In both her life and her art, Tamara de Lempicka offered a new image of the modern woman: part jazz-age femme fatale, libertine and social climber, and part canny self-promoter, self-styled experimental artist and astute cultural and historical prognosticator. In many ways, Lempicka’s artistic output has been assessed as inseparable from her larger-than-life character and, more significantly, her gender.
Laurencin’s influence can be seen across the work of a number of artists who have employed visual languages of femininity in order to explore the place of women and gender expectations in modern life. Louise Bourgeois, Laurencin’s most celebrated student, similarly used clothing and other symbols of womanhood in order to explore female relationships, using psychoanalytic ideas to consider familial relationships, the human body and emotional states.
More important than the impact her diverse work has on the art market is its influence on other artists and movements, which spans generations. To this day, she represents herself as a lone wolf most comfortable with being known as independently avant-garde.
The style of Romaine Brooks’ art in many ways defies classification and does not easily fit into one stylistic category. However, she has been most frequently linked to the movements of Aestheticism and Symbolism because of her leaning towards the non-narrative and the romantic and lyrical qualities of her portraits. While Brooks did not embrace the vivid colors of many of her fellow modernists, she nevertheless made the same bold and somewhat simplified expressive gestural lines as her contemporary Fauves and Cubists. Her portraits are unapologetically honest and real in the same way that the likes of much later twentieth century portraitists, including Alice Neel and Lucian Freud took on board.
Cahun’s artistic work, diverse personae, and unusual personal life have made Cahun a figure of inspiration and interest for many later artists. The gender-shifting self-presentation, and non-heterosexual relationship make Cahun important to homosexual activists and Feminism-lovers alike. Furthermore, Cahun’s use of photography in self-portraiture sees the beginnings of an important emerging tradition among non-male artists.
Carmen Rupe was a trailblazing transgender woman and entertainer, a larger-than-life personality, sex worker, and celebrated LGBTIQ+ icon. Proprietor of several notorious Wellington nightspots and one-time mayoral candidate, she pushed the boundaries of Wellington nightlife and both entertained and outraged New Zealanders during the 1960s and 1970s. The most visible transgender New Zealander of her time, she used her celebrity to advocate for LGBTIQ+ rights. She was well-known for helping homeless people and others in need.
Though she is little known, Baroness Elsa Freytag-Loringhoven helped to shape the direction of New York Dada with her eccentric public displays and performances as well as with her desire to fuse her sexuality with her art. In the face of accusations that she was “crazy,” Freytag-Loringhoven would simply state, “Every artist is crazy with respect to ordinary life.” Her gender bending and blatant displays of her sexuality anticipated Feminist art and performance of the mid-20th century. She was an innovative artist whose works paved the way for later experimental Performance art of the late 1950s and 1960s. A renowned poet and a proto-feminist, Elsa and her work have only recently been rediscovered by art historians who have recognized the importance of her contribution to New York Dada. Her provocative poetry was published posthumously in 2011 in Body Sweats: The Uncensored Writings of Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. At the very forefront of developing the readymade and performance art, the Baroness holds a legacy as the “Mama of Dada,” as the New York Times critic Holland Cotter dubbed her.
Höch’s deliberate attempt to obscure herself during the Second World War, and the fact that she continued to live in her modest home on the outskirts of Berlin until the end of her life, may account for her relative obscurity. The art historian Dawn Ades notes that “she wasn’t interested in becoming a celebrity,” which perhaps speaks to her early embarrassment at the exhibitionism of the Dada group.
Often called “the Lady with the Lamp,” Florence Nightingale was a caring nurse and a leader. In addition to writing over 150 books, pamphlets and reports on health-related issues, she is also credited with creating one of the first versions of the pie chart. However, she is mostly known for making hospitals a cleaner and safer place to be.
A shy, insecure child, Eleanor Roosevelt would grow up to become one of the most important and beloved First Ladies, authors, reformers, and female leaders of the 20th century.