Lmst

Gerda Wegener (Hammelev, 15 de Março de 1889 — Frederiksberg, 28 de Julho de 1940), pintora, desenhadora e ilustradora dinamarquesa.

Two Mermaids, 1918

#art #gerdawegener

"Girl and Pug in an Automobile," Gerda Wegener, 1927.

Wegener (1885-1940) is someone I've featured before, but she's always worth featuring. I love this Art Deco painting, which on the surface is mild and inocuous...a woman and her dog in a car, on what seems to be an early spring day. What could be more everyday?

All is not what it appears. The woman is Lili Ilse Elvenes, aka Lili Elbe, Wegener's partner, who was trans and one of the earliest known successful recipients of gender-affirming surgery, in 1930. However, for a couple of decades Wegener had been painting haunting portraits of a sexy, almond-eyed femme fatale...and it was a bit of scandal when it emerged in 1913 that this gorgeous woman was assigned male at birth.

Elbe sadly passed away in 1931, from complications of an attempt to transplant a uterus into her body. Wegener remarried briefly, and her painting style fell out of fashion. She died poor and half-forgotten, but her work has been rediscovered and acclaimed.

From a private collection.

#Art #DanishArt #GerdaWegener #LiliElbe #QueerHistory #TransHistory #QueerArt #PortraitMonday

An Art Deco image from the 1920s. A woman and a pug sit in a red automobile; the woman is in a red cloche hat and a black-and-brown plaid coat. In the background can be seen two people on horseback, a building, and some trees that appear bare, but another is green, hinting that this is early spring. The woman in the car is Lili Ilse Elvenes, Wegener's trans partner.

"Lili," Gerda Wegener, 1922.

Wegener (1886-1940) has been featured before; she was a Danish painter and illustrator who challenged contemporary ideas of love and gender.

Lili Elbe (1882-1931), the subject of this portrait, was a trans woman and Wegener's partner. This is one of a series of fairly eroticized Art Deco portraits of Elbe that Wegener did, challenging viewer's ideas of what is feminine and what is masculine. Elbe would successfully undergo gender-affirmation surgery in 1929, but would die of complications from an attempted uterus transplant.

Happy Pride Month!

#Art #WomenArtists #GerdaWegener #LiliElbe #Trans #TransLivesMatter #TransPride #QueerHistory #QueerArt #QueerArtists