Miller’s Picnic (1937) is a photograph lovers’s gossip. At the time, Miller seemed to think of it as just another snapshot, but it’s now among her best sellers.
In the summer of 1937, Miller and Roland Penrose, her lover, lived in Mougins, a village above Cannes near Pablo Picasso, whose studio was nearby. Penrose, painter and art critic, was a strong advocate of Picasso.
The others in the picnic crowd were all long acquainted, current or former lovers. Miller, who took the photo, was probably telling everyone to ham it up, and so, the women posed bare-chested, and while Paul Éluard kissed Nusch Éluard, Penrose and Man looked bored. When not hamming, the group was lustful. Brigitte Benkemoun writes “that summer in Mougins everyone slept with everyone.”
A less well-known photograph of the picnic by Penrose shows Miller bare-chested.
See Anthony Penrose. The Lives of Lee Miller 1985 and Surrealist Lee Miller 2020; Carolyn Burke. Lee Miller: A Life (2010); Hillary Roberts. Lee Miller: A Woman’s War (2015); Mark Haworth-Booth. The Art of Lee Miller (2015); Brigitte Benkemoun. Finding Dora Maar. Translated by Jody Gladdidng. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2020
* Penrose was also the author of important studies of Picasso, Man Ray, Joan Miro, Antonio Tapies, and Edwina Sandys.
Roland Penrose. snapped this after the posed photograph the group relaxed. Miller is at the head of the table.
See Antony Penrose. The Lives of Lee Miller (1985) and Surrealist Lee Miller (2020); Carolyn Burke. Lee Miller: A Life (2010); Hillary Roberts. Lee Miller: A Woman’s War (2015); Mark Haworth-Booth. The Art of Lee Miller (2015); Brigitte Benkemoun. Finding Dora Maar. Translated by Jody Gladdidng. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2020
* Penrose was also the author of important studies of Picasso, Man Ray, Joan Miro, Antonio Tapies, and Edwina Sandys.