A Feminist History of the Roaring Twenties

They remained in the shadow of Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso or Brassaï. And the list is long of these women who, during the Roaring Twenties, made Paris a party and the center of an international cultural whirlwind: Sonia Delaunay, Tamara de Lempicka, Suzanne Valadon, Joséphine Baker… A look at yourself proposes to restore to these artists the place of pioneers that the history of art has long denied them.

Whether they are sculptors, writers, photographers or architects, their works tell of the modernity of this liberating post-war period. Finally, at this time in history, female Parisian students who attended art schools and academies benefited from the same education as male students. But they want to learn to look at the world differently. “Writing like a man doesn’t interest me, I want to write like a woman”, said the writer Anaïs Nin. The female body is the center of their artistic creation and a tool for exploring gender. “Women stripped of the male gaze”, comments the voice of Anaïs Demoustier. Androgynous, like Suzy Solidor, lesbian, like Claude Cahun, or transgender, like Lily, women confuse genders and transgress norms. Going against the bohemian spirit, they dare to sell their works to guarantee their financial independence.

Removed from exhibition catalogs

The new narrative modes that emerged then, such as talkies and photography, left the field open to creation without male tradition. The Smiling Madame Beudet, by Germaine Dulac, shows the boredom of a married woman. It is an avant-garde film, resolutely feminist. These women invent a new relationship to reality and progress. The architect Charlotte Perriand thus decompartmentalizes the kitchen and uses industrial materials to embellish the interiors.

But those Roaring Twenties were not all euphoria. The patriarchal tone dominates the criticism and women are excluded from exhibition catalogs. “We did well to have fun, we knew it wouldn’t last”, underlines the singer Suzy Solidor. This crazy parenthesis is the history of feminism. The 54-minute documentary is very dense as the production is prolific. Many of these works can be seen at the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris until July 10, as part of the exhibition “Pioneers. Artists in the Paris of the Roaring Twenties”.

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