DUSSELDORF.- With Queer Modernism. 1900 to 1950, the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen presents the first comprehensive exhibition in Europe dedicated to the significant contributions of queer artists to modernism. Featuring more than 130 works by thirty- four international artists—including paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures, films, publications, and archival materials—the exhibition project focuses on the first half of the twentieth century. It tells an alternative history of modernism, one in which queer artists placed themes such as desire, gender, sexuality, and the politics of self-representation at the center of their work. It also traces stories of queer life in times of war and resistance.
Despite their close ties to the avant-garde, queer perspectives have often been marginalized in the art-historical canon. The frequent absence of documentation and accounts of sexual orientations and ways of life continue to hinder efforts to understand queer modernism, in a period also shaped by colonial power relations. The process of reconstructing this often-forgotten chapter of modernism is necessarily marked by fragmented access to knowledge and historical oblivion or erasure. These limitations must be critically and imaginatively incorporated into any perspective on queer modernism. LGBTQ+ communities from less privileged social classes or from the “Global South,” as well as those subjected to intersecting forms of discrimination such as racism, are particularly affected by this fragmentary source base. Furthermore, the term “queer” was only reappropriated as an emancipatory self-designation in the wake of gay and lesbian activism surrounding the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York. This gave the term a positive connotation and played a key role in increasing the visibility of queer lives.
At a time when homosexuality among men, in particular, was widely criminalized and homosexuality among women was taboo, many artists at the beginning of the twentieth century led outwardly socially conformist lives and entered into so-called marriages of convenience—facts predominantly preserved by historiography. What the sources conceal is therefore sometimes even more significant than what they reveal.
Queer Modernism. 1900 to 1950 is organized into eight thematic chapters and explores an international network of queer artists that began to emerge in the early twentieth century in various cities across Europe, the United States, and beyond, through global exchange.
The exhibition opens with a prologue representing early modernism and centers on a “double portrait” of the painter Rosa Bonheur (Bordeaux, France, 1822−Thomery, France, 1899) with a bull. Bonheur gained international acclaim for her groundbreaking depictions of animals. Dissatisfied with Édouard Dubufe’s portrait of her, which she found too conventional, she confidently placed the bovine at her side. As early as the second half of the nineteenth century, artists like Bonheur defied traditional gender roles and lived in same-sex partnerships, while some women similarly obtained official permission to wear men’s clothing in public.
Modern artists developed a wide range of alternative visual languages and semiotic codes to represent queer lives and identities. The works gathered under the title “Modern Arcadia” show how artists such as Glyn Warren Philpot (Clapham, UK, 1884–London, UK, 1937), Ethel Walker (Edinburgh, UK, 1861–London, UK, 1951), Lotte Laserstein (Preussisch Holland, now Pasłęk, Poland, 1898−Kalmar, Sweden, 1993), and Ludwig von Hofmann (Darmstadt, Germany, 1861–Pillnitz near Dresden, Germany, 1945) drew on familiar mythological imagery as a form of camouflage to express homoerotic desire. The African American artist Richmond Barthé (Bay St. Louis, US, 1901−Pasadena, US, 1989) created sculptures in the context of the Harlem Renaissance—a literary and artistic movement of African American writers and artists in New York—during which the Black male body became a site for negotiating and representing questions of social emancipation, Black identity, and homosexuality.
“Sapphic Modernism” focuses on salons run by lesbian women and their transcultural net- works in Paris. In the modern era, the term “sapphic” became synonymous with lesbian desire—a reference to the ancient poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos. The most influential literary and art salons were hosted by poets Natalie Barney and Gertrude Stein, as well as booksellers Adrienne Monnier and Sylvia Beach. These venues were frequented by key figures of sapphic modernism, including artists Romaine Brooks (Rome, Italy, 1874–Nice, France, 1970) and Marie Laurencin (Paris, France, 1883–Paris, France, 1956), alongside representatives of the avant-garde such as Pablo Picasso and James Joyce. Brooks, an American, painted numerous portraits and nudes of her lovers, such as Barney, as well as companions like Gluck (London, UK, 1895–Steyning, UK, 1978). Like many queer artists, Gluck adopted a gender-neutral name.
Under the title “Surreal Worlds,” the exhibition brings together works that engage with the concepts of androgyny and hermaphroditism (today referred to as intersexuality). At a time when traditional gender roles were increasingly called into question, Surrealism in particular produced numerous depictions of bodies entangled with technology and often violent representations of a modern battle of the sexes, in which women were frequently portrayed as objects of male desire. Several works by Surrealists from the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen attest to this expressive repertoire, such as René Magritte’s menacing painting Les Jours gigantesques (The Titanic Days) from 1928 and Max Ernst’s La Carmagnole de l’amour (The Carmagnole of Love) from 1926. In contrast, artists such as Ithell Colquhoun (Shillong, India, 1906–Lamorna, UK, 1988), Jean Cocteau (Maisons-Laffitte, France, 1889–Milly-la-Forêt, France, 1963), Leonor Fini (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1907 Paris, France, 1996), Gerda Wegener (Hammelev, Denmark, 1886−Frederiksberg, Denmark, 1940), and Milena Pavlović-Barili (Požarevac, Serbia, 1909‒New York City, US, 1945) used their works to envision queer identities and scenarios in which conventions could be challenged and transcended.
Building on queer theories, such as those of David J. Getsy, the chapter “Queer Readings of Abstraction” seeks to dismantle and rethink the boundaries upheld by the avant-garde between modernist abstraction and figuration. At the beginning of modernism, abstraction was often assigned gendered attributes, as in the work of Piet Mondrian. In his Neo-Plastic works, Mondrian maintained a hierarchical gender binary in which the male principle was deemed superior. In contrast, the Constructivist and biomorphic compositions of artists such as Marlow Moss (Kilburn, UK, 1889–Penzance, UK, 1958), Anton Prinner (Budapest, Hungary, 1902–Paris, France, 1983), Jacoba van Heemskerck (The Hague, Netherlands, 1876–Domburg, Netherlands, 1923), and Louise Janin (Durham, US, 1893–Meudon, France, 1997) reveal the potential of a nonfigurative or genderqueer aesthetic.
“Queer Avant-Gardes and Intimate Networks” focuses on transnational queer networks. On display are works by Pavel Tchelitchew (Dubrovka, Russia, 1898–Grottaferrata, Italy, 1957), George Platt Lynes (East Orange, US, 1907–New York City, US, 1955), Paul Cadmus (New York City, US, 1904–Weston, US, 1999), Duncan Grant (Rothiemurchus, UK, 1885–Aldermaston, UK, 1978), and Beauford Delaney (Knoxville, US, 1901–Paris, France, 1979), who were part of the international avant-garde and transatlantic art scene between Berlin, London, and New York—and, like Nils Dardel (Bettna, Sweden, 1888–New York City, US, 1943), later also in Paris.
The chapter “Queer Resistance since 1933” brings together works by such artists as Toyen (Prague, Czechoslovakia, 1902–Paris, France, 1980), Jeanne Mammen (Berlin, Germany, 1890–Berlin, Germany, 1976), and the lesbian artist couples Claude Cahun (Nantes, France, 1894–St Helier, Jersey, 1954) and Marcel Moore (Nantes, France, 1892–Jersey, 1972), as well as Hannah Höch (Gotha, Germany, 1889–Berlin, Germany, 1978) and Til Brugman (Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1888–Gouda, Netherlands, 1958), who developed very different forms of anti-fascist resistance. After three decades of fragile gains in new freedoms and the rise of a flourishing queer artistic culture, many hopes were brutally crushed under the heel of European fascism. By the time Adolf Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor on January 30, 1933, queer people faced concentration camps, cruel medical experiments, and death under Paragraph 175, which the Nazis had made more severe.
The epilogue turns to the conservative 1950s. Against the backdrop of the early Cold War, the United States entered a new phase of political repression against homosexuals during the McCarthy era. In response, artists such as Sonja Sekula (Lucerne, Switzerland, 1918– Zurich, Switzerland, 1963) and John Cage (Los Angeles, US, 1912–New York City, US, 1992) developed a distinctive form of silent, conceptual protest: Sekula dedicated her 1951 painting Silence to Cage, and in 1952, Cage staged silence itself with his legendary composition 4'33", as an act of cultural and political resistance.
Relevance Today
On many levels, Queer Modernism. 1900 to 1950 demonstrates the ongoing social and political relevance of the themes explored in the works and lives of these artists—both in their own time and today. In light of growing discrimination against queer communities in many parts of the world, making the history of queer culture visible is more urgent than ever. The exhibition thus reflects the vision of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen of being a multifaceted, global museum for all, and marks an important step toward telling the history of modernism in a more nuanced, inclusive, and diverse way.
Queer scholars, artists, and experts from a range of fields contributed their knowledge to the project. A queer advisory board offered critical input on the exhibition, developed formats for educational activities, and proposed ideas for the supporting program.
Idea and Concept: Anke Kempkes, art historian and author.
Curators: Isabelle Malz, curator at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, with Isabelle Tondre, research assistant at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, and Anke Kempkes, guest curator.
Publication
The exhibition is accompanied by a bilingual catalogue (German/English, 304 pages, approx. 200 illustrations) edited by Susanne Gaensheimer, Isabelle Malz, and Anke Kempkes, with essays by Jonathan D. Katz, Anke Kempkes, Tirza True Latimer, Isabelle Malz, Isabelle Tondre, and Diana Souhami. Hirmer Verlag, 39.90 €
