Artist: Una Troubridge Media: Bronze Date & Location: c. 1915-1963 Image Source:Queer Britain
Significance to Queer Art History
This is a statue of Radclyffe Hall by her partner of twenty-nine years, Una Troubridge. They met in 1915 and lived together from 1916 until Hall’s death in 1943.
Radcylffe Hall is most well-known for having written A Well of Loneliness, which tells the life story of its protagonist, Stephen Gordon. It has become famous as a foundational lesbian novel and it also offers insight into histories of trans* masculinity and genderfluidity (as does Hall who was known as ‘John’ among friends).
A Well of Loneliness was banned for “obscenity” in 1928 and kept from being republished until 1949 (a ban protested by Virginia Woolf, herself an important figure in queer ‘hirstory’).
Una Troubridge was a sculptor alongside being an author and translator. She also had a daughter named Andrea from her marriage to her previous partner Ernest Troubridge.
Una herself was once the subject of a work of art by an iconic figure in lesbian art history. Romaine Brooks painted a portrait of Una in 1924.
Romaine Brooks, Una, Lady Troubridge, 1924, oil on canvas. Smithsonian American Art Museum.
When it came to Una sculpting her partner, she captured Radclyffe Hall standing tall with her arms crossed. Underneath she carved a variation on the poem Nevermore by Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been; I am also call’d No-more, Too-late, Farewell.
It is only very recently that this statue has been shown to the public. It was unveiled earlier this year at Queer Britain in London (UK) where it now stands proudly among the rest of their beautiful collection.
Artist: Anne Seymour Damer Media: Bronze Date & Location: c. 1793 Image Source: National Portrait Gallery, London (Creative Commons License)
♥ This post was created by Professor Melissa Berry from the University of Victoria, Art History and Visual Studies Department, who volunteered to be a guest author for Queer Art History this month! ♥
Significance to Queer Art History
British-born Anne Seymour Damer (1748–1828) challenged the heteronormative narrative of the late 18thC in several ways, pushing the boundaries of the gendered expectations that befell women of aristocratic backgrounds. Her lack of conformity drew both positive and negative attention during her lifetime and now, with the gift of hindsight, we, too, must be careful about biases and assumptions with which we might approach her exceptional work.
Firstly, it is undeniably extraordinary that Damer focused on sculpture as her artistic medium. Not only did she pursue this almost exclusively male activity but she excelled at it. Between 1784 and 1818, she exhibited Neo-Classical artworks regularly at the Royal Academy, receiving high praise from the press as well as colleagues. Her fame was such that she received commissions for portrait busts from the likes of George III, Princess Caroline, and Lord Nelson. Of course, it must be noted that her aristocratic upbringing and the connections therein made much of this possible but that should not undermine her determination and skill in this unforgiving, physical medium.
As a sculptor, Damer drew attention because of her proficiency but also because of the lack of gender conformity that practicing sculpture entailed. This roused much commentary and speculation about her personal life in the press. Respected Academician Joseph Farrington noted Damer’s habits saying: ‘the singularities of Mrs Damer are remarkable — She wears a Mans Hat, and Shoes, — and a Jacket also like a mans — thus she walks about the fields with a hooking stick… .’
Some commentators took this othering of Damer further citing her as a Sapphist; the anonymous A Sapphick Epsitle was even dedicated to Damer in 1778. At the dawn of the 19thC, ‘Sapphist’ was frequently employed in descriptions of upper-class women suspected of engaging in romantic relationships with other women and was, therefore, an indicator of their depravity. That is to say, this term was laden with negative, classist connotations and not one with which women would be eager to identify.
As for Damer’s relationships with women, in spite of rumours, these are difficult to prove concretely, though some evidence points to their existence. Even before the death of her estranged husband, her demonstrative friendships were closely observed in the press. Letters between her and friends such as actress Elizabeth Farren and writer Mary Berry, as well as contemporaneous accounts by acquaintances, point to intense intimacy and devotion. Her portrait busts of these women evidence tenderness and deep consideration of her subject. In fact, Berry’s bust was the only portrait of a women that Damer executed in bronze, a difficult and expensive material.
So, from choice of artistic medium to choice of dress, Damer pushed against gender norms. As for her sexuality, yes, she was a part of circles of artistic and intellectual women and it is clear that some of these relationships were more intimate than others. Perhaps with Damer, and other artists like her, our energies would be better served not fixating on the categorization of her sexuality but instead seeking to situate her in an art history that embraces her tenacity and her desire to break free from her male-dominated experience. Damer is a wonderful case study for considering queerness as it was performed and experienced in a specific historical, social context.
Anne Seymour Damer, Self-Portrait, 1971, Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Marble. Image Source: Wiki Images
Artist: Unknown (London Workshop F) Media: Brass Date & Location: c. 1480, Etchingham Parish, Sussex Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
Significance to Queer Art History
Etchingham Parish and The Brass of Agnes Oxenbridge and Elizabeth Etchingham is where this art historian dreams of making a lesbian pilgrimage. This brass is a memorial commemorating two women who were buried together with an inscription requesting God’s mercy for them both. Elizabeth appears on the left with her hair down and she is smaller than Agnes. This is likely representative of her being both unwed and young when she died in 1452 in her mid-twenties. Agnes is shown on the right and (although she too seems to have remained unwed) she is shown as a more mature woman likely because she was in her fifties when she died in 1480. Bennett finds evidence for both women remaining unwed in the lack of head coverings, lack of records (both marriage records and records of their lives as was often the case with single women), and lack of any mention of husbands on the memorial (Bennett, 133). She also describes how this brass was designed in the style of contemporary memorial brasses for married couples, but with additional intimacy. Unlike the contemporaneous brasses, which often show couples looking straight ahead, Agnes and Elizabeth face each other and look into each other’s eyes (Bennett, 134).
There also seems to have been no qualms about the relationship between these two women. It was unusual that Agnes be buried with Elizabeth instead of in the Oxenbridge mausoleum, but both families must have agreed for it to have happened and in turn chosen to commission such an intimate memorial (Bennett, 133). The initial request for the site of burial, as Bennett suggests, most likely came from the lost will of Agnes herself.
This brass is also interesting for the notable attempts to fit it into cis-heteronormative expectations of history. Bennett writes “some have described the brass as a memorial to two children [despite them both living into adulthood]; others have imagined they were looking at two entirely separate brasses [despite the inscription referring to them both and their being connected]; and still others have fiddled with genealogies to minimize any direct relationship between the two women (Bennett, 131).” She attributed these manipulations to homophobic anxieties, which result in “bad history” and argues for the place of Elizabeth and Agnes in the “histories that modern… queers rightly seek from the past (Bennett, 136 and 141).”
Resource(s)
Judith M. Bennett, “Remembering Elizabeth Etchingham and Agnes Oxenbridge,” in The Lesbian Premodern, edited by Noreen Giffney, Michelle M. Sauer, and Diane Watt. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
Brass of Elizabeth Etchingham and Agnes Oxenbridge, c.1480
Artist: Unknown (From a late thirteenth-century copy of William of Waddington’s Manuel des pechiez/Manual of the Sins) Media: Manuscript Illumination (ink and pigment on parchment) Date & Location: c. 1280, England Where can I see this artwork?: Princeton Library, Special Collections, Taylor MS. 1, folio 44 recto (this whole manuscript has also been digitized for online viewing)
Significance to Queer Art History
Both men and women wrote passionately about their visionary experiences of Christ in the late medieval period. These accounts, and visualizations like this one in Taylor MS. 1, invite considerations about gay and lesbian relationships. What does it mean for a layman (non-clergy man) to fantasize an erotic embrace with Christ? Might we find pleasure in looking at this medieval image of two men embracing?
It also invites questions of gender fluidity. The union of a human soul with Christ was often allegorized as a bride-groom relationship. In cases of AMAB (assigned-male-at-birth) or masculine devotees, though, this results in a feminization. They become ‘the bride’ of Christ. Similarly, Christ’s body (and especially his wound) is often imbued with multiple genders. The wound might be also a vulva or a breast in the writings of the medieval mystic, and indeed is sometimes represented as giving birth to a personification of the Church.
Bibliotheque nationale de France, c. 1369
(searching for more detailed citation)
He [Christ] tenderly placed his right hand on her neck, and drew her towards the wound in his side. “Drink, daughter, from my side,” he said, “and by that draught your soul shall become enraptured with such delight that your very body, which for my sake you have denied, shall be inundated with its overflowing goodness.” Drawn close in this way to the outlet of the Fountain of Life, she fashioned her lips upon that sacred wound, and still more eagerly the mouth of her soul, and there she slaked her thirst.
vision of Catherine of Siena (1347–1380)
Resource(s)
Karma Lochrie. “Situating Female Same-Sex Love in the Middle Ages.” The Cambridge Companion to Lesbian Literature, Cambridge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 79-92.
Robert Mills. “Hanging with Christ.” Suspended Animation: Pain, Pleasure and Punishment in Medieval Culture. London: Reaktion Books, 2006. 177-199.
Artist: Mary Høeg Media: Photography Date & Location: c. 1895-1903, Horton, Norway Where can I see this artwork?: Preus Museum, Norway
Significance to Queer Art History
Mary Høeg was a Norwegian suffragette and photographer. This is a photograph (described to me as an early “selfie of sorts”) of her and her partner, Bolette Berg. It is part of a private collection of her photographs, which subvert cis-heteronormative expectations of portraiture, and which were labelled ‘private’ when they came to the Preus Museum. The photographs Høeg sold to the public were primarily landscapes, and they were sold at ‘Berg and Høeg photography studio’ in Horten, Norway.
Digitized reproductions of her private photos also beg questions of the ethics of reproducing and sharing art works not created for public display.
Would she have minded? Could she have imagined such wide-spread access? Does the importance of archiving queer art works justify their reproduction?
Marie Høeg (left) posing with an unknown person (right) in the studio. Photo: Berg & Høeg, c. 1895-1903. The Preus museum collection.
Artist: Unknown Author: Heldris de Cornuälle Date & Location: Early 13th Century, France Media: Pigment on vellum (calf skin)
Queen Eupheme (right) seducing Silence (left), WLC.LM.6, Roman de Silence, f. 209r. Used with permission from University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections.
Significance to Queer Art History
The French narrative Le Roman de Silence was written by Heldris de Cornuälle in the 13th century. This is the only known surviving copy, also from the early 13th century, which exists between the vellum folios 188r-223r of WLC/LM/6 at the University of Nottingham.
This narrative, including the eleven miniatures (images) containing narrative content, is based on another medieval text: De Planctu Naturae (The Complaint of Nature)by Alain de Lille (c.1128-1212). Alain de Lille focusses especially on “sodomy,” and so does Heldris de Cornuälle.
Sodomy, and characters representing sodomy, does not match with our modern cis-heteronomative presumptions. This means that the “sodomitical” characters represented in Romance de Silence don’t conform to these presumptions either.
There are three characters (Silence, Eupheme, and the Nun) who do not conform to their assigned gender roles, and one of these characters has been called by contemporary scholars a “lesbian” figure.
Silence standing nude before Kind Evan, WLC.LM.6, Roman de Silence, f. 222v. Used with permission from University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections.
Summary
Since these images are so connected to the story, here is a brief summary of these three “queer” characters and their role in the plot:
**Please note: Various gendered pronouns are used here to discuss the narrative, and I do not want to negate any trans/non-binary interpretations, which I think abound. Please interpret them in whichever ways resonate for you. Additionally, these characters face violent endings so, while this is a piece of the history of queer representation, this is a loving heads-up before you dive in.**
Silence
Silence is initially described as a woman, but raised as a man after the king decrees that daughters can no longer inherit.
Silence is revealed to be a woman by Merlin at the end of the narrative, and she is then married to the king.
Silence’s body had taken on physical masculine features before being revealed, though, which are described as being “refinished” by Nature (ll. 6457–6460).
It is also worth noting that Silence had desires to make the transition permanent. He sought out Merlin to that end, but was foiled by Eupheme (ll. 6457-6460).
He is also accused of liking “young men a lot” and being an “herite” (ll. 3945-3947).
“Heretic” came to be synonymous with “sodomite” in late medieval France.
Eupheme/Eufeme
Eufeme/Eupheme is sent to marry King Evan to stop a war. She arrives with her black hair on a boat which also carries black horses to be gifted to the king (ll. 231-233).
She falls ill upon arrival delaying the wedding, but it happens three days later.
She tries to seduce Silence, and is described as being “highly skilled in such matters” (l. 3713). She is also described as loving and feeling “anguished yearning…/for this young man who was a girl (ll. 3698-3704).
Another of Eupheme’s lovers is a nun who is revealed to be “a man” near the end.
This plot point has been referred to by other scholars as further suggesting her preferences for women.
The gendered hegemony is perpetuated at the end of the narrative when Eufeme is executed by equine quartering (l. 6656). This was a common sentence for sodomy.
Adjectives used for Eufeme include: “female satan/cis sathanas” and “lady harlot/la dame fole” (l. 6273).
The Nun
A nun is in Queen Eupheme’s entourage when they intercept Silence bringing Merlin to the king.
While dressed as a nun, she/her pronouns are used for this character: she said/fait ele (l. 6250).
The nun is then revealed by Merlin in his long, riddle-like speech to be “Eufeme’s lover/… deceiving [the king] in woman’s dress” (ll. 6531-6532).
The gendered hegemony is reinforced once again when the nun is made to strip before the king (ll.6570-6571), and then executed with Eufeme (ll. 6655).
Blackout Artist: Indira Allegra Date & Location: 2015, Digital Media: Digital Weaving Installation, Dimensions Variable
Significance to Queer Art History
In Indira Allegra’s online portfolio this work is described as:
… a large scale video text/ile installation studying the weave structure of police uniforms alongside statements made by families of those lost to police violence including: Aiyana Stanley-Jones (7), Tamir Rice (12), John Crawford III (22), Amadou Diallo (23), Tarika Wilson (26), Eric Garner (43), Yvette Smith (45), and Eleanor Bumpurs (66). In six black and white panels, these grief stricken texts scroll and scan endlessly, struggling to articulate themselves through the presence of serge twill – the fabric used to manufacture police uniforms across the nation.
Queer activism and art history cannot be anything but intersectional — if they are not intersectional, they will only serve to reinforce the fabric of systemic oppression and violence. Be queer, and be proud, and if you’re a white queer (as I am) be active about using your white privilege to dismantle the systems and cultural narratives that created it.
The realities of systemic racial violence demand both an immediate response, and deeper longterm changes. Racism needs to be dismantled by our performances, by our dinner conversations, by our curricula, by our websites, by our canvases.
To all of the BIPOC queer folx who visit this website, thank you for checking out this digital collection, and I would like to centre your voices here. If you have feedback and/or art work you would like to see featured please reach me at: queerarthistoryqah@gmail.com
Hear Indira Allegra discuss “Blackout” in her own words
Ladies of the Zenana on a Roof Terrace Artist: Ustad (Master) Ruknuddin Date & Location: c. 1666, Bikaner Media: Watercolour, ink, and gold on paper Where can I see this artwork? Metropolitan Museum of Art (not currently on display)
Ustad Ruknuddin was a master painter at the Rajput Court of Bikaner between 1650-1697. His patron was Maharaja Anup Singh. In its historical context this painting is rife with political commentary, and it is a hybrid of Mughal and Rajput painting traditions. It was likely commissioned to present the women as luxurious goods and signifiers of Anup Singh being an insan-i kamil (an ideal man and ruler).
Laura Mulvey has written about “the male gaze” — and her scholarship has many critics and successors. Considered in its historical context, this painting is well-suited to an analysis of “the male gaze” and the representation of women by men for the pleasure of other men.
But this painting also still exists. It is in the Metropolitan Museum right now. I would propose that we can queer (verb) this painting. Contemporary lesbian viewers might also connect to — and derive pleasure from — this 17th century representation of intimacy and affection between two women.
It might also be seen as a representation of (in Judith Bennett’s terms) a “lesbian-like” space where women lived intimately together in seclusion.
What’s to stop us from claiming the contemporary “lesbian gaze” and bringing this piece into our own ‘art hirstory’ collections?
Interactions between contemporary lesbian (or otherwise “heterosyncratic”) viewers and this painting could create new meaning(s) and give it new relevance.
Shared Vocabulary
The term “heterosynchratic” is adapted from the work of Karma Lochrie to imply all gazes beyond the cis-heteronormative “male gaze.”
Mulvey’s “the male gaze” focuses on the way film is designed “according to male fantasies of voyeurism and fetishism,” and it is easily applied to other media, such as painting.
Resources
Bennett, Judith. “‘”Lesbian-Like’ and the Social History of Lesbianisms,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 9, no. 1/2 (2000), 1-24.
Chaudhuri, Shohini. Feminist Film Theorists: Laura Mulvey, Kaja Silverman, Teresa De Lauretis, Barbara Creed. London: Routledge, 2006.
Kim, Dorothy. “Remaking History: Lesbian Feminist Historical Methods in the Digital Humanities,” in Bodies of Information: Intersectional Feminism and Digital Humanities, ed. Elizabeth Losh and Jaqueline Wernimont, 131-156.
Lal, Ruby. “Hierarchies of Age and Gender in the Mughal Construction of Domesticity and Empire.” In : University of Chicago Press, 2008.
Lochrie, Karma. Heterosyncrasies: Female Sexuality when Normal Wasn’t. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005.
Manlove, Clifford T. “Visual “Drive” and Cinematic Narrative: Reading Gaze Theory in Lacan, Hitchcock, and Mulvey.” Cinema Journal 46, no. 3 (2007): 83-108. Accessed April 2, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/30130530.
Ramos, Imma. “‘Private Pleasures’ of the Mughal Empire.” Art History 37, no. 3 (2014): 408-427.
Joyene Nazatul is a non-binary multidisciplinary artist hailing from the tiny island state of Singapore. Joyene was a filmmaker and writer who currently spends most of their time creating furniture in their new home in Victoria, BC. They also performs as the drag artist Noah Lott and continues to create art through a variety of media.
Untitled Artist: Ethel May (Monte) Punshon Date & Location: c. 1923-mid 1950s, Australia. Media: Scrapbook (newspaper clippings, primarily) Where can I see this artwork? Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives
Significance to Queer Art History
Monte Punshon’s two scrapbooks are a collection of clippings many of which focus on women in same-sex relationships and women challenging gender norms. She was also a photographer, visual artist, performer, and teacher. Punshon created these scrapbooks for over three decades, but lived to be 106. She came out at 103 and met her last partner, Margaret, at the age of 101.
On a personal note, I chose Punshon’s work because this is my first post as curator of Queer Art History. She is iconic in many ways, and certainly as a collector of pieces of visual culture that affirmed her identities. What did Casey do here, and what will I do here, if not something similar for all of us?
Monte Punshon, c. 1930s.
Published in City Rhythm magazine, 1985
Resources and Further Reading
Brickell, Chris, and Judith Collard. Queer Objects. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2019.
Michael Page is a Florida based bisexual activist, creator of BiCafe (closed) and BiNet USA volunteer.
Featured Artwork: Bisexual Pride Flag
Date and Location: December 5, 1998 in Florida, USA
Significance to Queer Art History: The Bisexual Pride flag was created by Michael Page and debuted on December 8, 1998 on BiCafe . com (now defunct.) Page wanted to create a prominent symbol for the bisexual community just as the gay pride (rainbow) flag was prominent to the gay community after its creation by Gilbert Baker in 1978. He chose the colors for the flag for the popular “Bi-Angles” symbol of triangles and combined them into a flag that used 40% pink (to represent homosexuality), 20% purple (to represent a combination of homosexuality and heterosexuality), and 40% blue (to represent heterosexuality).
The pantone color codes from Page are as follows: PMS 226, 258, and 286
Bi-Angles symbol that inspired Michael Page (Creator Unknown):
Resources & Further Reading:
Baxter-Williams, Libby. “Hoisting Our Colours: A Brief History of the Bisexual Pride Flag.” Biscuit. Accessed August 25, 2017. https://www.thisisbiscuit.co.uk/hoisting-our-colours-a-brief-history-of-the-bisexual-pride-flag/.
Ruocco, Caroline. “Mashable Publishes an Up-to-date Compilation of LGBT Flags and Symbols.” GLAAD. June 16, 2014. Accessed June 2017. https://www.glaad.org/blog/mashable-publishes-date-compilation-lgbt-flags-and-symbols.
Wong, Curtis M. “‘Celebrate Bisexuality Day’ Exists Because Of These Three LGBT Activists.” The Huffington Post. September 24, 2013. Accessed August 2017. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/24/celebrate-bisexuality-day_n_3977289.html.
Mickalene Thomas is a black queer artist who uses mixed media to create large pieces of her muses, mostly black women from different races, sexualities, gender identities, and expressions.
Featured Artwork: Sleep: Deux Femmes Noires (Translates to: Two Black Women)
Date & Location: (2013) by Mickalene Thomas (Born 1971)
Media: Photography, collage, and woodblock print processes
Where can I view this artwork?: Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University in Ithica, NY (USA)
Significance to Queer Art History: This selected work from Mickalene Thomas is part of her series “Origin of the Universe” that draws from “traditional” (Read: white-centered art history) paintings. Thomas combines the pose and intention from Gustave Courbet’s Le Sommeil (Translates to: “The Sleepers”) from 1866 with her own photography and processes as a claim of black women’s place in media and art as erotic and soft, just as the women in Courbet’s painting are portrayed.
Gonzalez, Desi. “MICKALENE THOMAS- Origin of the Universe.” The Brooklyn Rail. Accessed June 2017. http://brooklynrail.org/2012/11/artseen/mickalene-thomas-origin-of-the-universe.
“Sleep: Deux Femmes Noires.” Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. Accessed June 2017. http://museum.cornell.edu/collections/modern-contemporary/mixed-media/sleep-deux-femmes-noires.
