Tate Britain’s Lee Miller exhibition is hardly ‘overdue’

‘I was surprised to read in your review that the photograph of Irmgard Seefried singing in the ruins of the Vienna Opera House was “newly discovered”.’ Photograph: Lee Miller Archives

Without wishing to belittle the comprehensive exhibition of Lee Miller at Tate Britain, it is hardly “overdue” (Lee Miller review – a dazzling, daring career from war photographer to surrealist pioneer via Hitler’s bathtub, 30 September).

Since the start of the millennium there have been no fewer than four exhibitions of Lee Miller’s photographs in major UK national museums: Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (2001, almost as big as the current Tate show), National Portrait Gallery (2005), Victoria and Albert Museum (2007) and Imperial War Museum (2015). In the same period there have been several Miller shows in regional venues, such as Modern Art Oxford (2004) and Hepworth Wakefield (2018).

I was also surprised to read in your review that the photo of Irmgard Seefried singing in the ruins of the Vienna Opera House was “newly discovered”. I reproduced it in my 2002 book Lee Miller: Portraits from a Life and included it in the National Portrait Gallery show that I curated.
Richard Calvocoressi
Cambridge

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