3 posts tagged “women who art”
As part of my research for a script, I’ve been working my way through Francine Prose’s book The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women & The Artists They Inspired, and yesterday I was introduced to Elizabeth “Lee” Miller. I can’t say I’d heard of her before, but now I am really quite enamoured. To steal some of Prose’s prose (sorry): “Lee Miller not only succeeded as an art photographer and studio portraitist, but used her trained Surrealist’s eye in her work as a courageous World War II photojournalist, reporting on the Normandy invasion, the brutal Alsace campaign, and the liberation of Buchenwald.” (p 230) What’s particularly remarkable about her coverage of the conflict is that, for the most part she was in the employ of Vogue, meaning that she had to overcome some rather bizarre incongruities in her working brief... such as the need to pepper her report on the liberation of Paris with references to how the local beauty salons had fared under occupation! Still, she showed far more moxie in the field than many of her counterparts, even risking arrest by the Americans for violating the terms of her accreditation... and as Prose asserts: “Lee’s empathy for the suffering around her, throughout the war, was heartfelt and profound; she never romanticized or understated its horrors.” (p 251) Her photographs confronted Vogue readers with visions of mankind at its ugliest, folded in amongst the beauty tips. That, in itself, is an admirable accomplishment... and kudos to her editors for finding a home for her work in their publication.
The journey from New York fashion model, to wealthy wife-of-leisure, to hard-nosed, hard drinking war correspondent is really quite inspiring, in an “I would never have the balls to do anything like that” sort of way. It’s always intriguing to see someone find their true calling and purpose in life... it’s just a shame that Miller found hers “in the violence and horror of genocide and battle”, and that the quality of her work apparently declined after victory was declared. Still, she was sharp enough to succinctly sum up our current political crises, when she complained in a letter about “a new and disillusioning world. Peace with a world of crooks who have no honour, no integrity and no shame is not what anyone fought for.” (p 259) Regardless of the rather less-than-glorious grind of her later years, Lee left a great legacy of “brilliant and lamentably undervalued photographs, underrated in part because her beauty and her legend competed with, and detracted from, the seriousness of her accomplishments.” (p 230) Perhaps now, scattered across the internet, and viewed without the distorting lens of contemporary gossip, those accomplishments can be discovered and properly appreciated by fresh eyes.
Maple has been described by at least one critic as an heir to Emin. I don't buy that personally, as Maple's work seems more playful and humorous, lacking the darker, gut-wrenching sadness that Emin's work often has... but sometimes we all need to shorthand things to aid communication, and make Google searches more rewarding! I can't pretend to know much about Maple, beyond what I've picked up from a few brief blog interviews, but any woman who counts Emin and Stephen Fry as influences is good people in my book. Some of her most interesting work deals with the conflict and confusion she feels as a young British Muslim, expressed in various striking, and often very amusing photographic images. She quotes one anonymous critic who suggests that she's only attracting attention because she's so cute... thankfully I can claim that I discovered her work via the Emin connection, but in the immortal words of Spinal Tap, what's wrong with being sexy? Maple clearly has enough ideas, talent and personality to keep people interested in her body of work, rather than just her body. Either way, I dig her and look forward to nervously asking for her autograph someday...
The day I went to see Emin speak about her work at Oxford University was about as close to a perfect day as I've ever had. I know she's a fairly easy target for tabloid snark, and general anti-Art antagonising, but I feel a genuine emotional connection with her work, and can attest that she is a very entertaining, smart and funny public speaker... and very graceful in the face of obnoxious heckling. She was also kind enough to hang around and sign autographs for everyone, even though she had a fancy dinner at the gallery to hurry off to afterwards. Away from the Art, I appreciated her "memoir" Strangelands, but I think perhaps she could have done with a co-writer on her film project Top Spot... it's often the case that films "based on a true story" can lack the narrative hooks (and humour) that make fictional stories so compelling. There are some very interesting ideas and scenes dotted throughout the film, but overall it's more arty curio than audience-friendly box-office fodder. The controversy over its content once again raised the fascinating Art/Life paradox... i.e., a film which accurately and unflinchingly portrays the lives of a group of teenagers, can't actually be shown to other teenagers, because the film classification board is much stricter about what young people are exposed to than the real world is.
