Romaine Brooks, Self-Portrait, 1923, oil on canvas, 46 1⁄4 x 26 7⁄8 in. (117.5 x 68.3 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1966.
Born into a wealthy American family yet suffering a difficult childhood, Brooks moved to Europe in 1893, at the age of 19. As a gay woman in the early 1900s, she spent much of her time in Paris with other wealthy queer people, particularly those who fled England after the Oscar Wilde trials, when the famed writer was imprisoned for being gay. In this self-portrait, part of a series she painted of women in her social circle, Brooks subverts typical portraiture by challenging what it means to wear clothing that is coded to a gender other than one’s own. She wears a riding outfit and top hat, both signifiers of aristocratic masculinity, and juxtaposes these with feminine facial features and lipstick (notice how she makes that bright red pop by contrasting it to the subdued urban background).
This combination of the feminine and masculine replicates androgynous identity that was popular among many women in the 1920s. Does Brooks vouch for an identity formed of both feminine and masculine aspects, or does she indeed reject the validity and necessity of these codifications of gender altogether? Either way, Brooks asks questions of traditional representations of gender that still resonate almost a century later.
Work cited:
https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/self-portrait-2916