Home of the Surrealists, Lee Miller / Roland Penrose

Antony Penrose, is the son of extraordinary parents. A photographer, author and rewilder, he is also the Co-director of The Penrose Collection and the Lee Miller Archives at Farleys House & Gallery. At his childhood home in Sussex, Antony conserves and shares the ground breaking work of his parents. His father Sir Roland Penrose was a surrealist painter, poet, biographer and a major collector of modern art. His mother, Lee Miller, was a highly significant WWII frontline war photographer. We talk about her deep, childhood trauma and leaving Vogue magazine behind as a top model to photograph truth, war crimes and concentration camps. Oscar winner, Kate Winslet, will play Lee Miller in the forthcoming film, 'Lee.' Antony talks about biting Picasso as a child, how 'curiosity is one of the most important things in the world,’ and the courage of conviction. He doesn’t shy away from brutal honesty personally or professionally. He talks about growing up with his mother’s PTSD and alcoholism and the astounding discovery of her enormous, photographic legacy in the attic after she had died. He asked Lee once, “Do you mind what people might say about you?” Lee replied, “They can say what ever they like, as long as it’s the truth.” Antony remains loyal to his parent’s core value of truth, ever more important in an age of fake news, propaganda and divisive politics.

Images by permission only: ‘

Antony Penrose, Farleys House, Sussex, England’ by Tony Tree / ‘Dining Room, Farleys House, Sussex, England’ by Tony Tree

Audio edit courtesy of Joey Quan.

Series Music - Courtesy of Barry J. Gibb

Closed Captions are added to all interviews in this series. Read only, text versions of every interview can be found here: https://canartsaveus.com/

Discover Farleys House & Gallery: https://www.farleyshouseandgallery.co.uk/ 

Listen to the podcast of  letters between Lee Miller and Roland Penrose, on all major streaming platforms, "Love Letters Bound in Gold Handcuffs."

Episode Transcript

(00:06):
art save us? In this series I'mtalking to artists, musicians,
filmmakers, actors, art lovers,and other creatives. I'm
exploring how curiosity andcourage not only creates great
art and fuels the arts butcultivates a healthy mind to.
These same attitudes arecultivated in mindfulness

(00:26):
practice with scientific andevidence based results in the
treatment of depression, stressand anxiety. So I'm asking, Can
art save us and help change theglobal epidemic of mental
illness? And my guest this weekis Antony Penrose. Antony is a

(00:47):
photographer, author rewilder,and the director of the Sir Roland
Penrose and Lee Millercollection at Farley's House and
Gallery, his childhood home inSussex, he conserves and
shares the extraordinary archiveand work of his parents. His
father, Sir Roland Penrose, wasa surrealist, painter, poet,
biographer, and a majorcollector of modern art. His

(01:09):
mother, Lee Miller, moved frombeing in front of the camera as
a Vogue supermodel by today'sstandards to behind it as both a
surrealist and highlysignificant World War Two
frontline war photographer.Oscar winner Kate Winslet will
play Lee Miller in theforthcoming film,'Lee'. Antony is
the guardian of this hugelegacy. He grew up surrounded by

(01:32):
surrealist art, and he's theboy that bit Picasso, literally. A
very warm welcome Antony andthank you for joining me today.
Thank you. Thank you forinviting me.
Having mentioned Picasso, andbiting, I wondered if you could
tell us a little about thatstory and whether biting

(01:53):
Picasso was an act of curiosityor courage or both?
It was really an act offrustration, because we had been
to see a great big, dairy bullwho was called William that day.
And that put Picasso in mind ofbull fights, and this was way

(02:13):
before I understood how reallyobnoxious bull fighting is. So I
was the bull. And I would put myhorns on and I would charge at
him from the other side of theroom, and he would have his coat
like a cape, like a matador.And the thing was, I would
be within millimeters of him and he would skip to one side,

(02:34):
and I would go splat into thewall. And I got very frustrated.
I was a slow learner. So I hadto do this several times before
I realized it wasn't working toowell. And then I thought, right,
it was time for anotherstrategy. So I stopped. And I
watched and I waited. And whenhe wasn't looking, I crept up
and I bit him! And he turnedaround and he bit me straight

(02:58):
back.
Yeah, so you were aquick learner after the bite. So
Anthony, for the benefit of ourlisteners, perhaps we should
explain what Picasso was doingin this quiet village in Sussex

(03:22):
and add a little context of yourchildhood.
Well, Picasso had been a friendof my dad since the early 30s.
And he probably met Lee Miller,my mum in Paris, about that
time, but we don't know and wenever asked. But the point is

(03:43):
that he knew knew my father,from just them being artists in
Paris and being interested inthe same sort of things. And
they had a friend in common, whowas the amazing poet Paul
Éluard. And I expect it wasÉluard who introduced Roland to
Picasso in the first place.And indeed, they did know

(04:07):
each other. But the kind of keymoment came really in 1936, when
they all found themselves in thesouth of France on holiday
together as a wonderful placecalled Golfe-Juan on the Côte
d'Azur. And that just began awonderful friendship. Lee was
with Roland the following yearand that was the moment that
Picasso really became enamoredwith Lee, who was incredibly

(04:30):
beautiful, and he painted herportrait six times. So this
really kind of crystallized andcemented the friendship. In the
meantime, Roland had organizedthe tour of Picasso's 'Guernica'
around Britain. So you cansee it went from like, a modest
beginning of a couple of friendshanging out on the beach, to

(04:51):
really strong importantparticipation in things which
were politically very dynamicand very significant at that
time.
Yeah, I mean, the achievementsonce you start looking
at the history of both yourparents lives are so
significant. And talking ofyour father Roland,

(05:15):
would you say that he had toreally genuinely have the
courage of his conviction notjust to be a surrealist painter
in his own right, but also as anassociate in order to be
somebody that backed andsupported the exhibitions, the
1936 exhibition, for example. Doyou think that was really about

(05:37):
courage of conviction?
Absolutely. Nothing else. Therewas no financial gain in it.
There was no fame in it, therewas nothing except the fact that
it mattered. And that's why hedid it. It mattered to him
because I think this was reallyhis roots as a Quaker. And

(06:02):
you might think, you might thinkthat being a Quaker, and being a
surrealist, were actuallyexclusive to each other but
they weren't. There was somevery interesting parallels,
because they both believe in theinner light, the subconscious
that guides you. And I think itwas a very easy step for Roland,
into being a surrealist. Andwhat he took with him was

(06:25):
something that Quakersunderstand very well, which is
what it's like to be apersecuted minority, and how to
stand up for dissident viewswith dignity. And that was a
really strong guiding principleto Roland for the whole of his
life. And I think it was why hewas so successful, because he
could take surrealism to theheart of the British

(06:46):
establishment and let it go. Andthe effect was fantastic.
Yeah, absolutely.It's really fascinating to read
about Roland's strict upbringingas a Quaker family. And yet, he

(07:06):
was fiercely radical, he was apacifist, but fiercely radical.
And I wondered if that wassomething you could ever talk
about with your father in termsof his own childhood?
I didn't talk about it inrelative terms. I mean, he
always was radical, he went onban the bomb marches and was

(07:29):
terribly disappointed becausethey didn't arrest him, you
know, that kind of stuff. Never,never lost his determination to
be a dissident and to stand upfor, often marginal causes.
And of course, Surrealism was soscandalous at the time, and the

(07:53):
critics, you know, and in thebig exhibition in 1936, the
critics would have been fairlySavage, I think, is fair to say.
How do you think he coped ornegotiated criticism? It can be
a form of injury can't it?
Well, it can be but you see, ina way, that might almost seem

(08:15):
perverse, the Surrealists lovednegative criticism from the
establishment, because it meantthat they had engaged the
attention of the establishment,it meant that they had shocked
them. And this is actually whatthey wanted to do. They wanted
to stir things up, because theywere absolutely so against the

(08:37):
control of the government.Surrealism came up out of Dada.
Dada was born out of the FirstWorld War and the fantastic
discontent, the fantasticrevolution of young people,
against the older people, theauthorities, who had sent so
many millions of them to dieneedlessly in the trenches for

(09:01):
why, the various capitalistic themes, and they hated that and
they determined to create a newworld order. And rather
wonderfully, they wanted to doit through art that had had
enough of shooting people, theywanted to change people's minds,
by example, and by challengingintellectually and culturally,

(09:24):
and they did it. And thatmorphed into surrealism with
very much the same principlesbehind it.
The power of art isextraordinary, isn't it when you
can put art up against politicsor as part of revolution in
fact. And it seems that, thatpersistence and that

(09:46):
perseverance, throughout thesurrealist movement and your
father's own courage of hisconvictions, is ultimately what
one through, they changed theminds of people.
Absolutely art is afantastically powerful tool.
You've only got to look at theway the present government is
absolutely trashing the arts.Look at their reduction in

(10:09):
funding of the Arts Council orthe British Council. Look at the
way they're reducing our budgetsfor education. You know, art in
schools is just shriveling andfor music as well. This is this
is absolutely the mark of atotalitarian government that
wants to reduce the cognizanceof the population. And they

(10:32):
do that by trying to undermineart. And it won't work
because the art is way morepowerful than they reckon.
Yeah, I mean, I completelyagree. I mean, I think it's,
it's outrageous. It's absolutelyshocking, how the arts has been
trashed, slashed, reduced,because do you agree, it's

(10:56):
because its power is a thinkingspace, it's about openness and
discovery?
The fundamental basicquality of art that really works is
honesty, it's honestlycommunicating an important idea

(11:18):
and that's what gives it itsgrit. It's what gives it its
traction. That's why it'simportant. It's a way of
communicating sometimes withoutlanguage, sometimes without
vision. You know, it's a way ofcommunicating in a real sense to
our core values without goingthrough all the lies and deceits

(11:40):
of, of the words and the pressand, you know, idiotically bad
Fox News and things like that,you know?
Yeah, completely. Does it amuseyou in some ways that your
father was obviously so deeplyentrenched in something that was
considered so scandalous andoutrageous to actually later be

(12:02):
awarded a knighthood?
Well, it's interesting, becausewhen that all happened, I said,
as one does, in one's late teens,in a very unkind way. And I said,
Look, what's this all about?Here is this art, which was born
out of the white heat ofrevolution. It was designed to

(12:25):
take down the establishment, andnow we see it enshrined in
establishment museums and placeslike that. And I said, you know,
where's the frontier now? Whatis left for us, for people like
me? And he said, Yes, ouroriginal art has been enshrined

(12:48):
in the establishment butactually, the value of what is
going to be done next, is ofequal importance. And you will
always find the frontier it willbe just in front of you when you
want to see it.
In some ways, it's interesting,isn't it to think, imagine if
surrealism hadn't happened, andthen consider what the

(13:11):
deprivations of that would be?
Well, when you look at how muchof our present day culture is
actually built on surrealism, Imean, you've only got to look
at a pop video, or, you know,some design, graphic design
or anything like that, so manyof the ideas are just stolen

(13:32):
straight away from thesurrealists and so yes, if
surrealists had not existed, ourculture would be greatly
impoverished. You know, we'dfind a way through to it
somehow. But the last yearssince, you know, the 70 years or
so anyway, ideas sincesurrealism came on the scene

(13:56):
would have been very, very muchpoorer. For everybody.
Do you think the leading valuesof Surrealism was things like
courage and curiosity because itwas really inviting people
wasn't it to explore, examine,turn things upside down, inside
Out? The whole explosion ofpsychoanalysis? What are your

(14:19):
thoughts on those values?
Well, all of those things, Imean, it was much enabled by Dr.
Freud and Dr. Jung who, whoconfirmed that we do have this
thing called the subconsciousand the Surrealists absolutely
love that whole idea. But thethe whole idea of, of being

(14:42):
curious, and curiosity andexperimentation was really vital
to them. But underpinning thatwas the incredible belief in
peace and freedom and justice and truth. And those are the sort

(15:03):
of basic tenets. And then ontop, when you can't do any of
that, you can't work through anyof that if you don't have
curiosity, and if you don't havecourage. So, you know, get some
get out there.
Yeah, it is fundamental, isn'tit and what concerns me is that
they're almost qualities thatcould start to disappear.

(15:24):
Partly, the point you madeearlier, the fact that the arts
are being slashed and harmed,and reduced, disables that
opportunity, really to cultivatethings like curiosity and
courage.
I think curiosity is probablyone of the most important things
in the whole world, and is whatmakes us go that next step, and

(15:45):
you can see it in all kinds ofthings. You know, you get some
of the most basic inventions orjust because somebody had the
curiosity to wonder, how wouldit be if we did it like this? Or
why did that happen? And thatleads to all kinds of
discoveries, you know, inphysics and everyplace else. But
intellectually, and socially andculturally, we need curiosity,

(16:09):
because we must never accept allthe blathering lies that our
political leaders are giving usat the moment. You know, Boris
Johnson has probably never evertold the truth in his life. And
we are accustomed to listeningto lies, and I think it's
corrosive, because it makes us,you know, in danger of accepting

(16:30):
those lies as truth.
And also I think that corrosioncomes with a kind of
disempowerment, I think it'sbecoming so much the norm, which
is abhorrent, that he lies, it'sacceptable. He's never brought

(16:51):
to account that it disempowerspeople perhaps from thinking,
can they keep fighting this?
You're absolutely right. And itit makes us feel well, what's
the use, you know, we shrug ourshoulders and carry on. And that
is a very, very dangerousmoment and that is the moment

(17:11):
when the courage bit kicks in.Because you have to have the
courage. It's not necessarilyonly about sort of grabbing a
spear, charging across the, youknow, the no man's land. Courage
is often the moment that youstand up in front of other
people and say, We will notaccept this any longer. We are

(17:31):
being abused or you politicalpeople are our abusers. And it's
time you shut up and went awayand let us get on with our lives
in a respectable andpractical way.
Yeah, and this is where I findexploring courage, very
interesting that it's notnecessarily acts of heroism, but

(17:53):
it is standing up for yourprinciples. And and what we were
saying earlier about Roland and thecourage of your conviction and
heroism is actually relativebecause I think, you know, a
small, timid person who standsup at a critical moment, and
makes an important gesturethat's heroic, because it's way

(18:16):
out of character, and notdetracting from people who do
incredibly heroic things, wesee them in the news every day,
but there's this tiny littlebits of heroism which I find
every bit as moving.
Yeah, I completely agree. Itreminds me of the famous Rosa
Parks example, the AfricanAmerican woman who refused to

(18:40):
change her seat on a bus,because it was a segregated bus.
There are so many absolutelywonderful examples from that
period. That was, that wasone of the most significant
axis points of the whole thingis when things turned and it was

(19:03):
the actions of a very fewpeople.
Yeah. It's David and Goliathmoments, isn't it? Absolutely.
Yeah. Talking of courage, Ithink we have someone very
obvious to talk about, which isyour mother, Lee Miller. And
perhaps, again, for listenersthat maybe don't know, the full

(19:27):
history, you might like just tostart off with an overview and I
do find, of course, it reallyshocking that by the age of
seven, she was very traumatized.And it seems to have perhaps
entered her into a familiarspace perhaps of trauma, which

(19:50):
ends up as it turns out on thefront line in World War Two, but
perhaps for the for thelisteners who may be not
familiar with her history, youcould share an overview?
Well, Lee Miller was born into avery happy and a normal, loving
family. And at the age of seven,she was staying with the family

(20:15):
of some friends. And she wasraped. And in that moment, she
was infected with venerealdisease with Gonorrhea. And the
trauma of the rape is badenough but having gonorrhea at
the age of seven in 1914, theantibiotics needed to cure it
were not yet invented, theywouldn't be on the scene for

(20:35):
another 15 to 20 years, she hadto carry that disease all
through her youth and to keepquiet about it, because if
people had known that she hadbeen raped as a child and
infected with veneral disease, she would have been
finished, she would have neverhave been part of society, she
would have been a pariah, shewould never have married, she'd

(20:57):
never have a good job. So thewhole family just closed ranks.
And it was a deeply held secret.And nobody outside of her
family, not even her women,friends, not even my father knew
about this. And it was the mostearth shaking piece of
information that I discoveredwhen I was researching her life.
Now, what this did to her wasthat it gave her I think, a very

(21:25):
deep sense a deep seated senseof needing to fight back against
injustice. And wheneverinjustice came into her field of
vision, wham, somethinghappened. And so, things
develop, she became a fashionmodel supermodel, if you like

(21:46):
and then she became, went toParis, and became a surrealist
photographer with Man Ray andhad her own studio which was very,
very successful, transferred toNew York had a very successful
studio there. And then shepacked it all in and married this
wealthy Egyptian businessman andlived in, lived in Cairo
photographing in the desert,photographing life around her.

(22:10):
And then she met my dad, in1937. By 1939, she was leaving
Cairo for the last time, andgoing to live in London with my
dad, just as the war broke out.Now, as an American, she could
have really easily gone back toAmerica, she could have gone
back to Egypt, she could havegot out of the war zone. But the

(22:32):
thing was that there was so manypeople in her life in Europe
that she loved, my father beingone of them in England, but she
was not going to rat out on herFrench friends, people like Paul
Eluard, Nusch Eluard, and guysthat she knew and loved in the
fashion industry, back in Paris,and she knew that it wasn't
going to be very long beforethey were under the heel of the

(22:54):
German jackboot. And she reallywanted to do something. Now,
nobody was going to give her agun or an airplane or something
like that. And she was anAmerican anyway. So she decided
that the weapon of choice inthat moment was her camera. And
she joined the staff on Vogue.And little by little by little,

(23:18):
she started to make acontribution that actually
turned the whole sense of Vogue,from being something like a
frivolous fashion magazine, intohaving real grit. And really
important things to say. And shewas helped in this by this
amazing woman editor, AudreyWithers. And between the two of

(23:40):
them, they created such anincredible effect. And Lee,
eventually, when America enteredthe war, she could then become
an American war correspondent.And that gave her access to
organize the military areas thatshe couldn't have because the
Brits wouldn't have women, warcorrespondents. And then she went
off and fought her way,literally, with the Americans

(24:04):
right through from, fromBrittany, sorry, from Normandy,
she fought from Normandy rightthrough Paris, and she was there
at the liberation of Paris. Andthat was a turning point for
her. Because when she got toParis, so many of her Jewish
friends were missing and therewas something in her that
switched in that moment, becauseshe realized that all these

(24:28):
Jewish people had been taken bythe Gestapo, shipped off
by trains to the campswhere they were murdered. And
they were not there. They weregone. And they were just
regular, ordinary innocentpeople who were part of the
fashion industry literallypretty much seamstresses
and people like that. And Ithink

(24:52):
people who were with Lee saidthere was as a sort of
transformational moment there.She already hated the Germans
plenty bad enough because of TheBlitz and Battle of Britain and
every other damn thing likethat, but this was the moment
where there was no return. Andshe was going to go right
through Europe, and be there atevery moment that she could to

(25:14):
send information back to Englandback to her friends, and have
the courage, literally physical,moral courage to represent what
was going on. And so she gets tothe concentration camps and she
writes to Audrey Withers, 'Iimplore you to believe this is
true' because already peoplewere trying to spread

(25:36):
disinformation that the campsdidn't exist. She was there
photographing Buchenwald,photographing Dachau,
photographing two otherconcentration camps and she
could not bear the thought thatthis might be distorted. The
horror that this might beneglected and pushed aside.
And Vogue, to their incredibleincredible acknowledgement, they

(26:04):
printed those pictures, mostlyin the American edition.
Yeah, I mean, it's astonishing,isn't it that, you know, the
leading glamour fashionmagazine, ultimately possessed,
and took that investment in thetruth, so seriously, compared to

(26:24):
say, a news outlet. And it seemsthat Lee's commitment to honesty
and truth and something you werementioning earlier as
fundamental to art was justabsolutely unwavering. No matter
the cost.
It was, it was and I doremember, growing up with her,

(26:53):
there was plenty about her thatwas quite dissolute. But the one
thing that was an absolutelyunshakable constant was truth
and it was quite spectacular.Truth and the welfare of others.
Yes, she was this woman who wasshredded by what we would today

(27:18):
call PTSD, Post Traumatic StressDisorder, yet, if somebody and I
saw this happen many times, ifsomebody was in trouble,
somebody needed help, whatever,whether it was with difficulties
in a relationship, financialaid, practical aid, or just

(27:41):
encouragement, just somebody tosay, Hey, come on, let's, let's
do this, she was there. She wasthere. Yet rather tragically it
didn't work, that anybody elsewas allowed to be there for her
because she had a pretty goodsystem for repelling anybody

(28:01):
else.
Yeah, so quite an isolatedcharacter ultimately.
Yeah. She was described ascutting a lonely figure and I
think that much is true. And Ithink part of that was the
burden of the secrecy of herchildhood rape and things like

(28:22):
that, you know, that, that, yes,she was different. She was set
apart. No, she couldn't beintimate with people,
because that would involveperhaps telling them the
secrets.
And I read that afteryou discovered the story of the
childhood rape yourself, youshared that with your father

(28:43):
Roland, and that his responsewas, 'I wished we'd known it
would have enabled us tounderstand.'
That was exactly what he said,because you see, she had
suffered so much with alcoholabuse and depression and
everything else like that andit was really, really
difficult to live with. And youknow, Roland didn't make that

(29:05):
much of a secret that he found itheavy going at times. I mean, he
loved her, but my goodness, it wasnot surprising that it was
difficult for him because sheway beyond impossible a lot of
the time. Yet, we never knew.And when I discovered that

(29:28):
information, yes, he said, 'Iwish we'd known. I wish we'd
known because if we had known orunderstood her better, we could
have been more caring about her,' you know. It was
a very, very touching moment.
Yeah, and that, that level ofof being exposed, you know, at

(29:54):
such a young age when you're sovulnerable anyway and, and
actually, that comes across inthe photography, we were
just talking about theconcentration camps and of course
Lee found her way to Munich, andfound her way to Hitler's
apartment and found her way tohis bathtub. Again, for the, for

(30:15):
the listeners, if you wouldn'tmind talking about that
particular photo and image I'mtalking about. Because also, she
is exposing herself to make thatstatement again, isn't she?
It was an amazing shot. And shedid it with her wartime buddy,
David Sherman, who was a trulyremarkable person and they

(30:36):
blagged their way into Hitler'sapartment. And it was the only
apartment in Munich that had hotwater, because it was the only
place to have coal. And so shethought, right, I'm gonna have a
bath. And then they bothsimultaneously thought, right,
we've got a scoop here. So ifyou see the image, you'll see

(30:56):
first of all, that she's posingvery carefully, so as not, to
avoid, to avoid showing too muchof her body so that she knew she
wanted that image printed andif she was showing her breasts
too much, it wouldn't be. Soshe's sort of like, kind of like
tucked down behind, behindthe edge of the bath. On the bath

(31:16):
side, there's a photograph byHitler's revolting little
personal photographer calledHeinrich Hoffman, and it shows
Hitler in his all finery, hisuniform. She put that there,
because that photograph was thebasis of all Nazi posters right

(31:37):
across Germany in the occupiedterritories. And the poster
said, 'Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer.''One
People, One Nation, One leader,Great Germany.' That is straight
out of something from DonaldTrump today, yeah. So Lee wanted

(32:02):
people to see that they had justpenetrated this impenetrable
place. And they could do it.They like they've taken this
sacred icon of a photograph, andjust stuck it beside the bath. We
still have that photographtoday and actually, it carries

(32:24):
such an enormous payload whenwhen you realize what's stacked
up behind it. What Lee andSherman had no way of
understanding was in that momentat 4.45, that afternoon, they
were in the tub around about sixo'clock, at 4.45 that afternoon,

(32:45):
Hitler and Eva Braun had killedthemselves in their bunker in
Berlin way across Germany, andthey were dead. And here that
makes it sort of even morepoignant that these two scruffy
war photographers are sittingin this sacred place.
And I particularly loved thatDavid Sherman is from a Jewish

(33:07):
family.
Absolutely. And what you'll alsonotice is that both Lee
in her picture andSherman later in his, they both
stamp their boots on thebathmat. And so those boots that
morning, weere carrying themboth around Dachu and so she's
grinding the ash, the filth, thedegradation, the suffering of

(33:31):
that place into Hitler's nice,clean bathmat. You know, it's
just a perfect metaphor.
It's just such an astoundingmoment in time that they, they
actually caught on camera. Whatwhat I cannot understand is when

(33:51):
you think that same day, theyhad been at those horrific
concentration camps, and I thinkI'm right that Lee was maybe one
of the first at these camps toto document the scale of that
atrocity?
Well, she was not the first, shewas among the first Yeah, so
many other photographers,including Margaret Bourke-Wright,

(34:13):
and there were manyphotographers with the British
army too when they liberatedBelson, that sort of thing. And
the, the whole consensus of itwas that this was the most
incredibly horrific thing thatany of them had encountered. And
a lot of these guys were verybattle hardened soldiers. You
know, they fought, marchedand walked and fought right

(34:37):
through from Normandy. Yet herewas this industrialized murder
and torture of civilians. And alot of them just couldn't,
couldn't believe it. Eisenhowerissued a directive, anybody
that's got a camera, get inthere and take pictures. And
that meant that there is thisflood of amateur pictures

(35:02):
tha you'll still find fromtime to time today. And it's
fascinating, because nobody canclaim that they were faked. They
were just regular GIs with aKodak vest pocket cameras,
snapping. And if that, you know,that is not government
propaganda it's a kind oftourism, but it's one that's so

(35:25):
important because it validatesthe truth.
And this is what I findso hard to understand that in
that day in that one example,Lee had been at those camps
confronted with such atrocity,and yet continued and found her
way into the apartment inMunich. What I cannot understand

(35:49):
is where the ceaseless energycomes from, that there wasn't
just such utter exhaustion, thatshe could actually keep going
and be present enough to stagephotography so competently and
so powerfully when she must havebeen so traumatized, so utterly

(36:11):
exhausted.
I think that the effect of thetrauma kicked in later. And in
that moment, she was carried onin this adrenaline rush of
knowing that the Nazis weregoing to be beaten that the
end of the war was literallymonths or weeks, or even hours
away. And that gave her the liftthat she needed to keep powering

(36:36):
on. Also, we know that she tookarmy issue Benzedrine, that kept her
firing along, she also consumedquite a lot of alcohol, that
powered her up a bit, youknow. And the net result of this

(36:58):
was that when the war was over,then what? Because the sense of
purpose, the sense of importanceof getting the truth out there
was suddenly gone. But then whatshe did was she found another

(37:20):
truth. What was happening now thatthe military was gone now that
the political situation hassettled down? What has happened
to those who just the ordinarypeople, the regular guys, the
people who were shipped off asslaves, or people who had their
homes sequestered, and peoplewho suffered enormously in, you

(37:44):
know, all the returningprisoners of war, all the
returning guys from theconcentration camps, what
happened to them? And then, ofcourse, you know, she goes
through to Vienna, and she findsthis Children's Hospital. And I
think this was the real nexuspoint in her life, because what
was going on was that the blackmarketeers had stolen all the

(38:05):
medicines and the drugs, justlike in the film of Birdman. And
so there were these childrendying of every imaginable
disease and the medical stuff,the doctors and the nuns and the
nurses were going flat out, butthey couldn't do anything
because they didn't have anydrugs. The black marketeers had
stolen the lot. And so suddenly,Lee who had believed that she

(38:30):
was fighting for this brave newworld, a world of equal
opportunity, of fairness, ofkindness of people looking after
each other, was suddenlyconfronted with the same bunch
of crooks doing vile ghastlythings, and, and causing
suffering and death amonginnocent children. And I think

(38:51):
that was probably the momentwhen, you know, really, things
were at their lowest when theyfell apart for her. But she
didn't stop. She just keptherself going. She went way on
into Hungary and she finishedup in Romania, documenting the

(39:13):
post war, on what was happening.And by that time, well, after
after Munich after the end ofthe end of the war, had
finished, Sherman had to goback, he was recalled to New
York, but she kept going alone.Right through and in very

(39:34):
difficult circumstances. And inthe end, she found her way back
to Paris. And Roland went overto Paris and kind of dragged her
home and by this time, she wasabsolutely finished. You know,
she was, she was ill, she wasexhausted and yet she was still

(39:54):
kind of like, trying to keepgoing trying to force herself
onwards. Fortunately for herand everybody else, Roland
went over and dragged her home.
Yeah. Because it's almost as ifit became a personal war as well
in terms of her courage andconviction to truth and the

(40:16):
importance of telling this truthso that this can never happen
again. And yet Antony, and yet,we are having this conversation
in the context of the Ukrainewar.
Precisely. Precisely. Yes. I'mvery glad that she's not around

(40:36):
to see that. Because she wouldjust be so heartbroken as to
what we've allowed to happen. Wecould have seen this coming. We
saw the Russians take overAfghanistan. Fortunately, they
got kicked out of there. But wesaw them in Syria. We see them
in Yemen, today, right now thisminute. They took Crimea.

(40:59):
And had their eye on the rest ofit as well, and, you know,
I'm not advocating war andviolence, but I'm just
advocating having a few eyesopen around here and seeing
what's going on.
Yeah. Because it's, it's just soutterly, utterly unforgivable,
isn't it that after two worldwars, any war is possible

(41:22):
again?
I think this was somethingagain, that really depressed Lee
at the end of her life, becauseyes, you said that the war was
personal. It was very personal.But the hope was that it would
end all wars. Well, it didn't.Because look what happened, we,

(41:43):
you know, the UnitedStates was involved in Korea
almost immediately, thenVietnam. There has not been a
period of no war on this planet,certainly, for the last 200
years, if not longer.
Yeah, it's just, it's justunbelievably tragic. And yet, we

(42:06):
can return to the art space or,you know, the arts across the
board, still struggling andbattling to be that voice of
dialogue or reason or positiverevolution?
Well, that's coming back tothat, yes, and that's why that
is so incredibly important. AndI mean, one of the things about

(42:30):
the Surrealists was that therewas a sense of universality,
about them, andthey believe that anyone could
be an artist, all you had to dowas to have something important
to say, and to find your own wayof saying it. And I think I
really love that idea. I'm notdenigrating those who are the

(42:54):
most fabulous artists andtechnicians who paint in this
hyper realistic or beautifulstyles and so on. But I am
saying that it's not so much themarks on the page, it's the
intention behind them thatreally counts. Lee was fond of

(43:14):
saying what makes one person's artbetter than another is the
honesty. And I think that is sotrue. A lot of art is is a kind
of celebrity chasing exercise,where you know, it's got to be
bigger or better or shinier, orcost more at auction or
something else like that. And Ithink that's getting away from

(43:37):
the point. The point is, doesthat art communicate something
to you? Did the person who makeit have something honest, that
they wish to say, even if it wassomething quite trivial? But
what would they say? Were theydoing that as a gift to you to
your understanding? Or are theydoing it for their own

(43:57):
aggrandizement? And that is theknife edge of it all?
Yeah. And to take out to kickout the elitism that hijacks
art.
Yeah. I mean, it's verygratifying to see these
photographs now, gettingenormously high prices at
auction. But actually, that'snot why we do this at all, it's

(44:23):
because they still to this veryday, communicate values that are
really, really important. Andthat's, that's a good fit for
me.
And talking about honesty, thething that has always stood out
to me is your own honesty. Theway you honor the histories of

(44:45):
your parents and you honor thearchive the work you don't shy
away from what was difficult intheir lives. You don't try and
tuck anything away. You'rebrutally, happily honest and
respectful of their lives, itseems really core to everything
we've talked about.

(45:07):
Well, thank you very much foracknowledging that's the most
lovely compliment. And I would,be doing them a dishonor
if I was anything less than truthfulyou know, I mean, I remember towards
the end of Lee's life, we werein this, there was a discussion

(45:27):
going on about, you know, was itappropriate to talk about some
people in an overly honest way,when perhaps it would be a good
idea just to shut up and glossit over? And and I suddenly
said to Lee, how do you feelabout what people might say
about you and your life? And shesaid, 'They can say anything they

(45:52):
like, as long as it's the truth'.And that's been a kind of a
touchstone to me, ever sincethat moment, you can say what
you like, as long as it's thetruth.
And it's amazingly courageous,because you have to have a
fearlessness don't you to be sobrutally honest, and even to
face your own criticisms?

(46:13):
Well, I had to get there withsmall steps. And the very first
time this became important tome, was just after my book, The
Lives of Lee Miller came out and I was invited to address a,
you know, a kind of a book clubplace, and it was in a local
church hall and there was aboutsort of 40 people there. And I'd

(46:37):
been thinking very carefully atthat moment how should I deal
with, you know, the subject ofrape, and her promiscuity, and
all that kind of stuff. And Ithought to myself, that those
words came back, because you canwant you like, as long as it's
the truth, I thought right, it'sin the book it's out there, and
I'm gonna go for it. I'm notgoing to talk about at the end

(47:00):
of my talk, I noticed that therewas a woman in the back of the
hall who was kind of all hunchedup. And as I got towards her, I
saw that she was actuallycrying. And I went over to her
and asked her if she wasalright. And, and she said, Yes,

(47:20):
I'm okay. You've been talkingabout what happened to me in my
life and this is the first timeI've ever heard it spoken about
publicly and she went on fromthat. But I thought, yeah,

(47:41):
that's, that's amazing. And Iwas so grateful to her because
that's given me the courage tojust keep getting it out there.
Because obviously, it's notprurient, it's not
sensationalist it's meaningful.And you will not believe how

(48:02):
many times that moment hasreplayed itself in different
ways. I am absolutely horrifiedby the number of women who have
been seriously badly affected byabuse in their lives. And it is
absolutely awful. I mean, yeah,we see some statistics, but I

(48:26):
actually meet some of them andthey talk about it and I think
this has got to stop. We've gotto stop, get this out of
our society. And one of the onlyways we're going to do that is
by being more open.
And it seems, doesn't it thatLee's courage and curiosity
around her openness, her brutalhonesty, is enabling people to

(48:50):
recover to dialogue now aboutdeep abuse.
I would hope that it is and ifthat is the case, that's
great.
Something that occurred to mewith of course, the forthcoming
film, 'Lee,' and Kate Winslet isplaying your mom. I imagine

(49:13):
that's quite a tough role inthat kate, will need to be
exposed to the archive, thekinds of atrocity that Lee
genuinely experienced in orderto be able to play her with that
kind of authenticity that shewould want to work with. Has

(49:36):
there been any conversationabout how that's handled even?
Well, I wouldn't presume todiscuss with Kate how she's going
to handle it. But she has takena lot of interest in the
archive material. She, she'sreally immersive in the way she

(49:57):
looks at things and studiesstuff and is terribly
impressive. So, also thescreenwriters, and they are
absolutely amazing the stuffthat they've done and they've
researched and what we've gotthis time. I mean, this is
probably about a fourth or fifthattempt, with people making a

(50:20):
movie and it's the closest weare now to something actually
happening. And what makes mevery excited is that it's a film
this produced by a woman calledKate Winslet, she's a producer,
acting in it, as well. And thewriter is a woman, the director

(50:41):
is a woman. Other producers onthis on the production are also
women, the designer is a woman,and I mean, yes, I feel it's
really going to work. Becausethe authenticity of this of the
Lines of the of the people whoare playing the parts,
the authenticity of it it's goingto be fantastic I think.

(51:07):
Yeah, it's, it's been worthwaiting for. Yeah and it's
wrapped in the kind of statureand credibility that is really
required, the casting, thedirectors, the writing, it
really gives you that that soundcredibility.
Well there's another really importantthing, which is basically it's an
independent film. We're not owned by a big studio. Yeah,

(51:30):
that's
good news.
That is, basically it started offby being a small but very
punchy, Australian productioncompany and they are great to
work with, why, they don't muckabout! They, they're truthful.

(51:52):
They're honest. And ifsomething's going badly, I know
about it, if something's goingwell, I know about it, it's great,
I don't get all this total bullshitthat I used to get from American
producers.
Yeah. And hopefully not lost inwhat I've certainly experienced
within the past of studiosystems and star systems and

(52:12):
celebrity systems, everythinggets lost, whereas this, I
imagine is focused entirely onthe story.
Well, you see, again, there isthat honesty about about the
product. And you wouldn't getthat with a big studio, because
they would be trying to turn itinto their own product, their

(52:32):
own style, and the fact thatwould get bent out of shape very
quickly.
And it's really interesting thatyou've also made that decision,
you know, collectively that thiswill focus on 10 specific years
in Lee's life. Perhaps we couldshare a bit about that for the

(52:53):
listeners.
Yes, well, Lee's life isvery, very full of adventure,
and quite extraordinary things.So that the challenge has been
to condense that. And I thinkthey have made a very, very shrewd
choice in which it's set mostlyin the war years, because it

(53:19):
reaches back and forth, bothsides of that in a very, very
good way. And there's somethingthat you can do so so cleverly
with film on practically andnothing else. So yeah, I'm
really looking forward to thisis, I think the whole setup, the

(53:40):
whole kind of plotline,everything is so cleverly and
beautifully and accurately done.I mean, it really made me wince
to start with when, you know,they would telescope events.
Okay, we're not going to dothat, because it's too difficult
and messes up the storylineswe'll go straight from here

(54:02):
to there. Wow. And thenactually, when I read it
objectively, I think, yeah, thatreally makes sense. You've only
got two hours screen time to fitin a lifetime of 70 years that
was packed with adventure.You've got to make, you've got
to make some very tough choices.Yeah,

(54:22):
incredibly skilled decisionmaking, isn't it? So when you
wind back the clock a little tothe day you discover for the
first time the existence of thisphotography archive in the
attic. How would you describenow processing that moment or

(54:44):
beginning to understand thescale and significance of that
discovery?
The scale and the significancedidn't really come through to me
for some time But what happenedwas when my late wife, Susanna

(55:06):
went into the attic looking forbaby pictures of me to compare
what I looked like to our littlebaby daughter, Amy, who's now my
co-director at the archive, shecame down not with photographs,
but with the pages of themanuscripts of San Malo, Siege
of San Malo and I, Susanna said,Hey, I think you should read

(55:28):
this, oh I haven't got time, Ithink you should read it,
because Susanna knew howconflicted my relationship with
Lee had been. And so I sat onthe stairs, and I read it and
it was this up close andpersonal account of this
incredible battle of the GIsattacking this heavily defended

(55:49):
fortress and being mowed down inswathes by machine gunfire, the
bombing of everything that wenton. And I read all this, and I
couldn't believe that it wasLeee's. I thought that's got to
be somebody else, you know, it'sgot to be Sherman or somebody
else. No, it was her, my father found a back copy

(56:10):
of Vogue, which was actuallyholding a lot of this material in
print with the photographs. Andso I mean, that was, like,
probably one of the biggestmoments in my creative life, and
my emotional life because Irealized that I had to find out

(56:34):
everything I could. And I had toreevaluate my opinions of my
mum because for me, she and I,had had a very
difficult relationship, youknow, she was very much affected
by PTSD and alcohol abuse anddepression. And so that made it
really, really difficult to livewith her. So I'd had this difficult

(56:57):
time with her. And suddenly, forme, this person who I regarded
as being a kind of this terriblewreck, a lot of the time
suddenly, I thought, there's gotto be more to her than this. And
we dragged everything out in theattic, and we're still working
on it today. And look what'shappened, we have exhibitions of

(57:18):
her work all over the world, wehave books in many different
languages, we've got televisiondocumentaries, we have got
people studying, doing PhDs and MAis on. And I find that
wonderfully rewarding, I have tosay, and now the movie, and I
think, I just hope she'swatching from someplace and

(57:44):
she's got a smile.
Because it makes me curious andmaybe this is too emotional a
question, but I'll pose itbecause it makes me curious to
think if Lee and Roland werehere now, what would you like to

(58:05):
say or ask them? And what wouldyou like to hear from them?
I have a long list that's about 50 pages long of
questions. And I'm quiteconvinced that one day, somebody
will invent a way of emailingpeople who are dead. And that's
when we really can clear up a lot ofthe unknowns. But what would I

(58:28):
like to hear them say? I wouldobviously ache to hear their
views on what we've done withtheir material and whether we
got it right. Whether weinterpreted everything in the
right way, whether we havepresented it according to how

(58:51):
they would like it to bepresented. You know, I would
like to know, does it stand thetest of truth? Would you Lee,
Would you Roland say that wepresented this in a fair and
honest way?
Yeah, and that would be thedefinition, wouldn't it of

(59:14):
achievement of getting it right?Yes, yeah.
Yeah. I'm sure I'd get a whackround the ear. No, it wasn't there!
Details are bound to bemistaken? And
how did you negotiate thatAntony as a young child? Because

(59:36):
obviously, you would have beenon eggshells, wouldn't you with
a mum suffering with PTSD? PTSD,depression is very much a bear
with a sore head, isn't it? AndI know you've talked about
Patsy, the housekeeper and alsoValentin Boué.
Yeah. Well, I, I was veryfortunate in the fact that first
of all, I grew up on a farm andthat gave me a

(01:00:00):
sort of kind of instant extendedfamily of the people and
everybody on the farm and it'sa very earthy occupation. So
that was really grounding, inmany ways. But best of all, was
Patsy, who was my nanny, and shecame into my life when I was
about four and a half and shestayed in my life for about 56

(01:00:25):
years, as she became my de factomum, and she became the
grandmother to my grandchildren.And, you know, she was just a
wonderfully warm, intelligent,generous person to whom I owe a
lot, because I don't think Iwould have survived without her.

(01:00:47):
Yeah, it is certainly hard toimagine if that kind of backup
role, wasn't there how youwould have negotiated that? Did
your dad
attempt to kind of manage orexplain tensions?
He was pretty hopeless withchildren to start with. I mean,

(01:01:11):
he liked them when they weresort of like about nine or ten
and they were more interestingthen and he could relate to them
better. He, he was a very kindperson, and he would not have
wanted anybody to be sufferingin any shape, way or form but
his own upbringing had been asyou know, in in a kind of
Victorian household where,where, you know, seen but not

(01:01:36):
heard, and kind of very strictlyregulated and things like that.
So, I mean, for example, he wasabsolutely horrified that I was
intending to be at the birth ofmy daughter. You know, he, he
thought it was somethingindecent and horrible and messy,

(01:01:58):
and that it would be reallytraumatic for me.
You'd think that would appeal to asurrealist?
Well, yeah, but he just had a hehad a kind of like a blind spot
around all that sort of stuff. Imean, when you think about it,
yes, it was we, you know, inthose days in the early 60s,

(01:02:21):
when in the late 60s, early 70sit was kind of like new stuff.
Amy was born in 1977. It was ithad not been, it had not been
possible to attend a birth muchbefore that and sure, catching
on.
See you were leadingthe radical way at that point.

(01:02:44):
In
a way I wouldn't say it likethat, because we were following
those who had led.
Yeah. But it's interesting, justjust popping back, if you like
to Patsy. The description ofPatsy, the fact that you had Lee
and Patsy in your life, it'sinteresting that you have two
distinctly different women, butwho are both nevertheless,

(01:03:07):
deeply compassionate. And that'sif you look at compassion as an
active state. So Lee obviously,was compassionate by actively
documenting the truth to herutter detriment, her mental well
being and Patsy soundscompassionate in terms of your
emotional wellbeing and takenan active role.

(01:03:29):
Yes. And Patsy was also veryhonest. I mean, like searingly
honest. And so that wascongruent with Lee and Patsy was
a very kind person. Yeah, therewas there were a lot of,
are a lot of similarities butPatsy was nowhere near
as egregious as Lee.

(01:03:51):
Yeah. So when we reflect on thetitle of this podcast series,
Can art save us? And obviously,we've been looking at that,
particularly in terms of courageand curiosity, it's a big
question. It can have lots ofanswers and I wondered what

(01:04:12):
kinds of things you mightattribute to how art can save us
or help us?
I think most of all, it canbe the propagation of ideas. And

(01:04:36):
I think that's a reallyimportant thing, that we can
communicate our ideas that areimportant, and we can do it
through art in different ways.Everybody has got their own
impossibility for doing there'sno formula for this. It's really
get out there and do somethingcogent and do it honestly.

(01:04:58):
So that's, I think,probably the greatest value is
as a communications tool.
Yeah, and I don't know, I mean,you'll be aware of so many
1000s of photos. But I don'tknow whether, in some ways,
Lee's photo 'Portrait of Space'speaks to that particularly

(01:05:20):
well?
Well, it, it does in manysenses, because I see it as an
image of longing for freedom,because by the time she took
that she had just about hadenough of the constraints of
Egypt, and how difficult it wasfor her to fit into their social
society there. And so we can seeher looking through this hole of

(01:05:45):
the rip in a fly screen andseeing what could be a bird, or
is it a cloud? Or is it a bird?What is it flying freely in the
sky? And if you're looking atthe rock formations, you can see
eyes looking back at you. Andit's like, I think at this
moment, she was so fed up withbeing constantly watched by the

(01:06:06):
secret police and constantlyevaluated whether she was doing
seditious things or not. Yeah,that she, you know,
in this moment, thisspontaneous moment, she took that
image. And the way she photographedit is in a very unusual way that
she photographed it actually.She I think took about

(01:06:30):
four or five shots. Because whatshe was doing was waiting for
the cloud to get in exactly theright place relative to the
whole sky and it was, it wasa really sort of fascinating
moment. Back in 2008, Mark Haywith both the photo curator from

(01:06:58):
the Victorian Albert Museum whodid the amazing show The Art of
Lee Miller, Felice and Henry,we, we went to Egypt, and we
tried to find a house where thewindow was, what we didn't
know until it was too late afterwe spent, you know, the day

(01:07:20):
blundering around, in that partof the world, part of the desert
was the it was a little bungalowthat was put up for the King
and where he could rest on hisjourney to see hia way and back and
when the war began. The Britishtroops demolished it because it
was too much of a landmark thelittle bungalow sitting in the

(01:07:42):
middle of the desert and theItalians would fly in from
Libya and they would just getthat as a fix and know, they were
exactly on course for Cairo. Andso the Brits dismantled it, and
it's not there anymore. And wefind that we couldn't even find
the background because the road'schanged. So we're

(01:08:03):
gonna go back another day andfind it.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, Anthony, thehour always goes too fast and
this is endlessly fascinatingwe could talk about the lives of
Lee and Roland forever, as wellas your own and how you've
negotiated such a huge andrewarding responsibility in many

(01:08:25):
ways, but huge nevertheless, toso honestly guard and protect
this fascinating archive. Forlisteners I'll make it clear in
the accompanying text, ofcourse people know they are
able to visit Farley's House andGallery and there's the forthcoming
film to be very excited about,is there anything you would like

(01:08:50):
to say or particularly leavelisteners with inspirational
words, perhaps about the role ofart in their own lives? Whether
they're your, your father's orLee's words?
Oh, gosh. The only thing that Ican really say is just do

(01:09:12):
it.
Good advice. Very good advice.Just do it. Yeah. I
can't thank you enough for yourtime, because I know you are
astonishingly busy. Probably 10times as busy as usual, because

(01:09:33):
you're rapidly making up for thepandemic drought, aren't you?
Yes, we are. We've got a lot ofthings happening now that are
suddenly picking up because theywere stalled or postponed or
even cancelled over the last fewyears. And so, yes, a lot
going on, but I'd sure ratherhave it like that than any other
way.

(01:09:53):
Well, I'm just glad thatlike your parents, you have the
courage of your own convictionto keep going.
If it hadn't been for the
Arts Council, I think we would havebeen dead in the water we got
got some of their grants andthat's kept us going and now
we're just taking off again.
Well, thank you for yourvery honest conversation and for

(01:10:16):
your time today.
Thank you. Its been lovelytalking to you. We'll be in touch again.
Yes for sure. See you soon.Thank you, Anthony. Thank you.