Claude Cahun

framed, Buhl Collection and Guggenheim Museum exhibition labels on the reverse, circa 1927

Private Collection

Galerie Berggruen, Paris

Ubu Gallery, New York, 2003

New York, Guggenheim Museum, Speaking with Hands: Photographs from The Buhl Collection, June - September 2004, and 4 other international venues through 2007 (see Appendix 1)

Palm Beach Photographic Centre, In Good Hands: Selected Works from the Buhl Collection, March 2011

Jennifer Blessing, Speaking with Hands: Photographs from The Buhl Collection (Guggenheim Foundation, 2004), pp. 78 and 205 (this print)

Claude Cahun: Bilder (Schirmer Mosel, 1997), p. 116

This diminutive print is on single-weight paper with a glossy surface. It is in near-excellent condition. When examined closely in raking light, a small area of what is likely original retouching can be seen adjacent to the figure's foremost knee. There is a very small faint crease visible to the left of her thigh. Neither of these condition issues detracts from the overwhelmingly pleasing appearance of this print.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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This photograph may be unique.  This image is not represented in the Jersey Heritage, which maintains the largest collection of Cahun’s work.  A print of this image, likely the one offered here, appeared at Christie’s in October 1999.

Through her use of role-playing, performance, and self-portraiture, Claude Cahun, the pseudonym for Lucy Schwob, explored questions of identity and gender in her photographs.  Her work tackled these themes decades before they would be taken up by such post-modernists as Cindy Sherman, and did so at a time when women’s opportunities in the art world were far more circumscribed.  In the present image, Cahun fashions herself as a bodybuilder, sporting leggings, boxing shorts, and wrist and shin guards.  With her slight frame and closely-cropped hair, the photographer is androgynous, at once hyper-feminine yet verging on masculine.  Her girlishness is exaggerated, with rouged lips, hearts painted on her cheeks, and pasted nipples embellishing her shirt.  While Cahun crosses her legs demurely, one strong outstretched hand braces against the wall, the other hand clutching an oversized dumbbell.  Emblazoned across her boyish chest are the words ‘I Am in Training Don’t Kiss Me,’ suggesting, with humor, the rigor with which she prepares herself for the camera.