“Under this mask, another mask. I will never be finished removing all these faces.”
—Claude Cahun
Best known for her riveting photographic self-portraits that seem eerily ahead of their time, Claude Cahun has attracted an almost cultlike following. Acting out diverse identities—both male and female—in scenes ranging from severely simple to elaborately staged, Cahun was a pioneer of the gender-bending role-playing now seen in works by artists such as Cindy Sherman (born the year Cahun died), Nikki S. Lee, and many others. The three images in this portfolio are from Don’t Kiss Me: The Art of Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore(Aperture, 2006).
Artist Information:
Lucy Schwob (pseudonym Claude Cahun) (1894–1954) was a French photographer and writer, born in Nantes to a family of prominent Jewish intellectuals. In her early teens she began what would become a deeply devoted lifelong relationship with Suzanne Malherbe (pseudonym Marcel Moore) (1892–1972). An extraordinary couple who worked and lived together for more than forty years, Cahun and Moore created images and writings of startling originality. Avid participants in the cultural avant-garde in Montparnasse during the 1920s and ’30s, they ultimately moved to Jersey, in the Channel Islands (the only part of Great Britain to be occupied by the Germans during World War II). Both Cahun and Moore were part of the Resistance during the occupation. In 1944 they were arrested, tried, and sentenced to death. Their sentences were never carried out, and they were released after liberation in 1945. Cahun never fully recovered from her treatment in prison, and she died in 1954.
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