This article is based on the micro documentary collaboration between Twos Studio and the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris. The video explores the life of Lee Miller and her transformation from a Vogue model into one of the most important war photographers of the twentieth century.
Watch the official Twos Studio x Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris micro documentary on Lee Miller here:
 

From Vogue to the Camera

In her twenties, Lee Miller was working as a professional fashion model and appeared on the cover of Vogue. At a time when she was becoming one of the most recognizable faces in fashion, she chose to step away from being in front of the camera.
As she famously said,
“I’d rather take a picture than be one.”
This decision marked the beginning of a shift that would define her entire career.
 

Paris and Surrealist Photography

In 1929, Miller moved to Paris and entered the world of avant-garde art. There, she began working with Man Ray and became deeply involved in surrealist photography.
Together, they explored experimental techniques, including solarization, where light and dark tones are reversed to create striking, dreamlike images. During this period, Miller established herself not as a model, but as a photographer with her own artistic voice.

Becoming a War Photographer

During World War II, Miller returned to Vogue, this time as a photographer. Her work initially focused on documenting the changing role of women during the war, but she soon moved beyond that.
She became one of the very few women accredited as a war correspondent photographer and went to the front lines of the conflict. Her photographs captured both the brutality of the war and the human stories within it.
She was also among the first photographers to enter the concentration camps after their liberation, producing some of the earliest visual records of these events.
 

The Bath in Hitler’s Apartment

In April 1945, after weeks of documenting the war, Lee Miller and fellow photographer David Scherman entered an apartment in Munich that had been abandoned.
The apartment belonged to Adolf Hitler.
Inside, everything was still in place.
In a moment that has since become one of the most iconic images of the twentieth century, Miller posed in Hitler’s bathtub. The photograph stands as a powerful and surreal symbol of the end of the war, capturing both the absurdity and the reality of that moment in history.
 

A Lasting Legacy

Lee Miller’s work moves across fashion, surrealism, and war photography, forming one of the most unique careers in modern art.
Long overlooked and often remembered only as a muse, she is now recognized as one of the most important photographers of the twentieth century.