Claude Cahun

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Claude Cahun (French: [klod kaœ̃]; born Lucy Renée Mathilde Schwob; 25 October 1894 – 8 December 1954) was a French surrealist photographer, sculptor, and writer. Schwob adopted the pseudonym Claude Cahun in 1914. From 1920 onwards she began to appear publicly under this name. Best known as a writer and self-portraitist, Cahun explored identity through a variety of performative personae. Her photographic work is characterised by self‑stagings, light reflections and shadows. The artist saw herself as a master of transformation and used photography to record her metamorphoses. Her androgynous appearance and artistic practice defied the strict gender roles of her time. Cahun's exploration of gender also extended to her writing. She typically referred to herself using grammatically feminine words but occasionally intermingled other grammatical genders. In what is generally considered to be her masterpiece, the experimental autobiography Aveux non avenus (1930), Cahun writes: "Masculine? Feminine...

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