Gender Performance in Portrait Photography: Unmasking Claude Cahun

Shannon Moriarty

Moriarty 2

Abstract This thesis examines the French artist Claude Cahun. During the early twentieth century,

Cahun, working in collaboration with their partner, Marcel Moore, used photography to capture exaggerated gender performances. By visually analyzing the couple’s photographs and comparing such work to images of normative gender in interwar Paris, such as la femme moderne and the Surrealist muse, I analyze how Cahun launched a multi-layered attack against the role of the traditional “feminine” subject. Considering the feminist frameworks that were previously used to research Cahun’s photographs, this thesis pivots from such discussions to argue that Cahun’s and Moore’s gender is better understood as “neuter” and therefore expressing a gaze that is inherently queer. Through these dramatic subversions, Cahun and Moore’s work remains vitally relevant to contemporary feminist and queer theory and the critique of normative gender.

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Introduction

Sitting in a chair is a person with close-cropped hair and a split fringe with feminine inward curls. They are adorned with painted hearts on their cheeks, eye shadow decorating each eyelid to the brow, and dark rouge-tinted lips that pucker coyly towards the viewer. Their tilted gaze is direct, demanding attention. The person wears the theatrical attire of a strongman at a circus performance, the accompanying dumbbell rests securely on their lap. The weights are highly phallic, a masculine symbol of strength. This hypermasculine performance of a strongman is distorted by the added elements of femininity, such as the exaggerated makeup, the ornamental comic characters Totor and Popol painted on the dumbbell, and the recurring symbols of hearts and lips. The costume worn by the individual is a tight, flesh colored bodysuit that is embellished with two false nipples, framing the phrase “I AM IN TRAINING DON’T KISS ME,” which is punctuated by an illustrated outline of lips. Despite the feminine features added to the costume, the individual’s chest is de-emphasized, appearing more masculine through its flatness.

By displaying the seductiveness of a coy woman and the power of a strongman, the artist of I am in training, don’t kiss me, 1927 (figure 1), Claude Cahun, subverts the conventional gender role of a masculine figure. This image and other photographs by Cahun continue to challenge contemporary ideas about gender when viewed by today’s audiences. The use of theatrical costumes, props, gesture, and bodily posing exaggerate the role of performativity in expressing gender. Cahun often worked in collaboration with their1 partner, Marcel Moore, to capture images including archetypal representations of gender, such as a dandy, a sailor, and

1 Throughout this essay, the singular they/them/theirs pronouns will be used instead of she/her/hers when referring to both Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore. It is not the place of the historian to label these artists with gender identities based on contemporary understanding of gender. Based on my research, using the pronouns she/her/hers for these artists does not feel appropriate due to the many ways in which they subvert gender. Moriarty 4 even a hyperfeminine damsel. By exaggerating poses and costuming, Cahun acts in transgression against normative gender roles while creating these performances. Cahun challenges the idea that gender is static through creating images that depict dynamic gender performances, expressing their own dynamic gender identity. Claude Cahun’s work also challenges the prevalent image of women as Surrealist muse, a role reinforced by André Breton, as well as complicates the capitalist image of la femme moderne—an image of free womanhood perpetuated by 1920s

Parisian advertisements—through their de-gendered portraiture.

Who was Claude Cahun?

Claude Cahun was born in 1894 as Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob to a prominent Jewish family in Nantes, France. In 1917 they adopted the French name “Claude,” which could be recognized as masculine or feminine, adding to Cahun’s de-gendered, neutral expression of themself. Cahun met their partner and lifelong artistic collaborator, Suzanne Alberte Malherbe, as a teenager, and the two became stepsisters after Cahun’s divorced father married Malherbe’s widowed mother.2 Around the same time of Cahun adopted their final pseudonym, Malherbe followed suit and adopted a masculine name: Marcel Moore. The two lived in Paris during the

1920’s, producing photographs and photomontages and authoring publications of poetry and illustrations. During this time, Cahun was affiliated with the Surrealist movement; they exhibited their work in Surrealist exhibitions, and their publications were read in Surrealist circles. In

1937, Cahun and Moore moved to their permanent residence in Jersey, where they would be held captive during World War II. During their time in Jersey, both artists would resist Nazi soldiers and circulate anti-Nazi propaganda by placing flyers directly into the pockets of soldiers. Both

2 Louise Downie, "Sans Nom: Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore," (Heritage Magazine, 2005.), 8-10. Moriarty 5 were imprisoned by the Gestapo and Cahun’s health was greatly weakened during their imprisonment. After the partners were liberated, their art focused thematically on death until

Cahun succumbed to weakened health and died in 1954.3

Cahun and Moore’s relationship is central to their photography. The two created images for their joint viewership, adopting codes of homophilia in early works such as the mythological figure Narcissus and mirrored images in their joint works: Untitled (author portrait) and Untitled

(Moore with mirror image) (figures 2 and 3, respectively). The use of the same space emphasizes the duo’s joint authorship of these images, which foregrounds the intimate role of the subject as the object of the photographer’s desire. The image of Cahun is analyzed later in this essay to highlight its role in gender performativity; but, as a pair, these images provide a clearer understanding of the co-authorship of many of the artists’ photographs. In her book, Women

Together/Women Apart: Portraits of Lesbian Paris, Tirza True Latimer defined Cahun and

Moore as lesbians4 and used that definition to analyze the role of their intimate partnership in the duo’s work. Latimer’s writing is valuable in understanding the role of the general queer gaze in the duo’s work in addition to the production of their photographs, which are typically of Cahun and taken by Moore. As an artist working in tandem with their partner, their joint creative visions are actualized in their collection of photographs, which includes numerous intimate images seemingly for private viewership. In addition to these photographs, their writings and photomontages were published in Disavowels, a book published in 1930 in an edition of five hundred copies.5

3 Ibid., 16. 4 I am hesitant to define Cahun and Moore’s relationship as a lesbian one due to their non-normative gender expression, but the reading of their relationship as a lesbian one is helpful in understanding the context of their artistic creation. 5 Jennifer Mundy, “Introduction” in Claude Cahun’s Disavowels (Cancelled Confessions), 7. Moriarty 6

Explorations of Gender

Gender is a socio-cultural construct based on the cisgender, heteronormative impulse to confine gender identity into a binary: masculine or feminine. The use of the terms “masculine” and “feminine,” instead of “male” and “female” or “men” and “women,” is intentional throughout this essay. This distinction separates a discussion of gender from terminology that typically refers to biological sex, focusing on the way that gender performance is dictated by socio-cultural norms.

In her book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Gender Identity, Judith

Butler argues that “gender is culturally constructed… neither the causal result of sex nor as seemingly fixed as sex,” asserting “there is no reason to assume that genders ought to also remain as two,” and, further, that “gender ought not to be conceived merely as the cultural inscription of meaning on a pregiven sex… gender must also designate the very apparatus of production whereby the sexes themselves are established.”6 The very categories of biological sex

(“male” and “female”) thus operate in conjunction with the cultural production of gender.7 One’s expression of gender identity is a performance. According to Butler, it is the repetition of acts with socially established meanings that legitimizes their significance as “inherent,” “truthful,” or

“natural,”8 reminding one that gender roles are reinforced when they are not questioned. By simply following the expectations of one’s assigned gender or the many actions that combine to establish a gender role in society, one is reinforcing societal expectations of gender roles.

6 Ibid., 9-11. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid., 178. Moriarty 7

Normative gender performance maintains and naturalizes gender within a binary frame of masculine and feminine. Gender performance is individual, but operates more broadly within each performer’s culture and may be externally labeled due to the repetition of acts necessary to maintain an expressed gender; essentially, “gender reality is created through sustained social performances.”9 Gender performance can be normative, aligning with the binary gender system of cisgender heteronormative society. Subversive gender performance, or queerly performed gender, is negatively viewed by normative society because it is a transgression, an action that is against or challenges the socio-culturally established binary gender system.

Cahun’s performances rely on blending masculine costuming and feminine forms, expressing non-normative gender identities outside the binary. Cahun’s choice to creatively combine elements from normative gender roles allows for their establishment of a gender that openly rejects those that are already well-established through the binary. Cahun described themself as “neuter,”10 in a passage they wrote in Disavowels:

Shuffle the cards. Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation. Neuter in the only gender that always suits me. If it existed in our language no one would be able to see my thought’s vacillations.11 This quote from Cahun’s Disavowels emphasizes how they embraced the absence of normative gender, an embrace that is visible in their portraiture as well. Cahun’s Untitled, circa 1927, exemplifies this “neuter” gender, appearing in a manner which obscures binary gender markers

9 Ibid., 180. 10 Aindrea Emelife, "Claude Cahun: The Trans Artist Years Ahead of Her Time," BBC News, June 29, 2016. http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160629-claude-cahun-the-trans-artist-years-ahead-of-her-time. 11 Claude Cahun, Disavowels (Cancelled Confessions), trans. Susan de Muth and Agnès Lhermitte (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008), 151-152. Moriarty 8 by physically obscuring their body, shaving their head and eyebrows, and wearing non-gendered clothing.

Untitled (figure 3) blends characteristics that would lead the viewer to perceive a traditionally gendered subject. The use of the mirror encapsulates them in two spaces: that of reality and its mirror image. The play between these spaces facilitates viewership between the world in which Cahun exists and the world of their reflection; they express their desire and control of such visibility through the oscillating perspective provided by the mirror. As an artist working in tandem with their partner, Cahun’s creative visions are actualized to create the exact ways they want to present themself and be perceived as upon viewing. The mirror facilitates the connections between the viewer and themes of perception, examining how one is perceived by other versus how one is perceived by the self, as Cahun looks at the camera, towards the viewer, and at their partner: Marcel Moore.

The gaze is intimate, but the one viewed in the mirror expresses restricted emotionality.

The act of revealing portions of oneself to the camera and other portions to the mirror displays how different one can appear depending on angles of perception. Cahun’s play with the perspective of the mirror to present images of two distinct individuals: one curling their hand around their collar to mask characteristics that would define their biological sex or socially perceived gender, and another that reveals the masked form which is visible through the reflection in the mirror. Though Cahun maintains eye contact with the viewer of the image, another version of them coyishly looks away from the viewer. The subjects presented in this image display the complexity of spectatorship, revealing the multifaceted nature of presenting the self, such as the distinction between what is hidden to the viewer and what is purposefully Moriarty 9 presented. Through the dual depiction of both these forms, Cahun expresses an androgynous subjecthood.

The Freedoms and Restrictions of La Femme Moderne

Cahun’s photographs were heavily influenced by the cultural shifts experienced primarily by women during the period between the first and second World Wars. During this time in

France, women adopted symbolisms of masculinity to fashion themselves as independent, which included wearing pants, cropping their hair, and smoking in public.12 The following quotation from The Modern Woman Revisited, edited by Whitney Chadwick and Tirza True Latimer, describes la femme moderne:

The figure of the ‘emancipated’ modern woman became to interwar Parisian modernity what the figure of the dandy/flaneur had been to modernity in Baudelaire’s era, personifying the social, political, intellectual, and technological changes that shaped daily life in bourgeois Wester urban centers. The modern woman was, above all, an image mediated and mediatized by emerging industries such as the illustrated press, pulp fiction, advertising, and cinema.13 The image of la femme moderne was central to Parisian culture during the interwar years and was prevalent throughout urban media.

One example of a modern woman was formed in the character Monique Lerbier, the heroine of the 1922 Victor Margueritte novel, “La Garçonne,” which is the French equivalent term for “the flapper.”14 The title of the novel lies in between defined gender by using the feminine definite article “la” followed by the feminized noun for “boy,” “garçonne,” from the

12 Whitney Chadwick and Tirza True Latimer, eds., The Modern Woman Revisited: Paris between the Wars (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press, 2003), 3. 13 Ibid. 14 Emily Spivack. “The History of the Flapper, Part 5: Who Was Behind the Fashions?” Smithsonian.com. Smithsonian Institution, April 5, 2013. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-history-of-the-flapper- part-5-who-was-behind-the-fashions-20996134/. Moriarty 10 typical masculine noun, “garçon.” Monique’s character was an expression of transformed gender roles and explorations of sexuality, including a masculinized appearance of short hair and square-figure dresses, a heterosexual pre-marital affair and erotic encounters with women.15 In the theatrical poster for the 1936 film adaption of the novel (figure 4), Monique is depicted with short, black hair and a fringe. She wears all black, including a sleeveless dress and leather gloves. La garçonne holds a cigarette that she is smoking, a quintessential element of the character. La garçonne is a notable example of the figures towards whom women looked for inspiration when creating la femme moderne. These women are modern: uprooted, intellectual, as well as free sexually and often financially.16

Elements of this newly adopted masculinity, specifically the cropped hair, are found in

Cahun’s I am in training, don’t kiss me. Additionally, Cahun and Moore created Untitled, 1922,

(figure 5), a photograph of Cahun which displays these characteristics. Cahun wears a dark suit with a white shirt that covers their whole neck, hiding the absence of a distinct laryngeal prominence, colloquially known as an “Adam’s apple.” This photograph shows Cahun performing the role of a dandy, a self-made and fashionable man, taking all the desirable aesthetic elements of femininity but not its traditional associations with weakness. Dandies retain the social powers of masculinity and, as previously described by Chadwick and Latimer, they are figures that marked social change. By appearing as a dandy, Cahun can adopt the traits of a one, rejecting the role of femininity. Cahun continues to depict themself with these performances of alternative masculinities, such as that shown in Self Portrait in Sailor Hat, 1920 (figure 6). Their bulky uniform eliminates any possible perceptions about gender based on their body shape

15 Chadwick and Latimer, The Modern Woman Revisited: Paris Between the Wars, 4-7 16 Ibid., 14-15 Moriarty 11 through deliberate concealment, again covering the neck and deemphasizing the chest to reduce any prominent physical features that can lead to being perceived as feminine.

When portraying the feminine, Cahun does not look the part of la femme moderne. They exaggerate a feminine style, particularly with makeup and fashion, that appears to be the opposite of la femme moderne. Continuing with their fondness for theatricality, Cahun also plays up their performance of femininity in their 1929 photograph: Untitled (Cahun as Elle in Barbe

Bleue) (figure 7). In this image, Cahun is captured with a flat chest while dressed in a folk dress.

On their head, they wear light blonde hair in an intricate braid over the top of their head.

Additionally, they have rouge on their lips, eye shadow from their lid to their eyebrows, and two painted hearts adorning each of their cheeks. This style of makeup is similar to that seen in I am in training, don’t kiss me. Cahun does not employ the visuals associated with la femme moderne in any performance of femininity, but instead uses them in performances of masculinity, such as their cropped hair in I am in training, don’t kiss me. Cahun’s depictions of masculinity include features inspired by the contemporaneous style of la femme moderne, exemplified by the character Monique Lerbier in La Garçonne, but those of femininity do not fall within this mode of representation. Performances of femininity are hyperfeminine and include dramatic amounts of makeup and elaborate costuming.

Cahun’s 1928 Autoportrait (figure 8) includes Cahun draped in a dark, fabric cloak embellished with painted eye masks. These masks mysteriously connect to the fabric and show no sign of attachment, despite their apparent stability. Cahun stands in the center of this vertical portrait, in front of an ornate carpet hung behind them as a background. More curious than the many masks that decorate their garment, is the mask Cahun wears, decorated with rouge on the lips and cheeks, creating an analogy between feminine maquillage (makeup) and masquerade. Moriarty 12

Hair falls over the top of the mask in a straight line, a stylish and popular cut for the time. From the center of the portrait, they stand upright, one arm pulling the garment closer to them and the other arm lifted away from them , a pose that obscures the form of their body. In addition to obscuring their form, Cahun turns the gaze back onto the viewer and multiplies the gaze through the many masks that cover their form. They restrict the gaze of the viewer by fabricating the only visible eyes in the image, reversing roles and transforming the normative role of male viewership to that of a queer gaze due to the role of Moore in Cahun’s artistic practice. While

Cahun remains the object of desire for the photographer, their partner, Cahun is also a co-author in their images. As queer partners, the duo’s images are for each other, foregrounding an alternative to the cisgender, heterosexual male gaze.

Connections and Departures from Surrealism

Surrealism was in part a response to World War I, stemming from the Dadaist movement, creating art that was deliberately provocative so as to illicit a reaction from the viewer and complicate the viewer’s understanding of reality. It was an expression of disappointment with major institutions and societal values which suppressed unconscious, spontaneous desires. These desires manifested in Surrealist art and blended with sexuality, leading to depictions emblazoned with sexual symbolism, quite often focusing on and objectifying the bodies of women. An example of such objectification includes Man Ray’s Le Violon d'Ingres, 1924, (figure 9) in which Man Ray has photographed the nude back of his model, Kiki de Montparnasse. Her arms are not visible from the captured angle; two f-holes of a stringed instrument, such as a violin or cello, are added to her sides to give her back the appearance of an instrument. The implication of such an image is that, like an instrument, the woman is an object to be used or played. Due to the great number of Surrealist artists, one must note that not all fall into this misogynist practice, but Moriarty 13 the prevalence of such objectification is common enough that it must be highlighted. To a certain extent, such misogyny was naturalized, which is seen when considering the work of women in the movement. Women worked in tandem to create such objectifying images; for example, Lee

Miller modeled for Man Ray in the photographs: Shadow Patterns on Lee Miller's Torso, c.1930, and Lee Miller Nude with Sunray Lamp, c.1929 (figures 10 and 11, respectively), highlighting the misogynistic undertones of the movement.

Whitney Chadwick, author of Mirror Images: Women, Surrealism, and Self- representation, wrote on Cahun while focusing on Cahun’s life as a woman.17 Chadwick stated,

“the unruly woman of the male Surrealist imagination-dismembered, mutable, eroticized-is recreated through woman’s eyes as self-possessed and capable of producing new narratives of the self,” a character which is evident in the portraiture of Cahun, who “reimagine[s] the

Surrealist woman as a figure of agency and transformation.”18 Though many of Cahun’s works speak to queer gender, their work does include a significant leaning towards redefining the role of the feminine figure in art and authorship. Cahun certainly produced new narratives of the self, through their utilization of exaggerated costuming and gender performance, expressing many facets of the self in addition to the imagined.

Women were depicted as fetish objects in the work of Surrealist men, regarded as expressions of Freudian psychoanalytic theory and not as individuals. The work of many male

Surrealists focused on a rupture of the unconscious and projections of their internal desires; however the work created by those outside the position of the cisgender, heterosexual male

17 Like Latimer’s writing, this perspective is valuable for understanding how Cahun’s work has been interpreted in the context of other artists’ work. 18 Whitney Chadwick, Mirror Images: Women, Surrealism, and Self-representation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998), 11. Moriarty 14 displayed an affinity for depicting a “self-consciousness” of the “social constructions of femininity” and embraced “doubling, masking, and/or masquerade as defenses against fear of non-identity,” as seen in the art of Frida Kahlo, The Mask, 1945, (figure 12) and Claude

Cahun.19 Kahlo’s piece includes two eyes: one set painted on the mask along with punctured holes that allow the wearer to see through the mask. The idea of depicting the body as separate from how it is perceived, showing it as doubled or even deformed and fragmented, continues to be used by contemporary women artists like Gillian Wearing and Cindy Sherman. These artists utilize this practice through costuming and fashioning oneself to be perceived as another, and are not confined to the practice of Surrealism.

Influenced by the Surrealists, Cahun’s work critiques normative gender categories and make displays of possible alternatives to such a binary, evident in Untitled (author portrait), I am in training, don’t kiss me, and Autoportrait. They shaved their head upon the adoption of the ambiguously gendered name “Claude Cahun” and began photographing themself with mixed- gendered traits and appearances. Their performances of femininity were hyperfeminine, parodying normative gender stereotypes of femininity.

Cahun’s work includes visual similarities to other Surrealists. Self Portrait, 1925, (figure

13) blends an anthropological, documentary photograph of a person, disconnected from their individual identity. Cahun’s head is the only visible portion of their body in the portrait, the rest of their body obscured by a table. Their hair is down, long enough to fall to their chin. Their eyebrows are noticeably well-kept, they use a light amount of eye makeup, and their lips are painted with a dark rouge. Their head is neatly presented on display in a bell jar that has the

19 Ibid., 4-6. Moriarty 15 appearance of a jar for scientific specimens. The distortion of an individual’s head in a bell jar is also found in the work of Lee Miller, a contemporary of Cahun, in her Tanja Ramm under Bell

Jar, 1930, (figure 14). This piece distinctly presents Cahun as a specimen, something from which to learn, to be observed and studied. Their head is tilted slightly to the side and their dark eyes gaze directly towards the viewer; one is compelled to look back at them.

Conclusion

The collaborative photographic practice of Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore exhibits

“performative identity and the gaze,” specifically the queer gaze exemplified by the duo’s partnership and the photographs that document their personal exploration.20 Images produced by

Cahun and Moore offer intimate insight into the complexities of queer identity in the earlier twentieth century, in addition to the role of femininity in Surrealist art.

Their portraiture is a form of personal and dynamic gender expression created to be shared with their artistic collaborator and lifelong partner, Moore. Their work oscillates between the self-exploration of identity and the provocation of the authority of normative society, all while exploring dual desires: the desires of public society and those intimate, private desires shared between the partners. Cahun’s transgressive gender performances subvert the static, misogynistic, and binary gender norms of society. Their work remains relevant in contemporary society due to the many ways their art and writing challenges normative society’s conceptions of gender performance that continue to persist today.

20 Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard, Reclaiming Female Agency: Feminist Art History after Postmodernism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 344. Moriarty 16

Referenced Images

Figure 1: Claude Cahun, Figure 3: Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, I am in training, don’t kiss me, 1927 Untitled (Moore with Mirror Image), circa 1927

Figure 2: Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, Figure 4: La Garçonne, 1936 Untitled (author portrait), circa 1927 Moriarty 17

Figure 5: Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, Figure 7: Claude Cahun, Untitled (Claude Untitled, 1922 Cahun as Elle in Barbe Bleue), 1929

Figure 6: Claude Cahun, Self Portrait in Sailor Hat, 1920 Figure 8: Claude Cahun, Autoportrait, 1924 Moriarty 18

Figure 9: Man Ray, Le Violon d'Ingres, Figure 11: Man Ray, Lee Miller Nude with 1924 Sunray Lamp, c.1929

Figure 10: Man Ray, Shadow Patterns on Lee Miller's Torso, c.1930 Figure 12: Frida Kahlo, The Mask, 1945

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Figure 14: Lee Miller, Tanja Ramm under Figure 13: Claude Cahun, Self Portrait, circa Bell Jar, 1930 1925

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