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Claude Cahun — Untitled (Self-Portrait)
Claude Cahun

Untitled (Self-Portrait)

1928

In this compact gelatin silver print from 1928, Claude Cahun confronts the camera with characteristic theatrical intensity, constructing a self-image that resists fixed identity at every turn. Measuring just 9.2 by 6.7 centimeters, the photograph carries an intimacy that amplifies rather than diminishes its psychological force, drawing the viewer into close proximity with a figure that simultaneously invites and deflects easy interpretation. Cahun, born Lucy Schwob in Nantes in 1894, worked across photography, writing, and performance to challenge the boundaries of gender, selfhood, and representation, and this work distills those preoccupations into a single, arresting frame. The photograph belongs to a sustained body of self-portraiture that Cahun developed throughout the late 1920s, a period when the artist was embedded in Parisian Surrealist circles and producing some of the most psychologically complex self-images of the twentieth century. Rather than presenting a stable likeness, Cahun used costume, staging, and direct gaze to fragment and multiply the self, offering portraiture as a site of inquiry rather than documentation. This print exemplifies that approach, its small scale lending the work an almost talismanic quality, as though it were meant to be held and examined rather than merely observed from a distance. Bearing Cahun's signature, this work carries both authenticating significance and a certain irony, given the artist's lifelong interest in destabilizing authorship and fixed identity. Held within the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the work is recognized as a touchstone of early photographic modernism and queer visual history. For collectors, it represents a rare opportunity to acquire a signed, period print by an artist whose critical reputation has grown considerably in recent decades, with institutional and scholarly interest continuing to expand globally.

Medium
Gelatin silver print
Overall
Signed
Yes

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About this work

Claude Cahun, Untitled (Self-Portrait), 1928

In this compact gelatin silver print from 1928, Claude Cahun confronts the camera with characteristic theatrical intensity, constructing a self-image that resists fixed identity at every turn. Measuring just 9.2 by 6.7 centimeters, the photograph carries an intimacy that amplifies rather than diminishes its psychological force, drawing the viewer into close proximity with a figure that simultaneously invites and deflects easy interpretation. Cahun, born Lucy Schwob in Nantes in 1894, worked across photography, writing, and performance to challenge the boundaries of gender, selfhood, and representation, and this work distills those preoccupations into a single, arresting frame. The photograph belongs to a sustained body of self-portraiture that Cahun developed throughout the late 1920s, a period when the artist was embedded in Parisian Surrealist circles and producing some of the most psychologically complex self-images of the twentieth century. Rather than presenting a stable likeness, Cahun used costume, staging, and direct gaze to fragment and multiply the self, offering portraiture as a site of inquiry rather than documentation. This print exemplifies that approach, its small scale lending the work an almost talismanic quality, as though it were meant to be held and examined rather than merely observed from a distance. Bearing Cahun's signature, this work carries both authenticating significance and a certain irony, given the artist's lifelong interest in destabilizing authorship and fixed identity. Held within the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the work is recognized as a touchstone of early photographic modernism and queer visual history. For collectors, it represents a rare opportunity to acquire a signed, period print by an artist whose critical reputation has grown considerably in recent decades, with institutional and scholarly interest continuing to expand globally.

Medium
Gelatin silver print
Dimensions
overall: 9.2 x 6.7 cm
Year
1928
Signed
Hand-signed by the artist
Seen at
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)

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Collected by

Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, Art Institute of Chicago