Claude Cahun, original name in full Lucy Renée Mathilde Schwob, (born October 25, 1894, Nantes, France died December 8, 1954, St. Helier, Jersey), French writer, photographer, Surrealist, and performance artist who was largely written out of art history until the late 1980s, when her photographs were included in an exhibition of Surrealist photography in 1986. She is known for her self-portraits that portray her as ambiguously gendered. Lucy Schwob was born into an affluent family with deep literary roots in France. Her father, Maurice, owned and published Le Phare de la Loire, a regional newspaper that had been in the family