Considering the ongoing discussions about gender-fluidity, this seems a perfect time for an exhibition that revisits and re-evaluates the work – and dressed appearance – of the artist, Gluck.
Hannah Gluckstein was born in 1895 into an affluent London-based Jewish family. A talented painter, she flouted convention and insisted on being known purely as Gluck, maintaining a masculine dress sense.
None of the artist’s characteristic menswear appears to have survived, so representing Gluck’s appearance in this exhibition, Gluck: Art and Identity at Brighton Museum has posed a particular challenge. We chose to focus on the artist’s rejection of conventional womenswear, devising a display that juxtaposes an elaborately decorated, late-1920s evening gown with a quotidian, brown cardboard man’s collar-box known to have belonged to Gluck.
Biographer Diana Souhami describes a red Charles Jourdan shoebox in which Gluck kept love letters returned by Nesta Obermer. The artist kept these letters through her next relationship, with Edith Shackleton Heald. After Gluck’s death, the box was found with a
post-it note stuck to the lid with “All lies” written on it in Shackleton Heald’s hand.
In the exhibition I’ve presented the box alongside a pile of Gluck’s letters to Obermer with an excerpt, rendered in laser-cut vinyl lettering, semi-obscuring two sides of the display case.
We’ve also devised insertions that play with complementary narrative and stylistic perspectives. Places Gluck lived in or visited are plotted onto a series of maps. Gluck’s main relationships are depicted as a masking-taped line-up of headshots with bullet-pointed texts formatted like questionnaires.
Jeffrey Horsley is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Centre for Fashion Curation, London College of Fashion. Gluck: Art and Identity is at the Brighton Museum until 11 March
Hannah Gluckstein was born in 1895 into an affluent London-based Jewish family. A talented painter, she flouted convention and insisted on being known purely as Gluck, maintaining a masculine dress sense.
None of the artist’s characteristic menswear appears to have survived, so representing Gluck’s appearance in this exhibition, Gluck: Art and Identity at Brighton Museum has posed a particular challenge. We chose to focus on the artist’s rejection of conventional womenswear, devising a display that juxtaposes an elaborately decorated, late-1920s evening gown with a quotidian, brown cardboard man’s collar-box known to have belonged to Gluck.
Biographer Diana Souhami describes a red Charles Jourdan shoebox in which Gluck kept love letters returned by Nesta Obermer. The artist kept these letters through her next relationship, with Edith Shackleton Heald. After Gluck’s death, the box was found with a
post-it note stuck to the lid with “All lies” written on it in Shackleton Heald’s hand.
In the exhibition I’ve presented the box alongside a pile of Gluck’s letters to Obermer with an excerpt, rendered in laser-cut vinyl lettering, semi-obscuring two sides of the display case.
We’ve also devised insertions that play with complementary narrative and stylistic perspectives. Places Gluck lived in or visited are plotted onto a series of maps. Gluck’s main relationships are depicted as a masking-taped line-up of headshots with bullet-pointed texts formatted like questionnaires.
Jeffrey Horsley is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Centre for Fashion Curation, London College of Fashion. Gluck: Art and Identity is at the Brighton Museum until 11 March
