CLAUDE CAHUN (LUCY RENÉE MATHILDE SCHWOB)
(25 October 1894 – 8 December 1954) was a French artist, photographer and writer.
Her work was both political and personal, and often played with the concepts of gender and sexuality. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Cahun

Born Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob in Nantes, she was the niece of an avant-garde writer Marcel Schwob and the great-niece of Orientalist David Léon Cahun. Her mother’s mental problems meant that she was brought up by her paternal grandmother, Mathilde Cahun.
She began making photographic self-portraits as early as 1912, when she was 18 years old, and she continued taking images of herself through the 1930s.

Around 1919, she settled on the pseudonym Claude Cahun, intentionally selecting a sexually ambiguous name, after having previously used the names Claude Courlis (after the curlew) and Daniel Douglas (after Lord Alfred Douglas). During the early 20s, she settled inParis with her lifelong partner and stepsister Suzanne Malherbe. For the rest of their lives together, Cahun and Malherbe (who adopted the pseudonym “Marcel Moore”) collaborated on various written works, sculptures, photomontages and collages. She published articles and novels, notably in the periodical “Mercure de France”, and befriended Henri Michaux, Pierre Morhange and Robert Desnos.

Around 1922 she and Malherbe began holding artists’ salons at their home. Among the regulars who would attend were artists Henri Michaux and André Breton and literary entrepreneurs Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier.
more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Cahun