This is an illustrated biography of Claude Cahun (1894-1954). The book provides a full-length study of the philosophical and political dimensions of Cahun's work and a reflection on the multiple facets of her personality. Claude Cahun (1894-1954), poet, actress, tanslator, polemicist and, above all, photographer was one of the most unusual and talented women to be associated with the surrealist movement. Until recently she was also be most neglected, to the point where some commentators have assumed she was a man, others that she died in World War II. Nevertheless, in the pre-war period she was an important participant in surrealism's artistic and political activity and close to many of its best-known figures. One reason for her disappeance from history may have been her move, with her companion Suzanne Malherbe, to Jersey in the Channel Islands, the two women engaged in a series of remarkable acts of resistance, leading to their arrest and a death sentence. But the sentence was never carried out and Cahun remained on Jersey until her death in 1954. Her work has featured in recent major exhibitions in London, New York and Paris.
Her talent as a photographer revealed itself especially in her photomontages and a long series of self-portraits. Exploring every aspect of bisexuality and androgyny, her work has a contemporary resonance.
- ISBN10 0860914844
- ISBN13 9780860914846
- Publish Date 30 November 1997
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Verso Books
- Format Hardcover
- Language English