Claude Cahun was a French Photographer and writer. Her work was personal and political and, like Cindy Sherman's, often played with the concepts of gender and sexuality. She experimented with her audience's understanding of photography as a documentation of reality. Her thought-provoking self-portraits often involved costumes or masks as a way of exploring her identity.




"Self- Portrait (Double exposure
in rock pool)" 1928












Cahun's work was far more personal than Sherman's. Like much of her life it questioned ideas of gender and sexuality. She used various disguises, as well as shaving and colouring her hair to challenge and dissolve the boundaries and common sterotypes. Cahun does not limit herself to female stereotypes, but also plays out male roles, and confronts the camera boldly, with a defiant look rather than the submissive one that is in much of Sherman's work.