Lee Miller Man Ray. Arte, moda, fotografia/Lee Miller and Man Ray. Art Fashion Photography

The statement “I would rather take a photograph than be one” was made by the model and photographer Lee Miller on October 17, 1932 in response to a reporter for the New York World Telegraph who had just called her “one of the most photographed girls in Manhattan”.1 Elizabeth “Lee” Miller, an American from Poughkeepsie, New York, was at that time a beautiful young woman who had just returned to New York after spending three years in Paris, where, together with her companion and mentor Man Ray, she had acquainted herself with the city’s intellectual and artistic scene. What had Lee Miller gone to Paris to do? In 1929, after having already fallen in love with Paris on an adventurous trip as a teenager, she made up her mind to go back to the French city, fully aware of what she wanted to get out of this trip and who she wished to meet. Given the continual comings and goings that made up her life, we must take a step back to get a look at the real Lee Miller. Since 1927, she was primarily an established model whose face and body frequently appeared in the American and European editions of Vogue after having been discovered by chance by the legendary Condé Nast, who saved her from being run over on Fifth Avenue in New York. She went on to become one of the top models for the magazine that set the standard for those who read about and created fashion.