GLR May-June 2025

ESSAY The First Lesbian Image-Makers T IRZA T RUE L ATIMER

T HE EMERGENCE of both the lesbian and the woman artist as recognizable demographics in 19th-century Europe and the United States was the product of revolutionary developments in the realms of civil rights and image-making. The as cent of the first feminist movements, the opening of art academies to women, and the democratization of photog raphy converged to create new conditions of possibility. Portraiture by women-loving-women of the 19th century in vites us to decipher the visual codes that made lesbians of an earlier era socially legible. Moreover, studying these portraits enables us to better understand how the portrait genre partici pated in the formation of modern categories of feminine, sexual,

by the double portrait without taking particular notice. How ever, some would have recognized Abbéma’s bold revisions of both social and artistic conventions. Art history abounds with pictures of couples together on a Sunday idyll at the lake; the scene itself would not have turned any heads. Yet while two women in a rowboat would have been a common sight in parks on the outskirts of Paris, same-sex couples were not a typically the subject of paintings. They were not “natural,” but here ren dered so by the (artificially) natural setting of the landscaped park and by Abbéma’s naturalist style. This double portrait disturbs expectations in other ways as well. Abbéma, a homely figure in black with her face profiled against a red parasol, stands midship in the rowboat. (Who

and artistic identity. In 19th-century portraiture, two women pictured together was commonplace. We reflexively speculate about their relationship. Sisters? Mother and daughter? Friends? While we should not assume that all portraits featuring female couples pictured lovers, the possibility should not be ruled out. Appearing together in a formal portrait was one way that lesbians with the means to commission or create portraits sig nified (and sanctified) their same-sex bonds. Such a portrait’s props and setting—whether evoking cozy domesticity, artistic enterprise, ath letic prowess, or dalliance in a romantic natural environment—often provide clues. This is cer tainly the case with the painting by Louise Ab béma, Sarah Bernhardt and Louise Abbéma on the Lake in the Bois de Boulogne (1883) (Figure 1). This is no tame drawing-room artwork, but rather a piece that self-confidently addressed a broad viewing public. The canvas’s impressive scale (5’ high by 6.5’ wide) was calculated to at tract attention in a museum, gallery, or exhibition setting. The work, in effect, monumentalized Ab béma’s relationship with Bernhardt.

Fig.1: Louise Abbéma. Sarah Bernhardt et Louise Abbéma on the Lake in the Bois de Boulogne , 1883. Collections Comédie-Française.

According to the woman collector who donated the paint ing to the Comédie-Française, Abbéma created this masterpiece on the anniversary of her amorous liaison with Bernhardt. That would have been the couple’s twelfth anniversary, since the two met in 1871. By 1883 their liaison was public knowledge. They appeared together at social and cultural events, they vacationed together, they created and exhibited portraits of each other, and they posed together for the press. We can imagine that many contemporary viewers walked Tirza True Latimer, Professor Emerita in the History of Art and Visual Culture at California College of the Arts, San Francisco, investigates visual culture and politics from queer feminist perspectives.

stands up in a rowboat?) The natty man-tailoring of Abbéma’s costume signals that this is no ordinary woman. Her “unfemi nine” clothing and her no-nonsense hairdo align her with the feminist dress-reform movement gaining momentum interna tionally during the late 19th century. At the same time, the artist’s no-frills attire, in this and in other portraits of her, con tributes to the codification of a modern “look” cultivated by emancipated women—many of them lesbians. Abbéma’s profiled pose directs our gaze toward Bernhardt, every bit the femme fatale, seated at the boat’s prow. Clearly the star of the painting, Bernhardt twists her corsage-adorned bust toward the viewer. Her right arm, theatrically gesturing across the bowsprit, calls attention to a pair of black swans.

May–June 2025

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