The artists Claude Cahun (1894-1954) and Marcel Moore (1892-1972) were an extraordinary couple who worked, lived and loved together for more than 40 years. Cahun and Moore were the pseudonyms for Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe, step siblings who were born in Nantes and lived in Jersey from 1937.
The pair met in 1909, when Cahun was age 14 and Moore was 16. Cahun later wrote that their meeting was a “thunderbolt encounter”. They became lifelong companions and lovers, and they collaborated closely in their art throughout their lives. When Moore’s father passed away in 1915, Cahun’s divorced father remarried Moore’s mother, therefore making the lovers, Cahun and Moore, step siblings. Cahun noted that, “the strange coincidence that we were reunited through our family ties seemed to make everything work better.”
Cahun went on to produce some of the most startlingly original and enigmatic photographs of the early 20th century, in which they explored concepts of gender, sexuality and identity. One of thier most famous photographs is shown here, taken in the couple’s Paris apartment in 1928.
