Acting Out: Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore
Chronology
1892: Birth of Suzanne Malherbe in Nantes.
1894: Birth of Lucy Renée Mathilde Schwob in Nantes.
1898: Lucy’s mother, Victorine Mary Antoinette
Courbebaisse Schwob, suffers serious
psychopathological crisis and is committed
to an asylum.
1906: Dreyfus Affair engenders anti-Semitic outbreaks in
Nantes. Lucy, Jewish on her father’s side, taunted
by classmates.
1907–08: Lucy withdrawn from public school and sent
abroad to England to continue studies.
1909: Lucy returns to Nantes, learns Greek at the knees
of her paternal grandmother, enrolls in a limited
number of courses at her old school, and falls
in love with Suzanne Malherbe, the daughter of
family friends.
1913–14: Lucy’s first publications in the prestigious
review Mercure de France, cofounded by her
uncle, Marcel Schwob. First photographic portraits.
Under various pseudonyms, Lucy contributes to the
cultural pages of Le Phare de la Loire, published
by her father, Maurice Schwob. Suzanne’s
fashion drawings appear in the paper under the
pseudonym Marcel Moore. Lucy enrolls in a course
on “L’Explication d’auteurs philosophes” at the
Sorbonne. She composes “Les Jeux uraniens” and
signs the manuscript “Claude Cahun.”
1917–18: Maurice Schwob marries Marie Eugenie
Malherbe, Suzanne’s mother. The “sisters” create
an apartment for themselves on the top floor of the
newspaper building in downtown Nantes. Moore
studies at the Nantes Académie des Beaux-Arts.
Cahun attends classes at the Sorbonne, volunteers
at Sylvia Beach’s Left Bank bookstore, Shakespeare
and Co.
1919: Publication of Vues et visions, written by Cahun
and illustrated by Moore.
1920: Cahun and Moore rent their first apartment in
Paris, rue de Grennelle.
1922: Cahun and Moore move to an atelier in
Montparnasse, 70 rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs.
1923–25: Cahun publishes in Mercure de France,
Journal littéraire, Disque vert. Lends support to
the homosexual journal Inversions. Cahun and
Moore among the founders of Les Amis des
Arts Esotériques, collaborate with the Théâtre
Esotérique.
1928: Death of Maurice Schwob. Cahun translates a
volume by the sexologist Havelock Ellis into French.
Intense photographic activity.
1929: Participation in Pierre Albert-Birot’s theater
company, Le Plateau. Moore takes photographs of
Cahun’s performances in Mystère d’Adam, Barbe
Bleue, and Banlieu. With Cahun’s oversight, Moore
creates the photocollages for Aveux non avenus,
a nonnarrative patchwork of Cahun’s writings.
Moore designs the cover for Georges Ribemont-
Dessaignes’s Frontières Humaines. Moore’s
anamorphic portrait of Cahun is reproduced in
the Surrealist journal Bifur. Cahun and Moore are
interviewed by a columnist for the overseas edition
of the Chicago Tribune.
1930: Publication of Aveux non avenus.
1932: Involvement with L’Association des Ecrivains et
Artistes Révolutionaires [AEAR]. Meet André Breton.
1933: Cahun co-signs AEAR declarations against fascism
and French imperialism. Contributes to Commune
and Minataure. Activities within Surrealist circle
escalate.
1934: Cahun publishes a polemical pamphlet about
poetry and revolution, Les Paris sont ouverts (Bets
Are On), and earns Breton’s respect.
1935: The Surrealist antitotalitarian faction Contre-
Attaque convenes at the home of Cahun and
Moore.

1936: Cahun and Moore co-sign several political tracts

produced by Contre-Attaque. Cahun attends
lecture/demonstrations at psychiatric hospitals
(La Salpêtrière, Sainte-Anne) in the company of
Henri Michaux. Meets Jacques Lacan. Contributes
objects to the Surrealist exhibition at the Charles
Ratton Gallery. Helps Breton to organize the
International Surrealist Exhibition at the Burlington
Gallery in London. Publishes “Prennez garde aux
objets domestiques” in Cahiers d’art. Photographic
initiatives crescendo in Jersey over the summer.

1937–38: Photographs of objects created by Cahun

illustrate Lise Deharme’s Le Coeur de pic. Cahun
and Moore purchase a house on Jersey, La
Roquaise, which they rename La Ferme sans nom
(The Farm with No Name). They leave Paris and
move into the house on St. Brelades Bay.

1939: Cahun joins the Fédération Internationale de l’Art

Indépendant. Cahun and Moore maintain ties with
Cahun and Moore Tombstone, St. Brelades, 2003.
friends in Paris, receiving visits from Michaux, Black and white photograph, courtesy Tirza T. Latimer
Breton, and Jacqueline Lamba.

1940–44: Occupation of Jersey by German military

forces. Cahun and Moore launch an anti-Nazi
counterpropaganda campaign. After four years of
successful covert operations they are apprehended,
tried for treason, and condemned to death. The 1952–53: Dreams of resuming a life in Paris evaporate
sentence is converted, but they serve their prison due to the fragility of Cahun’s condition.
time in solitary confinement until the liberation of
the island on 8 May 1945. 1954: Cahun dies and Moore buries her remains in the
churchyard next door to the St. Brelades house.
1946–50: Reclaim house on St. Brelades Bay, which Moore sells La Ferme sans nom and moves to a
had been requisitioned by the occupying army. small house near St. Helier.
Slowly undertake repairs and retrieve the affairs
that were spared theft or destruction. Attempt to 1972: Isolated and in pain, Moore takes her life. She
resume communication with the former Paris milieu. shares Cahun’s grave in St. Brelades churchyard.
Cahun writes long repetitive letters to friends and The double gravestone bears two Stars of David.
drafts her memoirs of the war. Her mental and
physical health, seriously compromised by the time
in prison, further deteriorates.
The chronology is based on information drawn from
1951: Thanks to Moore’s lobbying, Cahun receives the publications by François Leperlier.
Médaille d’Argent de la Reconnaissance Française
for her resistance activities.