Claude Cahun
Encyclopedia
Claude Cahun was a French
artist
, photographer and writer
. Her work was both political and personal, and often played with the concepts of gender
and sexuality
.
, she was the niece of writer Marcel Schwob
and the great-niece of Orientalist David Léon Cahun
. Her mother's mental problems meant that she was brought up by her paternal grandmother, Mathilde Cahun.
She began making photographic self-portraits as early as 1912, when she was 18 years old, and she continued taking images of herself through the 1930s.
Around 1919, she settled on the pseudonym
Claude Cahun, intentionally selecting a sexually ambiguous name, after having previously used the names Claude Courlis (after the curlew
) and Daniel Douglas (after Lord Alfred Douglas
). During the early 20s, she settled in Paris
with her life-long partner and stepsister Suzanne Malherbe
. For the rest of their lives together, Cahun and Malherbe (who adopted the pseudonym "Marcel Moore") collaborated on various written works, sculptures, photomontages and collages. She published articles and novels, notably in the periodical "Mercure de France
", and befriended Henri Michaux
, Pierre Morhange and Robert Desnos
.
Around 1922 she and Malherbe began holding artists' salons at their home. Among the regulars who would attend were artists Henri Michaux
and André Breton
and literary entrepreneurs Sylvia Beach
and Adrienne Monnier
.
.
Her published writings include "Heroines," (1925) a series of monologues based upon female fairy tale characters and intertwining them with witty comparisons to the contemporary image of women; Aveux non avenus, (Carrefour, 1930) a book of essays and recorded dreams illustrated with photomontage
s; and several essays in magazines and journals.
In 1932 she joined the Association des Écrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires
, where she met André Breton
and René Crevel
. Following this, she started associating with the surrealist group, and later participated in a number of surrealist exhibitions, including the London International Surrealist Exhibition
(New Burlington Gallery) and Exposition surréaliste d'Objets (Charles Ratton Gallery, Paris), both in 1936. In 1934, she published a short polemic essay, Les Paris sont Ouverts, and in 1935 took part in the founding of the left-wing group Contre Attaque, alongside André Breton
and Georges Bataille
.
. Following the fall of France and the German occupation of Jersey and the other Channel Islands
, they became active as resistance workers and propagandists. Fervently against war, the two worked extensively in producing anti-German fliers. Many were snippets from English-to-German translations of BBC reports on the Nazi's crimes and insolence, which were pasted together to create rhythmic poems and harsh criticism. The couple then dressed up and attended many German military events in Jersey, strategically placing them in soldier's pockets, on their chairs, etc. Also, fliers were inconspicuously crumpled up and thrown into cars and windows. In many ways, Cahun and Malherbe's resistance efforts were not only political but artistic actions, using their creative talents to manipulate and undermine the authority which they despised. In many ways, Cahun's life's work was focused on undermining a certain authority, however her specific resistance fighting targeted a physically dangerous threat. In 1944 they were arrested and sentenced to death, but the sentences were never carried out. However, Cahun's health never recovered from her treatment in jail, and she died in 1954. She is buried in St Brelade's Church
with her partner Suzanne Malherbe
.
and Nan Goldin
.
Cahun's collected writings were published in 2002 as Claude Cahun - Écrits (ISBN 2-85893-616-1), edited by François Leperlier
.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
, photographer and writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
. Her work was both political and personal, and often played with the concepts of gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
and sexuality
Human sexuality
Human sexuality is the awareness of gender differences, and the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses. Human sexuality can also be described as the way someone is sexually attracted to another person whether it is to opposite sexes , to the same sex , to either sexes , or not being...
.
Early life
Born Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob in NantesNantes
Nantes is a city in western France, located on the Loire River, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the 6th largest in France, while its metropolitan area ranks 8th with over 800,000 inhabitants....
, she was the niece of writer Marcel Schwob
Marcel Schwob
Marcel Schwob was a Jewish French writer.-Biography:He was born in Chaville, Hauts-de-Seine on 23 August 1867...
and the great-niece of Orientalist David Léon Cahun
David Léon Cahun
David Léon Cahun was a French traveler, Orientalist and writer.-Life:Cahun's family, who came originally from Lorraine, destined him for a military career. However, owing to family affairs he was compelled to relinquish this, and he devoted himself to geographical and historical studies...
. Her mother's mental problems meant that she was brought up by her paternal grandmother, Mathilde Cahun.
She began making photographic self-portraits as early as 1912, when she was 18 years old, and she continued taking images of herself through the 1930s.
Around 1919, she settled on the pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
Claude Cahun, intentionally selecting a sexually ambiguous name, after having previously used the names Claude Courlis (after the curlew
Curlew
The curlews , genus Numenius, are a group of eight species of birds, characterised by long, slender, downcurved bills and mottled brown plumage. They are one of the most ancient lineages of scolopacid waders, together with the godwits which look similar but have straight bills...
) and Daniel Douglas (after Lord Alfred Douglas
Lord Alfred Douglas
Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas , nicknamed Bosie, was a British author, poet and translator, better known as the intimate friend and lover of the writer Oscar Wilde...
). During the early 20s, she settled in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
with her life-long partner and stepsister Suzanne Malherbe
Suzanne Malherbe
Suzanne Malherbe , also known by the alias Marcel Moore, was a French illustrator and designer. She was the partner of Claude Cahun, surrealist writer and photographer....
. For the rest of their lives together, Cahun and Malherbe (who adopted the pseudonym "Marcel Moore") collaborated on various written works, sculptures, photomontages and collages. She published articles and novels, notably in the periodical "Mercure de France
Mercure de France
The Mercure de France was originally a French gazette and literary magazine first published in the 17th century, but after several incarnations has evolved as a publisher, and is now part of the Éditions Gallimard publishing group....
", and befriended Henri Michaux
Henri Michaux
Henri Michaux was a highly idiosyncratic Belgian-born poet, writer, and painter who wrote in French. He later took French citizenship. Michaux is best known for his esoteric books written in a highly accessible style, and his body of work includes poetry, travelogues, and art criticism...
, Pierre Morhange and Robert Desnos
Robert Desnos
Robert Desnos , was a French surrealist poet who played a key role in the Surrealist movement of his day.- Biography :...
.
Around 1922 she and Malherbe began holding artists' salons at their home. Among the regulars who would attend were artists Henri Michaux
Henri Michaux
Henri Michaux was a highly idiosyncratic Belgian-born poet, writer, and painter who wrote in French. He later took French citizenship. Michaux is best known for his esoteric books written in a highly accessible style, and his body of work includes poetry, travelogues, and art criticism...
and André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
and literary entrepreneurs Sylvia Beach
Sylvia Beach
Sylvia Beach , born Nancy Woodbridge Beach, was an American-born bookseller and publisher who lived most of her life in Paris, where she was one of the leading expatriate figures between World War I and II.-Early life:...
and Adrienne Monnier
Adrienne Monnier
Adrienne Monnier was a French poet, bookseller and publisher and an important figure in the modernist writing scene in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s.-"La Maison des Amis des Livres":...
.
Work
Cahun's work encompassed writing, photography, and theater. She is most remembered for her highly-staged self portraits and tableaux that incorporated the visual aesthetics of SurrealismSurrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
.
Her published writings include "Heroines," (1925) a series of monologues based upon female fairy tale characters and intertwining them with witty comparisons to the contemporary image of women; Aveux non avenus, (Carrefour, 1930) a book of essays and recorded dreams illustrated with photomontage
Photomontage
Photomontage is the process and result of making a composite photograph by cutting and joining a number of other photographs. The composite picture was sometimes photographed so that the final image is converted back into a seamless photographic print. A similar method, although one that does not...
s; and several essays in magazines and journals.
In 1932 she joined the Association des Écrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires
Association des Ecrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires
The Association des Écrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires was a French association of revolutionary artists and writers which first existed between 1932 and 1939...
, where she met André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
and René Crevel
René Crevel
René Crevel was a French writer involved with the surrealist movement.-Life:Crevel was born in Paris to a family of Parisian bourgeoisie. He had a traumatic religious upbringing. At the age of fourteen, during a difficult stage of his life, his father committed suicide by hanging himself. Crevel...
. Following this, she started associating with the surrealist group, and later participated in a number of surrealist exhibitions, including the London International Surrealist Exhibition
London International Surrealist Exhibition
The International Surrealist Exhibition was held from 11 June to 4 July 1936 at the New Burlington Galleries in London, England.The exhibition was organised by:* Hugh Sykes Davies* David Gascoyne* Humphrey Jennings* Rupert Lee* Diana Brinton Lee...
(New Burlington Gallery) and Exposition surréaliste d'Objets (Charles Ratton Gallery, Paris), both in 1936. In 1934, she published a short polemic essay, Les Paris sont Ouverts, and in 1935 took part in the founding of the left-wing group Contre Attaque, alongside André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
and Georges Bataille
Georges Bataille
Georges Bataille was a French writer. His multifaceted work is linked to the domains of literature, anthropology, philosophy, economy, sociology and history of art...
.
World War II activism
In 1937 Cahun and Malherbe settled in JerseyJersey
Jersey, officially the Bailiwick of Jersey is a British Crown Dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, the bailiwick includes two groups of small islands that are no longer permanently inhabited, the Minquiers and Écréhous, and the Pierres de Lecq and...
. Following the fall of France and the German occupation of Jersey and the other Channel Islands
Channel Islands
The Channel Islands are an archipelago of British Crown Dependencies in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two separate bailiwicks: the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey...
, they became active as resistance workers and propagandists. Fervently against war, the two worked extensively in producing anti-German fliers. Many were snippets from English-to-German translations of BBC reports on the Nazi's crimes and insolence, which were pasted together to create rhythmic poems and harsh criticism. The couple then dressed up and attended many German military events in Jersey, strategically placing them in soldier's pockets, on their chairs, etc. Also, fliers were inconspicuously crumpled up and thrown into cars and windows. In many ways, Cahun and Malherbe's resistance efforts were not only political but artistic actions, using their creative talents to manipulate and undermine the authority which they despised. In many ways, Cahun's life's work was focused on undermining a certain authority, however her specific resistance fighting targeted a physically dangerous threat. In 1944 they were arrested and sentenced to death, but the sentences were never carried out. However, Cahun's health never recovered from her treatment in jail, and she died in 1954. She is buried in St Brelade's Church
St Brelade's Church
St Brelade's Church is one of the twelve ancient parish churches in the island of Jersey; it is sited on the west of the island in the parish of St Brelade, in the south-west corner of St Brelade's Bay...
with her partner Suzanne Malherbe
Suzanne Malherbe
Suzanne Malherbe , also known by the alias Marcel Moore, was a French illustrator and designer. She was the partner of Claude Cahun, surrealist writer and photographer....
.
Social critique and legacy
In many ways, Cahun's life was marked by a sense of role reversal, and her public identity became a commentary upon not only her own, but the public's notions of sexuality, gender, beauty, and logic. Her adoption of a sexually ambiguous name, and her androgynous self-portraits display a revolutionary way of thinking and creating, experimenting with her audience's understanding of photography as a documentation of reality. Her poetry challenged gender roles and attacked the increasingly modern world's social and economic boundaries. Also Cahun's participation in the Parisian Surrealist movement diversified the group's artwork and ushered in new representations. Where most Surrealist artists were men, and their primary images were of women as isolated symbols of eroticism, Cahun epitomized the chameleonic and multiple possibilities of the female identity. Her photographs, writings, and general life as an artistic and political revolutionary continue to influence countless artists, namely Cindy ShermanCindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman is an American photographer and film director, best known for her conceptual portraits. Sherman currently lives and works in New York City. In 1995, she was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. She is represented by Sprüth Magers Berlin London in and Metro Pictures gallery in...
and Nan Goldin
Nan Goldin
Nancy "Nan" Goldin is an American photographer.-Life and work:Goldin was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in the Boston, Massachusetts suburb of Lexington, to middle class Jewish parents whose ideas, moderately liberal and progressive, were put to the test when on April 12, 1965 their eldest...
.
Cahun's collected writings were published in 2002 as Claude Cahun - Écrits (ISBN 2-85893-616-1), edited by François Leperlier
François Leperlier
François Leperlier is a French writer, essayist and art historian, known especially for his work on the surrealist writer and photographer Claude Cahun.-Bibliography:* Claude Cahun, L'Exotisme Intérieur...
.
Film
- Playing a Part - by Lizzie Thynne
- Lover Other by Barbara Hammer
Exhibitions
- International Surrealist Exhibition, London - June-July 1936
- Surrealist Sisters Jersey Museum 1993
- Mise en Scene - Institute of Contemporary ArtsInstitute of Contemporary ArtsThe Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...
(ICA), London - 13 October to 27 November 1994 - Claude Cahun : photographe : Claude Cahun 1894-1954 - Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris - 23 June to 17 September 1995
- Neue Museum, Graz, Austria - 4 October to 3 December 1997
- Fotografische Sammlung, Museum Folkwang Essen, Germany - 18 January - 8 March 1998
- Don't Kiss Me - Disruptions of the Self in the Work of Claude Cahun - Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver, Canada - 7 November to 20 December 1998
- Don't Kiss Me - Disruptions of the Self in the Work of Claude Cahun - Art Gallery of Ontario, Ontario, Canada - 8 May to 18 July 1999
- Inverted Odysseys - Grey Art Gallery, New York, USA - 16 November 1999 to 29 January 2000
- Surrealism: Desire Unbound - Tate ModernTate ModernTate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group . It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year...
, London - 20 September 2001 to 1 January 2002 - Claude Cahun - Retrospective - IVAM, Valencia, Spain - 8 November 2001 to 20 January 2002
- I am in training - don't kiss me - New York, USA - May 2004
- Acting Out: Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore - The Judah L. Magnes MuseumJudah L. Magnes MuseumThe Judah L. Magnes Museum is a museum of Jewish history, art, and culture in Berkeley, California. It was founded in 1962 by Seymour and Rebecca Fromer and named for Jewish activist Rabbi Judah L. Magnes, a native of Oakland...
- 4 April - July 2005 - Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME, USA - September to October 2005
- Jersey Museum - November 2005 to January 2006
- Cahun Exhibition - Jeu de Paume, Place de la Concorde, Paris - 24 May to 25 September 2011.
- Cahun Exhibition - Will also tour to Art Institute of Chicago and La Virreina Centre de la image, Barcelona in 2011/2012.
- March 2012 in Cahun's home town of Nantes, as part of two seasons on 'Le film et l'acte de création: Entre documentaire et oeuvre d'art' ('Film and the creative act: Between documentary and the work of art').