Trans* Success

Claude Cahun (1894-1954) was a French artist, photographer and writer. Her work was both political and personal, often playing with the concepts of gender and sexuality. She was the niece of writer Marcel Schwob and the great-niece of Orientalist David Léon Cahun. Her mother’s mental problems meant that she was brought up by her paternal grandmother, Mathilde Cahun. She began making photographic self-portraits as early as 1912, when she was 18 years old, and she continued taking images of herself through the 1930s. Around 1919, she settled on the pseudonym Claude Cahun, intentionally selecting a sexually ambiguous name, after having previously used the names Claude Courlis (after the curlew) and Daniel Douglas (after Lord Alfred Douglas). During the early 20s, she settled in Paris with her life-long partner and stepsister Suzanne Malherbe. For the rest of their lives together, Cahun and Malherbe (who adopted the pseudonym “Marcel Moore”) collaborated on various written works, sculptures, photomontages and collages. She published articles and novels, notably in the periodical “Mercure de France”.

Around 1922 she and Malherbe began holding artists’ salons at their home. Cahun’s work encompassed writing, photography, and theater. She is most remembered for her highly-staged self portraits and tableaux that incorporated the visual aesthetics of Surrealism. Her published writings include “Heroines,” (1925) a series of monologues based upon female fairy tale characters and intertwining them with witty comparisons to the contemporary image of women; Aveux non avenus, (Carrefour, 1930) a book of essays and recorded dreams illustrated with photomontages; and several essays in magazines and journals. Cahun’s life was marked by a sense of role reversal, and her public identity became a commentary upon not only her own, but the public’s notions of sexuality, gender, beauty, and logic. Her adoption of a sexually ambiguous name, and her androgynous self-portraits display a revolutionary way of thinking and creating, experimenting with her audience’s understanding of photography as a documentation of reality. Her poetry challenged gender roles and attacked the increasingly modern world’s social and economic boundaries. Also Cahun’s participation in the Parisian Surrealist movement diversified the group’s artwork and ushered in new representations. Where most Surrealist artists were men, and their primary images were of women as isolated symbols of eroticism, Cahun epitomized the chameleonic and multiple possibilities of the female identity.

In 1932 she joined the Association des Écrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires. Following this, she started associating with the surrealist group, and later participated in a number of surrealist exhibitions, including the London International Surrealist Exhibition (New Burlington Gallery) and Exposition surréaliste d’Objets (Charles Ratton Gallery, Paris), both in 1936. In 1934, she published a short polemic essay, Les Paris sont Ouverts, and in 1935 took part in the founding of the left-wing group Contre Attaque.  In 1937 Cahun and Malherbe settled in Jersey. Following the fall of France and the German occupation of Jersey and the other Channel Islands, they became active as resistance workers and propagandists. Fervently against war, the two worked extensively in producing anti-German fliers. Many were snippets from English-to-German translations of BBC reports on the Nazi’s crimes and insolence, which were pasted together to create rhythmic poems and harsh criticism. The couple then dressed up and attended many German military events in Jersey, strategically placing them in soldier’s pockets, on their chairs, etc. Also, fliers were inconspicuously crumpled up and thrown into cars and windows. In many ways, Cahun and Malherbe’s resistance efforts were not only political but artistic actions.

Note:In some areas this role model is listed as a trans male, however, due to the fact that she appeared to go back and forth between multiple genders, we are listing her under Androgyne and Genderfluid. Apologies for any incorrect pronouns, there is no mention of Claude’s preferences.

Gluck, born August 13, 1895, was a British painter born into a wealthy Jewish family that founded J. Lyons and Co., a British coffee house and catering empire. Gluck’s American-born mother was an opera singer and Gluck’s brother, Sir Louis Gluckstein, was a Conservative politician. The parents were not supportive of their child’s artistic pursuits, but Gluck received systematic art training at their expense at St. John Wood School of Art in London from 1913 to 1916.  The dynamic young artist then traveled to Lamorna, Cornwall and worked with other artists of the “Newlyn School,” a group of landscape painters who formed an artists’ colony at Newlyn, Cornwall. Gluck’s father gave Gluck a trust fund that allowed the pursuit an independent life. By that time, Gluck had a cropped haircut, shortened name and dressed exclusively in male attire, insisting on being known only as “Gluck,”. Gluck painted landscapes, floral pieces and portraits of friends, family, and lovers (all women).

Using a portion of the trust funds, Gluck bought a studio in Cornwall. It was there in 1923 that a meeting with the American expatriate artist Romaine Brooks occurred. The two painted each other’s portrait in Gluck’s studio. Brooks’ famous portrait of Gluck, “Peter”, was done between 1923 and 1924. At the end of the 1920s, Gluck’s father increased the funds, allowing for the purchase a larger home, named Bolton House, in Hampstead. Shortly after moving in, Gluck met the decorator and society florist, Constance Spry. In the 1920s and 30s Gluck became well known for floral paintings favored by the interior decorator Syrie Maugham. Gluck insisted on being known only as Gluck, “no prefix, suffix, or quotes”, and when an art society of which Gluck was vice president identified Gluck as “Miss Gluck” on its letterhead, Gluck resigned. Gluck identified with no artistic school or movement and showed Gluck’s work only in solo exhibitions, where they were displayed in a special frame Gluck invented and patented.

In 1944 Gluck moved to Chantry House in Steyning, Sussex, living with lover Edith Shackleton Heald. In the 1950s Gluck became dissatisfied with the artist’s paints available and began a “paint war” with British Board of Trade and commercial paint manufacturers to increase their standards. Fortunately, the Arts Council of Great Britain, British Colour Manufacturers Association, and two important museums backed these efforts. Ultimately, Gluck persuaded the British Standards Institution to create a new standard for oil paints. In Gluck’s seventies, using special handmade paints supplied free by a manufacturer who had taken Gluck’s exacting standards as a challenge, Gluck returned to painting and had another well-received solo show. The three-year process of organizing the exhibition was hard work, and Gluck suffered a heart attack in November 1972. The exhibition at the Fine Arts Society in London opened six months later and was a great success. The fifty-two pieces that Gluck included in the exhibition were highly praised and also sold well. It was, however, to be the last exhibition of Gluck’s lifetime.

Note: Please excuse the lack of pronouns in the above piece.  While it is argued by some that Gluck was a trans man, several clues hint that this famous painter may have been in fact androgynous.  The absence of pronouns is an attempt to give respect to Gluck’s desire only to be known as “Gluck” and not by any other term, which we infer as he, she, xy or any other word.  Furthermore, we have found no indication that “Peter” was a first name chose by Gluck, but rather the name of a painting alone.  Because of the fact gender identity is uncertain, you may find this role model listed under both trans male and androgyne.