Solarized shots still shine

After languishing in self-imposed obscurity in the decades following World War II, Lee Miller's reputation as a photographer of considerable talent has soared in the last decade. Now regular publications and exhibitions attest to her importance.

Though never a fully fledged surrealist, Miller became involved in the movement through her links with its most acclaimed photographic artist, Man Ray. She became his lover, his student and artistic collaborator in 1929 in Paris, having previously worked as a successful fashion model in her native New York.

Under Man Ray's tutelage she began taking solarized images, using disorientating devices and props such as mirrors, and pictures of disembodied body parts. Her portrait of actress Mary Taylor in Floating Head, for instance, starkly portrays

Taylor's head cut out against a black background, her hair disappearing into dense shadow.

She also began documenting notable artists, writers and performers, both within her own circle and beyond it. Many are carefully posed, set up or restaged, such as the one of Henry Moore sketching crowds in an underground shelter. She took hundreds of pictures of Picasso, either working or against a backdrop of paintings.

But it was perhaps as a war photographer that we admire her most today. She entered the newly liberated Dachau and was unflinching in her depiction of its horrors. This excellent exhibition shows some of her war coverage, while concentrating on her achievements as a portraitist.

Until May 30, National Portrait Gallery, St Martin's Place WC2, daily 10am to 6pm, Thu and Fri to 8.50pm, £7, £4.75 concs. Tel: 020 7306 0055. Tube: Charing Cross/ Leicester Square