Sapphics of Modernity: Juxtaposing the Implicit and Explicit Queer Female Gaze Through the Works of Marie Laurencin and Tamara de Lempicka

Vince, Montana

Thesis (B.F.A.) -- Art History

Savannah College of Art and Design -- Department of Art History

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“A common narrative throughout the history of art and literature is the ‘two best friends’ trope. An art historical example of this is a female painter who paints genre scenes of the ancient Greek lesbian, Sappho or portraits of naked women holding each other. Whether these women are documented to have written long love letters to each other or have lived in the same house, history writes them off as simply two really close friends. These queer moments can be misinterpreted as platonic interactions because of the nature of living in a heteronormative society. A heteronormative society is a culture that values heterosexual relationships as the ideal and assumes that humans are inherently born straight. Therefore, this complicates the analysis of artists defining themselves as queer when there is no explicit evidence of a ‘coming out.’ Ultimately, without this overt displaying to the world that one is gay, any signs of queerness can easily be misinterpreted. Because people are socialized to have a heteronormative lens, this makes queer history vulnerable to being erased by labels like ‘just friends.’ Therefore, to break this pattern, lesbian art tends to be overtly sexualized to be recorded historically as lesbian art. However, women-loving-women relationships are far more nuanced than choosing not to have sex with men. In queer female relationships, both parties are socially raised as women which
creates a deeper understanding of lived experience thus building a unique form of intimacy and safety. Moreover, if we do not immediately project a heteronormative lens onto a more implicit, non-sexual queer piece of art, what subtle queer themes can we learn from it? This thesis will explore the works of Marie Laurencin (1883–1956) and Tamara de Lempicka (1898–1980), two queer female artists, who produced works simultaneously in 1920s Paris. Specifically, this thesis will juxtapose de Lempicka’s explicit sexual queer female perspective to Laurencin’s more romantic, implicit queer perspective to provide a more accurate understanding of queer art. The two works used for this analysis will be, The Kiss (Le Baiser) (1927) by Laurencin, and The Two Friends, or Perspective (1923) by de Lempicka. Contrasting the sexual female gaze and the romantic female perspective in these paintings will create a multifaceted understanding of the queer female experience in Paris in the 1920s.” –Abstract

Keywords: Cubism, Fauvism, interwar France, Marie Laurencin, Paris, queer community, queer theory, realism, sapphic, Tamera de Lempicka.

Savannah, Georgia: Savannah College of Art and Design

2023-11

1 online resource: 1 PDF (Thesis, 46 pages, color illustrations)