The queer photographer who fought fascism

Throughout their life, artist Claude Cahun challenged gender norms and fought fascism.

Cahun is likely most recognized by their series of self-portraits from 1927 to 1929. In them, they take inspiration from circus acts and avante-garde caricatures of Paris theatre while holding barbells.

Self-portraiture was a vessel for Cahun’s artistry as well as their exploration of gender. Cahun is considered a precursor to the masters of self-portraiture, like Cindy Sherman and Nan Goldin, but their work was nearly erased from art history.

Cahun would often shave their head as a form of gender expression and as a way to be more mutable in their self-portraits. In reference to their rejection of gender and sexuality norms, Cahun wrote: “Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that always suits me.”

It was through their time with the Surrealists that Cahun became more involved in politics. In 1935, they co-founded a short-lived radical cultural and political group, and they joined an antifascist federation of artists in 1939.

In the late 1930s, Cahun and their partner Marcel Moore fled Paris following the Nazi Party’s rise to power and settled in the island of Jersey. But when the Nazis invaded Jersey in 1940, Cahun and Moore decided to use their art as a form of resistance.

The two crafted antinationalist brochures mocking Nazi ideology and distributed them throughout Jersey. They were ultimately discovered in 1944 when they were arrested and sentenced to death for undermining Nazi authority. Both Cahun and Moore would be freed in 1945 when Jersey was liberated. A photo of Cahun after their release shows them biting down hard on a Nazi military badge.

The two artists would continue to collaborate until Cahun died in 1954 at the age of 60. Cahun’s legacy was almost lost after Moore died by suicide in 1972 and their work was auctioned off.

Cahun’s revolutionary output in life and in art would remain in near obscurity until the 1980s. Their photographs would be shown at a Surrealist exhibition in 1986, and French art historian François Leperlier spent much of his career reintroducing the public to Cahun’s work in the 1990s. Today, Cahun is remembered as a Surrealist master and gender provocateur whose impact will no longer be forgotten.