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Neither Then nor Now: Queer Temporalities & Interwar Portraits of Expatriate Sapphists
Scott, Lily F.
Scott, Lily F.
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Thesis/Dissertation
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2025-05
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Art History
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https://doi.org/10.34944/667f-4d73
Abstract
This dissertation, Neither Then nor Now: Queer Temporalities & Interwar Portraits of Expatriate Sapphists, considers the subjective power of portraiture and rethinks its (auto)biographical nature, examining the temporally unique function and repercussions of American expatriate Sapphist portraiture as a site for displaying (gender)queer bodies and recording queer history. My project examines the ways in which Sapphist portraits of and by four expatriate American artists living and working in Paris—Romaine Brooks, Berenice Abbott, Djuna Barnes, and Eyre de Lanux—make their meaning in a unique way, one that is not temporally confined. By looking beyond the present to also assume a simultaneous past and future, my project provides an intervention for understanding queer portraits beyond the established rules of representation and reception. It is my belief that these artworks are disconnected from normative time, enabling the artists and sitters to claim self-determined visibility not otherwise fully accessible in their societal point of origin, always seeking without guarantee an environment in which to exist openly and authentically. I ultimately propose that Sapphist portraits, in disengaging with conventional notions of past, present, and future, (re)make their full meaning neither Then nor Now, but eternally.
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