Object

1936

Claude Cahun
French, 1894–1954

Claude Cahun, born Lucy Schwob, was closely associated with the Paris Surrealists of the 1930s. Attracted to the group’s desire to transform society through the exploration of the unconscious, she challenged traditional ideas about gender and sexuality through her intimate photographic self-portraits, collages, and sculptures. For Object, Cahun altered a number of seemingly unrelated components—a doll’s hand, a cloud-shaped piece of wood, and a tennis ball painted with a wide-open eye—to produce a startling psychological resonance. The eye, in particular, a key Surrealist symbol of inner perception, also suggests female anatomy. On the base of the work, Cahun added the French phrase, “The Marseillaise is a revolutionary song, the law punishes counterfeiters with forced labor.” Much like the rest of the work, the inscription is a juxtaposition of disparate elements: the first, a well-known slogan from France’s antifascist coalition, the left-wing Popular Front, and the other, a phrase from Belgian currency. In combining these phrases, Cahun seems to point an accusatory finger at the supposed “revolutionary” leaders of France—a rare direct reference to politics in a Surrealist artwork. Her assemblages were typically ephemeral and made to be photographed; Object is the only sculptural work by the artist known to still exist in its original form.

Status: On View, Gallery 396
Department: Modern Art

Artist: Claude Cahun
Title: Object
Place: Ville de Paris, Départment de (Object designed in)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1936
Medium: Wood and paint with tennis ball, hair, and found objects
Inscriptions: Not signed, inscribed on base: La Marseillaise est un chant révolutionnaire, la loi punit le contrefaiteur des travaux forcés
Dimensions: 13.7 × 10.7 × 16 cm (5 3/8 × 6 3/8 × 4 in.)
Credit Line: Through prior gift of Mrs. Gilbert W. Chapman
Reference Number: 2007.30

Richard Martin, Fashion and Surrealism (New York, 1987), p.70 (ill.).
François Leperlier, Claude Cahun, l’écart et la métamorphose (Paris, 1992).
Edward Weisberger, Surrealism, Two Private Eyes: The Nesuhi Ertegun and Daniel Filipacchi Collections, exh. cat. (New York: Guggenheim Museum, 1999), 344, pl. 264 (color ill.).
Steven Harris, “Coup d’oeil,” Oxford Art Journal, 24,1 (2001): 89–12, cover, (ill.) and fig. 1.
G. Durozoi, Histoire du mouvement surréaliste (Paris, 1997), p. 259 (ill).
Steven Harris, Surrealist Art and Thought in the 1930s: Art, Politics, and the Psyche (London, 2004), p. 163–173, p. 165 (ill.), fig. 20.
Zabriskie Gallery, Zabriskie: Fifty Years (New York, 2004), pp. opp. 26 (ill.), 27.
Louise Downie, ed. Don’t Kiss Me: The Art of Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore (London, 2006),
p. 17.
François Leperlier, Claude Cahun: l’Exotisme interior (Paris, 2006), 328–31, fig. 99.
Stephanie D’Alessandro and Renée DeVoe Mertz, The Age of Picasso and Matisse: Modern Art at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2014), 119, 124 (color ill.).

Paris, Galerie Charles Ratton, Exposition surréaliste d’objets, May 1936.
Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Le Surréalisme: Sources-Histoire-Affinités, 1964, no. 492.
London, Hayward Gallery, Dada and Surrealism Reviewed, January 11–March 27, 1978, no. 12.1, p. 294 (ill.).
New York, Zabriskie Gallery, 1936 Surrealism, 18 February–4 April 1986, pp. 2 (ill.) and 20.
Berkeley, University Art Museum, University of California, Anxious Visions: Surrealist Art, October 3–December 30, 1990, no. 21, pp. 32 (ill.), 33, 285.
New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Surrealism: Two Private Eyes, The Nesuhi Ertegun and Daniel Filipacchi Collections, June 4–September 12, 1999, no. 264, vol. 1, p. 344 (illus.).
Paris, Barcelona, and Chicago, Jeu de Paume Picture Galle, La Virreina Centre de la lmatge Barcelona, The Art Institute of Chicago, Entre Nous: The Art of Claude Cahun, May 24, 2011–June 3, 2012.
Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Modern Series: Shatter, Rupture, and Break, February 15–May 3 2015.

Galerie Charles Ratton, Paris, 1936–at least 1978 [Harris 2004 and London 1978]; Zabriskie Gallery, New York, by 1986 [Harris 2004]; sold to private collection (Daniel Filippachi), 1980s.

17 Claude Cahun, Object, 1936

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