An annotated photographic scrapbook—often called a “daybook”—featuring newspaper clippings and hundreds of photos by Lee Miller and Cecil Beaton has been acquired by the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford. The album was compiled by British Vogue darkroom assistant Roland Haupt between 1943 and ’49; Haupt developed film by both Miller and Beaton when they worked for Vogue magazine during this time period.
The deal was brokered by the London-based photography dealer Michael Hoppen, who was approached about nine months ago by Haupt’s descendants. (Haupt died in the mid-1960s.) Hoppen declined to share the sales price with ARTnews, explaining that the family preferred that their identity and the details of the sale remain private for the time being.
Below are spreads from the album, showing photographs by both Miller and Beaton, war-related and otherwise, as well as related newspaper clippings.
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“My Favorite Photographer”
Image Credit: Courtesy Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford Haupt dedicates the book to Miller, who he tenderly refers to as “my favorite photographer.” He writes this next to a portrait of Miller, posing in a chair wearing a uniform, captioned “Lee on a short leave from the war front.” Other photos on this spread show Miller posing with Picasso in his studio, an alternate version of the famous portrait of Miller in Hitler’s bathtub “getting rid of some battle dirt,” Miller with soldiers on the battlefield, and lastly, the Surrender of St. Malo.
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Glamor Shots
Image Credit: Courtesy Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford Hoppen’s first order of business was to encourage the family not to take it to auction, where they wouldn’t be able to control who purchased it, and if the photos would be sold piecemeal.
“I felt it was incredibly important that this piece of empirical evidence should remain intact, and in a place that really respected the integrity of something between two hard covers. . . . [The album] wasn’t simply a [group of] photographs, it was a life,” Hoppen said.
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Cartoons
Image Credit: Courtesy Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford The album had spent decades as a cherished family heirloom. It had been stored in a cupboard in the living room, Hoppen said, and the family would look through it together at Christmas.
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Clippings
Image Credit: Courtesy Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford Hoppen and the family were keen to keep the album in England, where Miller’s war photography was first published. For these reasons, they ultimately chose the Beaudliean Libraries. The Haupt relatives’ relationship with the city of Oxford didn’t hurt, either, nor did the library’s “extraordinarily competent” conservation department.
The album, Hoppen notes, is in overall great condition, but some contract sheets have been damaged by the high acid content of the pages on which the photos have been mounted.
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Germany Surrenders
Image Credit: Courtesy Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford The American model and Surrealist muse Lee Miller studied with—and frequently posed for—Man Ray in Paris, and worked as an accredited war photographer in Europe, publishing searing documentary photographs in British Vogue during and after World War II.
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Hitler’s Home
Image Credit: Courtesy Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford Miller trained Haupt on how to process the 120 format film she preferred to shoot, shipping her film to him from the field, which he would develop and deliver to the Vogue offices in London.
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Moore and Beaton
Image Credit: Courtesy Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford Haupt had a similar arrangement with Beaton, receiving film Beaton shot in North Africa and other far-flung locations.
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Horrors of War
Image Credit: Courtesy Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
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Traveling the World
Image Credit: Courtesy Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford “It was exciting as a dealer, but hugely unnerving to be responsible for something that was obviously very important,” Hoppen said, when Haupt’s relatives approached him with the album.
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“World Famous Photographer”
Image Credit: Courtesy Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
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Wartime Germany
Image Credit: Courtesy Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford Hoppen pointed out the coincidence of this album resurfacing at a time when both Miller and Beaton had high-profile exhibitions on view in London. “Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World” closed at the National Portrait Gallery in January, while Lee Miller’s retrospective at the Tate closed in February.
