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Claude Cahun — Object sous globe de verre (Object under glass globe)
Claude Cahun

Object sous globe de verre (Object under glass globe)

1936

Suspended beneath a glass globe, an arrangement of uncanny objects coheres into one of Claude Cahun's most concentrated exercises in Surrealist assemblage. Created in 1936 at the height of Cahun's engagement with the international Surrealist movement, this intimate gelatin silver print transforms the domestic vitrine into a theater of psychological unease. The globe itself functions as both frame and lens, sealing its contents within a hermetic world that simultaneously invites and refuses the viewer's penetration. Cahun's compositional intelligence is precise here: the enclosure amplifies strangeness, turning ordinary matter into something ceremonial and vaguely threatening. Cahun occupies a singular position in the history of avant-garde photography, recognized today as a foundational figure whose practice anticipated decades of subsequent inquiry into identity, the body, and the constructed self. While best known for elaborately staged self-portraits, works like this one reveal an equally rigorous commitment to the object as a site of meaning. The photograph belongs to a body of work made during Cahun's years in Jersey alongside her partner Marcel Moore, a period of intense creative productivity that preceded their wartime resistance activities and subsequent imprisonment by Nazi occupying forces. That biographical context, though not illustrated by the image, lends the sealed globe a retrospective gravity. Presented as a framed gelatin silver print measuring 10.4 by 8.4 centimeters, the work rewards the intimacy its small scale demands. Offered through Corkin Gallery, this is a rare opportunity to acquire a primary work by an artist whose critical and market standing has risen substantially as museums and scholars have continued to reassess her contributions. Cahun's photographs now enter major permanent collections internationally, and works of this period and character appear with increasing infrequency on the primary and secondary markets.

Medium
Gelatin silver print
Overall
Location
Corkin Gallery, Toronto, ON

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About this work

Claude Cahun, Object sous globe de verre (Object under glass globe), 1936

Suspended beneath a glass globe, an arrangement of uncanny objects coheres into one of Claude Cahun's most concentrated exercises in Surrealist assemblage. Created in 1936 at the height of Cahun's engagement with the international Surrealist movement, this intimate gelatin silver print transforms the domestic vitrine into a theater of psychological unease. The globe itself functions as both frame and lens, sealing its contents within a hermetic world that simultaneously invites and refuses the viewer's penetration. Cahun's compositional intelligence is precise here: the enclosure amplifies strangeness, turning ordinary matter into something ceremonial and vaguely threatening. Cahun occupies a singular position in the history of avant-garde photography, recognized today as a foundational figure whose practice anticipated decades of subsequent inquiry into identity, the body, and the constructed self. While best known for elaborately staged self-portraits, works like this one reveal an equally rigorous commitment to the object as a site of meaning. The photograph belongs to a body of work made during Cahun's years in Jersey alongside her partner Marcel Moore, a period of intense creative productivity that preceded their wartime resistance activities and subsequent imprisonment by Nazi occupying forces. That biographical context, though not illustrated by the image, lends the sealed globe a retrospective gravity. Presented as a framed gelatin silver print measuring 10.4 by 8.4 centimeters, the work rewards the intimacy its small scale demands. Offered through Corkin Gallery, this is a rare opportunity to acquire a primary work by an artist whose critical and market standing has risen substantially as museums and scholars have continued to reassess her contributions. Cahun's photographs now enter major permanent collections internationally, and works of this period and character appear with increasing infrequency on the primary and secondary markets.

Medium
Gelatin silver print
Dimensions
overall: 10.4 x 8.4 cm
Year
1936
Seen at
Corkin Gallery, Toronto, ON

More works by Claude Cahun

Collected by

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