Largest Lee Miller Exhibition Opens at King Charles III’s House in Viscri

A landmark exhibition dedicated to the iconic photographer and war correspondent Lee Miller is now open at The King’s House in the Transylvanian village Viscri, Brașov County. Titled “Lee Miller’s Romania”, the exhibition is the most extensive presentation of her work ever held in the country and will remain open to the public until August 10, 2025, in the venue’s exhibition barn.

Miller, a trailblazing photographer and muse of the Surrealists, traveled across Romania in 1938 and again in 1946, documenting village life, forgotten rituals, and historical personalities at turning points in the nation’s history. On her first visit, she was accompanied by surrealist artist Roland Penrose, folklorist Harry Brauner, and artist Lena Constante; on her second, by Life magazine photographer John Phillips. Her images – vivid, technically exceptional, and deeply human – offer a unique, unfiltered look at Romania before and after World War II, capturing a country on the edge of profound political and cultural transformation.

”When Lee Miller and Roland arrived in a large Packard car with money to buy fuel and food, cameras and lots of film and the desire to see rural Romania, this was for Hari a surreal coincidence he could not resist. Miller and Penrose were acutely aware the Nazi’s were power mad and a war was coming. They knew Romania to be rich in oil, food and other resources the Nazi’s would want and they rightly predicted the country would be over run. They wanted to see as much as they could before this happened and help Hari record the old ways before they were swept away by the tide of war.”, says Antony Penrose, Lee’s son and Co – Director of the Lee Miller Archives.

This comprehensive selection of 46 images includes photographs from Miller’s travels, capturing customs and communities that were largely unknown at the time, as ethnographers were only just beginning to research them and bring them to public attention. ”The most wonderful thing about Miller’s images of Romania in 1939 is the way she captures the innocence of the moment. Being a woman made her less threatening than a man and she used a Rolleiflex camera which she operated at waist level, so it was much less confrontational than the sort of camera you have to hold up to eye level.”, adds Antony Penrose.  Also, on view at the King’s House in Viscri are her portraits of Queen Mother Elena, King Michael I, Iuliu Maniu and Dinu Brătianu — some of the last ever taken before these figures were removed from the public stage under the communist regime.

”We are truly delighted to host this photographic journey through 1940s Romania, captured by the exceptional photographer Lee Miller. This exhibition resonates and enriches on multiple levels — from the emotion of rediscovering a Romania that is utterly authentic, diverse, and surprising, documented at a historically pivotal moment in its evolution, to the fascination and inspiration sparked by the extraordinary life of this remarkable woman. Lee Miller was a fighter — a woman who broke taboos, lived boldly and fully, and who, through each frame, invites us to look at the world with courage, openness, and truth.”, says Raluca Grigore, The King’s House exhibition curator.

A surrealist in both spirit and technique, Miller began her career as a Vogue model before turning to photography under the mentorship of Man Ray. During the Second World War, she gave up fashion photography and fought to become a war correspondent — a role previously denied to women. She documented the advance of the American army across Europe after the Normandy landings, including the liberation of Paris and the horrors of the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Dachau. Still, her most famous image remains the staged photograph created with David Scherman, published in Life magazine, in which she is seen bathing in Hitler’s bathtub in Munich.

Most of her photographs, however, remained relatively unknown until after her death, when her son, Antony Penrose, and his wife discovered a trove of images and manuscripts hidden in their attic. The images exhibited in Viscri are part of these rediscovered works, with their subjects identified with the help of Romanian experts — including Dr. Adrian-Silvan Ionescu (Institute of Art History), Ioana Popescu (Romanian Peasant Museum), and Paula Popoiu (National Village Museum “Dimitrie Gusti”) — at the request of the Lee Miller Archives.

The exhibition at The King’s House in Viscri, made possible with the support of Profi Romania, offers not just a retrospective of Miller’s work, but also a portal into a Romania caught between tradition and modernity, war and peace, repression and resistance. ”For me these images will inform urban people about rural ways of life, but I feel they really belong in the country. Showing them in Viscri is a very important moment for me as I feel in a way they are going home to the kind of circumstances where they originated. I understand the purpose of The King’s House in Viscri is to conserve all that was good about the old ways, and if my mother’s photographs can be part of that, I will be very proud and feel honoured to be involved.”, concludes Antony Penrose.

Lee Miller’s extraordinary life continues to inspire new generations. Her story is now reaching global audiences through the recent biographical film Lee, in which she is portrayed by Kate Winslet. Released in 2024, the film was inspired by the biography written by her son, Antony Penrose, and highlights her fearless journey from fashion model to war correspondent and groundbreaking photographer.