Lee returned to New York in , and, once more, established a successful photographic studio on the other side of the Atlantic, despite the economic depression in the USA. A new adventure presented itself when Lee married the wealthy Egyptian businessman Aziz Eloui Bey, and moved with him to Cairo in Egypt, where she became fascinated by precarious, long-range desert travel.
Free from the constraints of harnessing photography to make a living, Lee could now take photos purely for herself. During a visit to Paris in she met Roland Penrose , the surrealist artist who was to become her second husband, and travelled with him to Greece and Romania. She moved in with Roland and, defying orders from the US Embassy to return to America, took a job as a freelance photographer for Vogue.
She followed the US troops overseas after D Day, becoming one of only a few women combat photojournalists to cover the front-line war in Europe. Penetrating deep into Eastern Europe, she covered harrowing scenes of children dying in Vienna, peasant life in devastated post-war Hungary and finally the execution of Prime Minister Lazlo Bardossy.
There, Lee moved away from professional photography. In the last two decades of her life, she became a celebrated, award-winning cook , known for her dishes inspired by Surrealism.
Lee died at Farleys in Lee stays with Swedish friends now living in New York. Lee is sexually assaulted whilst staying with the family, resulting in an infection of gonorrhea that lasts many years.
