Lee Miller: A Romanian Rhapsody | Photo exhibition at RCC

Exhibition under the patronage of HRH The Crown Princess Margareta
Curator: Adrian Silvan Ionescu

10 JULY 2014 | 6:30 – 9:30 pm | Private View & Talk with Antony Penrose and Bill McAlister

Romanian Cultural Centre has the pleasure to present the photo exhibition Lee Miller: A Romanian Rhapsody by one of the most remarkable female icons of the 20th century. Surrealist photographer, Lee Miller (1907-1977) is often best remembered for her fashion work and as a WW2 combat photographer freelancing for Vogue magazine.

In the summer of 1938 together with the artist Roland Penrose she travelled through Romania by road in Miller’s large American Packard car. Their journey began in Athens, and led to Bucharest where they met the noted musician and anthropologist Hari Brauner and his partner Lena Constante, a puppeteer and stage designer. Driven by her surrealist passion, Lee Miller was fascinated by the wonderful rituals of Romania capturing through her lenses customs such as Calușarii, Paparuda or Caloian. The exhibition includes rarely seen and un-shown photographs of 1930s Romania, a record of the last moments of an innocent world.

After ’46 Lee Miller went back, determined to find out if her friends had survived the war. Her images subtly reflect the turbulence of the post-war years and capture the nation poised for major political and social change.
Beautifully illustrated, Lee Miller’s images reflect the scars of irreparable damage, a world of hardship and unremitting toil, but also of great beauty and uniquely strong cultural values to be found today woven into the fabric of Romania.

Exhibition organised in partnership with The Lee Miller Archives – a small privately run archive which is dedicated to conserving and publishing the work of Lee Miller. It is located in Farley Farm House – a farm house near Chiddingly, East Sussex which has been converted into a museum, celebrating the lives and work of its former Surrealist occupants, the photographer Lee Miller and artist Roland Penrose.
This exhibition is curated by Dr Adrian-Silvan Ionescu, Director of the Institute of Art History in Bucharest, with the collaboration of John Sorensen, executive director of The Enescu Project, New York .
Special thanks to Ioana Popescu, of the Museum of the Romanian Peasant, and Paula Popoiu of Muzeul Naţional Al Satului Dimitri Gusti for their assistance in identifying the locations and events shown in Lee Miller’s images.