Lee Miller

mounted on heavy paper, signed in pencil on the mount, the photographer’s ’12, rue Victor Considérant, Paris XIVe’ studio stamp on the reverse, 1931

Collection of Maurice Verneuil, Paris

To his descendants

Phillips New York, The Verneuil Collection: Photographs from Paris, 1928-1935, 6 April 1998, Sale 781, Lot 57

David Travis, Photographs from the Julien Levy Collection, Starting with Atget (Art Institute of Chicago, 1976), p. 18, pl. 84

Rosalind Kraus and Jane Livingston, L’Amour Fou: Photography and Surrealism (Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1985), p. 222, fig. 206

Jane Livingston, Lee Miller, Photographer (New York, 1989), pl. 29

Christian Bouqueret, Des Années Folles aux Années Noires: La Nouvelle Vision Photographique en France, 1920-1940 (Paris, 1997), p. 99

Mark Haworth-Booth, The Art of Lee Miller (Yale University Press, 2007), pl. 49

This photograph is on substantial double-weight paper with a velvety matte surface. Its tones are very neutral. The image is astonishing for both its clarity of detail and its luminous quality. The print is in excellent condition. It was tipped to its mount at the corners; the lower right corner has become detached. The mount is a deckle-edged sheet of paper 13 by 10 1/4 in. It is very slightly age-darkened at its periphery.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

This photograph comes originally from the collection of the designer, artist, and photographer Maurice Verneuil (1869-1942).  Verneuil’s small but choice collection of photographs, acquired in Paris in the late 1920s and 1930s, was sold in an historic auction in New York in 1998.  Comprised almost entirely of images made by photographers working at the cutting edge of the medium, the Verneuil Collection encapsulated a particularly exciting period in photography’s history. 

Trained at l’Ecole de Dessin et Beaux-Arts, Verneuil became a major proponent of Art Nouveau: his work in this style included illustration, wallpaper, ceramics design, posters, and furniture.  On a 1922 trip to Java and Cambodia, Verneuil documented the indigenous decorative arts and cultures with a camera.  Verneuil exhibited and published these photographs upon his return to Paris and became increasingly involved in the city’s active photo scene.  It was during this period that he began to collect the work of other photographers. 

With its precise composition and surprising luminosity, Untitled (Iron Work) incorporates Miller’s sophisticated sense of design and her ability to locate the Surreal in the real world.  It is a remarkably accomplished image for a photographer to have made so early in her career, from both an aesthetic and a technical point of view.  In Miller’s print, with its deep, charcoal-black ironwork and bright white sunlit wall, an architectural detail is transformed into a lyrical, abstract study of tonal values. 

Early prints of any of Miller’s photographs are scarce.  The present print is the only example of this image believed to have come to auction.  All of the above-listed literature reproduces the same print, the one owned by the Art Institute of Chicago.  That print was originally in the collection of pioneering gallerist Julien Levy, who gave Miller her first solo exhibition in 1932-33, and also included her work in Modern European Photography, Exhibition of Portrait Photography, and Exhibition of Anti-Graphic Photography.