About Claude Cahun

Claude Cahun was a French surrealist photographer, sculptor, and writer. Cahun is best known as a writer and self-portraitist, who assumed a variety of performative personae. She was born on the 25th of October, 1894 in Nantes, France and sadly passed away on the 8th of December, 1954 in St. Helier, Jersey.

Claude Cahun’s brith name was Lucy Schwob, however she became Claude Cahun in 1914. In 1937, she moved to Jersey with her partner and stepsister Marcel Moore (aka Suzanne Malherbe) since it was a place they often visited during their childhood.

A few years after, she became an activist due to the German Occupation that occurred in Jersey from 1940- 1945, resisting against the Nazis. For example, Cahun and her partner created the persona of ‘Der Soldat Ohne Namen’ (‘The Soldier Without a Name’) cast as a mysterious German soldier intent on inspiring rebellion from within the army by pointing out the idiocy of war and ridiculing the actions of the German commanders. These words of resistance were written onto sheets of tissue paper and either posted through the windows of German staff cars, or left in cigarette packets in the hope that someone would pick them up looking for an increasingly scarce smoke.

They were both imprisoned and sentenced to death for listening to the BBC in 1944, however she managed to survive the prison and die in a much more peaceful way due to health issues in 1954, Moore committing suicide in in 1972.

During her life, she wasn’t known as an artist and it was not until the late 1980s where her work was discovered by the jersey heritage and is kept by the organisation to this day.

“Under this mask, another mask. I will never be finished removing all these faces.”

– Claude Cahun

The Femininity and Masculinity of Claude Cahun

Throughout her life, Cahun challenged the stereotypes surrounding the ideas of masculinity and femininity, shaving her head and dressing in male attire to defy the traditional ideology about femininity and beauty in women. One of the main ways she portrayed her ambiguity was by choosing the name Claude, that in French could refer to either a man or a woman. She took the last name from her grandmother Mathilda Cahun. In some photos she portrayed herself as a woman, in some a man, and in other a bit of both. Even decades after her death she remains a famous artist and influencer that is followed by art historians, feminists and people in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community.

“It depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that always suits me”

– Claude Cahun from her book ‘Aveux non Avenus’ or in English ‘Disavowals’

Her Work

A mixture of presenting herself both as masculine and feminine, breaking gender stereotypes and opposing traditional views of femininity/ masculinity.