Lee Miller. Picasso in Private

A display of over a hundred photographs by Lee Miller. Given that the snapshots she took of her friend Picasso are only a small part of Miller's oeuvre, the exhibition includes a selection of meaningful images from her career as a photographer.

A documentary and advertising photographer, war correspondent, model and artist who came into contact with Surrealism thanks to Man Ray, Lee Miller (United States, 1907 – United Kingdom, 1977) took over a thousand photographs of Picasso during the thirty-six years their friendship lasted. While they could have run across each other in Paris in 1929, when the photographer lived with Man Ray, or in 1930, when she took part in Jean Cocteau's film Le Sang d’un poète, the fact is that the meeting between Lee Miller and Pablo Picasso didn't take place until August 1937 when she visited the village of Mougins, home to Picasso on the Côte d'Azur, with her partner Roland Penrose. The six portraits Picasso painted of Miller as an Arlésienne (five of which are on display) were the result of the close friendship that developed between the two during her stay in Mougins. Given that the pictures Miller took of Picasso represent a small part of the artist's production, the exhibition also presents a selection of significant images from her oeuvre, including those that reveal her connections with Surrealism, her activity as an advertising and fashion photographer and her work as a war correspondent.