Florence Henri: Queer Bauhaus photographer
Words by Sophie Norton
Florence Henri (1893-1982) was one of the few female photography students at the Bauhaus, studying under László Moholy-Nagy and Josef Albers in the early 1920s. She was one of the first few photography students, as the Bauhaus only began teaching photography in response to founder Walter Groupius’ growing concern that the materials produced in the workshops needed to be documented.
Florence Henri, Nu, gelatin silver print, 30 x 23.5 cm, 1930.
Like design, photography at the Bauhaus was experimental, but still characterised by certain values. Photographs were pretty much all monochrome in colour, and paid attention to close framing, documentation, and use of orthogonal lines. Florence Henri’s work is largely characteristic of these principals, particularly her well-known Self-Portrait from 1928. The portrait is so unique because it marks a definition of the now-known values of Bauhaus photography. One of the qualities that makes the photograph so interesting is its unusual framing, which shows the artist staring into her own gaze, through the reflection of a rectangular mirror. The composition deliberately leaves corners and large, uncomfortable areas of space within the composition. Henri sits cross-armed above a wooden desk, which holds two spherical objects at the central base of the mirror; multiplied into four through the reflection. In a way, the balls are mimetic of eyes, perhaps a reference to the Bauhaus’ aesthetic movement called Neues Sehen (meaning New Vision), which the work itself is characteristic of. The lack of photographer in relation to the subject is unsettling, and the viewer is made to feel almost intrusive.
Florence Henri, Self-Portrait, gelatin silver print, 39.3 x 25.5 cm, 1928.
Perhaps this sense of intrusion is felt from the vulnerability that Henri presents in her work. It is documented that she was queer, and enjoyed numerous relationships with a mixture of men and women, most notably with fellow artist Margarete Schall. Henri insisted that her images shouldn’t be analysed for content, however elements of her gender and sexuality can be read in her work. Her Self-Portrait can be read in this way, perhaps with the spheres composed against vertical lines a phallic reference to male genitalia? Other ways that her work may reveal clues towards her identity as a queer artist is her collection of female nudes and general focus on female subject matter in her photographs (many of whom were her own students, gained after leaving the Bauhaus to teach photography in Paris). These nudes are ‘unarguably erotic’, involving what could be understood as symbolic queer iconography. An example of this is her 1930 Femme aux cartes (Woman with cards), which shows a reclined woman, seemingly nude yet with makeup, suggestively holding a playing card between her finger and thumb. The other cards are scattered beneath her on the floor, however the model is preoccupied with something out of the frame, looking downwards with mouth slightly parted open. Her expression is difficult to determine - is it anticipation, or desire? It has been recently suggested that playing cards are themselves symbols of the LGBTQ+ community, however whether this was deliberate from Henri is unconfirmed. Regardless of this, the photograph remains suggestive, due to the deliberate close framing of the subject, and their nude location on what appears to be a carpeted floor.
Florence Henri, Femme aux cartes, gelatin silver print, 39 x 28.5 cm, 1930.
Henri is also a subject herself, of one of Lucia Moholy’s better-known portraits (the wife at the time of her photography teacher, László). The portrait Lucia takes of her is similarly invasive, cropped extremely closely to the sitter’s face, so that every detail can be seen. Her ambiguous expression takes the focus of the photograph, and her direct gaze is perhaps challenging, although ultimately difficult to read. Her short hair and expressive makeup suggests that Henri can be understood as an example of the contemporary neue Frau (new woman) - an individual who embraced the challenge towards gender roles, without ‘nullifying the notion of gender difference’. She sometimes enjoyed presenting herself as overtly feminine, in a performance of her born gender.
Lucia Moholy, Florence Henri, gelatin silver print, 37.2 x 27.7 cm, 1927.
Despite the success of her career during her lifetime, having work exhibited in seminal exhibitions internationally, Florence Henri’s works remain lesser-known to the public than those of her male contemporaries. In 1963 she abandoned photography for painting - work that is known even less than her photographs. With the exception of her Self-Portrait, the artist’s connection to the Bauhaus is relatively unrecognised, despite acting as a pioneering artist in the medium. Her unique experiments with composition and geometry is what she should be remembered for, elements which her identity as a queer photographer played heavily into.
