KunstBewusst: Kunst im Krieg? Lee Miller als Kriegsberichterstatterin

In the organizer's words:

A lecture by Dr. Katharina Günther as part of the FREUNDE "KunstBewusst" series

What is it all about?

The photographer Lee Miller (1907-1977) lived many lives:
She was a model and muse, a surrealist artist and part of the Parisian avant-garde around Man Ray and Pablo Picasso, a fashion photographer for Vogue - and, from 1944, a war photographer accredited by the American army. She accompanied the U.S. troops during the liberation of Europe from the National Socialists and observed the fighting, its consequences and the civilian population, encountering landscapes of ruins and liberated concentration camps. With her own artistic eye, she created icons of photographic history, such as the photograph of her in Hitler's bathtub in his Munich apartment.

This lecture deals with Lee Miller's extraordinary life and work. It focuses on her war reporting: contrary to her own claim to only want to document, there is beauty, humor, whimsicality and a clear point of view in her unique photographs.

Who is our guest?

Dr. Katharina Günther studied art history in Cologne and Antwerp and received her doctorate from the University of Cologne in 2019 with a thesis on Francis Bacon (Francis Bacon - In the Mirror of Photography. Collecting, Preparatory Practice and Painting, Boston/Berlin 2022). Since 2010 she has conducted research in Dublin and London for The Estate of Francis Bacon, the Francis Bacon MB Art Foundation and the John Deakin Archive. From 2015, she set up the official website of the Bacon estate as project manager. From 2020 to 2024, she was Scientific Director of the Marbach Weimar Wolfenbüttel Research Network at the Klassik Stiftung Weimar. She currently works as a curator at the Center for Persecuted Arts in Solingen. Her research focuses on figurative British post-war painting, the relationship between painting and photography, photography in crisis areas and surrealist tendencies up to the present day.

Admission: Free of charge for members of freunde. Guests pay 4 €, students 2 €.

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Picture credits: Six female war correspondents who covered the U.S. Army in the European Theater during World War II in 1943, source: Wikimedia commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/.../File:Six_female_war... (Retrieved: 11.02.2025, 17:05)