An Invitation: Farleys Farm & the Lee Miller Archives
An inquiry was recently received from a follower of this forum in London as to the nature and extent of any relationship between the forum and the Lee Miller Archives (Archives) at Farleys House & Gallery. After providing some background, it was explained that the relationship at this time is not friendly or collegial.
Upon additional reflection, it seems appropriate to share information on the relationship since other readers may have the same question and to invite the Archives, through its co-director, Ami Bouhassane to address any of the challenges raised in the articles and research posted in the forum.
To this end, an invitation is being forwarded to Farleys House & Gallery simultaneously with the publication of this post with the hope that Farleys House & Gallery will comment (1). For reasons stated below in “Background” it is possible that the invitation will remain unanswered by the Archives, but, as a matter of due diligence, it seems worth the effort.
In addition to offering the Archives an opportunity to express its point of view, readers are encouraged to post questions here for the Archives that they may have. For example, a significant part of the Archive’s storyline is that Lee Miller was the March 1927 cover girl for Vogue as illustrated by Georges Lepape. An appropriate question for the Archives is what evidence is there to support this claim?
This also provides an opportunity for forum readers to raise questions as a result of their own reading and research. Such posts are welcome and readers are, of course, always free to submit their own questions directly to the Archives.
To the extent possible, an effort has been made in the forum to seek original source material and it is difficult to think of a source more original concerning the development of the Lee Miller narrative than Farleys House & Gallery itself.
Background
During the course of research, a review of the Last Will and Testament of Lee Miller and Roland Penrose was made. These documents are public records and are readily available to all.
It was a surprise to learn that Roland Penrose made a bequest directly to his granddaughters, Ami and Eliza, of very significant and valuable artwork. These artworks include Picasso’s 1937 portrait of Lee, Joan Miró’s Head of a Catalan Peasant, Valentine’s portrait by Roland Penrose, a Max Ernst portrait of Valentine and Picasso’s La Plage (2).
Specifically, the Will, made the following bequest:
“(b) To my grand-daughter, AMY the portrait of my late wife Lee Miller by Picasso my own portrait of her as Sun Sky and Wall and Head of Catalan Peasant by Juan Miro
(c) To my grand-daughter ELISA MARY my portrait of my former wife Valentine Boue-Penrose also known as the Winged Domino the portrait of her by Max Ernst and La Plage 1932 by Picasso”.
This finding presented a bit of a dilemma because the art is currently worth tens of millions of dollars and they were bequeathed when Ami and Eliza were young children and without legal capacity as minors. It was an open question to whether Ami and Eliza were aware of the status of their inheritance, as children, or even as adults. By way of example, the Picasso portrait has been on long term loan since 1985 to the National Galleries of Scotland via The Penrose Collection (when Ami was a minor of ten years old or so) and it has been there ever since. It seemed odd that neither Ami nor Eliza would enjoy the benefit of their substantial inheritances or even seek acknowledgement of their largess upon reaching maturity (3).
I contacted Eliza about the provenance in general of the work and she politely indicated that any questions about provenance should be sent to Farleys House & Gallery. There were no questions nor follow up at that time because the only goal was to encourage Eliza to look into the provenance of her and Ami’s inheritance. Subsequently, an email was received from Ami thanking me for my concern but indicating that everything was on the up and up. It became clear that Ami and Eliza had no issues with the inheritance which, of course, is perfectly fine. On this point the following was communicated to Ami:
“…I am absolutely fascinated by the story of the Penrose Collection. To my knowledge, this has never been published. In fact, when I read your interview in La Surrealista Oculto with Elisabet Riera I was surprised to see that, although the topic of conversation was the portraits of Valentine by Ernst and Penrose, there was no mention of your sister’s ownership of these paintings. There has been absolutely no fanfare made about the contribution of you and Eliza to the Penrose Collection which seems a little counter intuitive since it would seemingly advance the goal of Farley Farm to preserve and promote the Roland Penrose legacy” (4).
The correspondence also explained some of the additional findings of the research. In return, a blunt response was received, demanding that further inquiries cease and desist.
[Note: For anyone who has an interest in William Somerset Maugham, there is an unexpected and interesting connection arising out of the Riera Millán Prologue concerning Valentine Penrose and the protagonist, Larry Darrell of The Razor’s Edge. This connection will be intriguing to anyone who has been influenced by the spiritual quest of Larry Darrell in The Razor’s Edge and will be addressed in a separate post titled The Ascetic.]
Farleys House & Gallery went dark and no response or modification has been made to the narrative. For this reason, there should be no expectation that the Archives will accept the invitation for rebuttal, but readers are encouraged to reach out directly to the Archives with questions and perhaps they will have better luck. For anyone who wonders why the forum does not simply make inquiry directly to the Archives regarding the issues raised, the short answer is that many of the issues have, in fact, been presented but are clearly not welcome. They have been left unaddressed. To be fair, the Archives have the absolute right to ignore whomever they wish, although the questions posed do not magically go away.
The primary goal of the forum is to find the real Lee Miller, albeit, without the gild that has been applied to the lily, it is also to promote integrity in art history which often is inseparable from art marketing and, ultimately, the monetary value of an artist’s work. Aside from the Archives, and as a general observation, narrative sells, and when it is inaccurate it creates not only artificially inflated value, but also inaccurate scholarly interpretive theories and commentary. This has occurred endlessly in the case of Lee Miller.
To anyone wondering if, and why, the narrative matters, consider two questions: (1) Is a particular claim true, and if not, (2) then why was it put front and center? As a general proposition concerning art integrity, one can fairly wonder whether there is any difference between a forged painting or sculpture and a “forged” narrative about an artist or an artist’s work. Unlike a physically forged painting, a narrative, fortunately, can be corrected.
It would be naïve to think that there will ever be an even playing field in the art world, but where narrative is demonstratively challengeable – it should always be challenged.
Footnotes
(1) Dear Ami,
For a number of months now, I have been writing a series of articles concerning the Lee Miller story. (They can be found at https://www.leemillerresearchguide.com). I was recently asked what the relationship between my research and the Lee Miller Archives consists of and I replied that it was neither friendly nor collegial. However, the question caused me to think that it would be fair and appropriate to extend an invitation directly to Farleys House & Gallery to express an opposing point of view within Chapter XIV entitled: An Invitation: Farleys House & Gallery and the Lee Miller Archives. I know that the research guide is being followed by several authors who have written on Lee Miller as well as other authorities who have participated with Farleys House & Gallery and so, it may be that you are aware of the research guide. If not, I sincerely hope that Farleys House & Gallery will take this opportunity to either correct any errors in the forum’s analysis or re-address the Lee Miller narrative as it has been presented since 1985.
Sincerely,
Tuya Elwy
(2) There are a couple of points of collateral interest related to this topic. Recently a companion portrait of Lee Miller painted by Picasso during the 1937 Surrealist’s holiday in Mougin, was auctioned for over 24 million dollars. This is interesting because it is a companion portrait to that inherited by Ami and Christie’s uses the talking point of 1985’s Lives to market the Picasso. There is virtually nothing about Picasso or the merit of the work and the Lee Miller story is used as the pitch. This is the power of narrative and the Christie’s announcement serves as a good bookend to the Guardian article, Picasso nearly fell over backwards when he saw her – Lee Miller’s son on their intense relationship, which was the original pathfinder that this research guide used to follow the footprints set by Lives. These footprints have been followed by the progeny of Lives, including the Guardian and, as of April 2023, the Christie’s marketing staff.
(3) It should be noted that Head of a Catalan Peasant (1925) was sold to the Tate Museum and Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 1999. It is unclear where the proceeds ended up or what the chain of provenance is between Ami’s inheritance and the joint acquisition with the assistance of the Art Fund. The provenance, ownership and transactions relating to the provenance of the artwork is outside the scope of this research guide, but if there are researchers interested, they should start with the Wills of Lee Miller and Roland Penrose.
(4) Penrose, Valentine & Marie- Christine del Castillo Valero (Translator) & Elisabet Riera Millán (Contributor) (2020) La Surrealist Oculta Wanderhammer [Prólogó Elisabeth Riera Millán: Interview with Ami Bouhassane (Winter 2019) (page 16 et seq.)]
See also Penrose, Valentine The Bloody Countess (1962) to gain an appreciation of this fascinating woman.