works by Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Roland Penrose, Dora Maar, and Alexander Calder, who belonged to the Man Ray and Lee Miller’s circle of friends, are also on display at the exhibition.

The exhibition is supplemented by the official catalogue, Man Ray/Lee Miller, Partners in Surrealism, by Phillip Prodger, Ph.D., Curator of Photography, Peabody Essex Museum. Rarely seen photographs, paintings, sculpture and drawings by both artists are included in this publication along with an essay written by Antony Penrose, the son of Lee Miller and Roland Penrose. The show runs through October 14 at the Legion of Honor, Lincoln Park, 34th Avenue and Clement Street, San Francisco, CA 94121. Tickets and information:  415.750.3600.
Images: courtesy Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. 1. Man Ray, Tears, 1934; 2. Man Ray, Lee Miller's Eye, 1932; 3. Man Ray, Shadow Patterns on Lee Miller's Torso, 1930; 4. Lee Miller, Nude Bent Forward, 1930; Lee Miller, Self Portrait, 1930.