Claude Cahun, born Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob was a French surrealist photographer, sculptor, and writer.

Schwob adopted the pseudonym Claude Cahun in 1914. Cahun is best known as a writer and self-portraitist, who assumed a variety of performative personae.

Cahun’s work is both political and personal. During World War II, Cahun lived in Jersey and was active as a resistance worker and propagandist

Cahun lived in Jersey during the Occupation, her resistance activities during that time led to her imprisonment.

A death sentence was commuted and she was freed from prison when Jersey was liberated. She lived in Jersey with her stepsister until her death in 1954.

Since her “rediscovery” over a decade ago, Claude Cahun has attracted what amounts to a cult following among art historians and critics working from postmodern, feminist, and queer theoretical perspectives.

Photographs of Cahun posing in the 1920s and 30s in various dramatic settings and guises have been displayed alongside contemporary works, showing the timelessness of her work.