A Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose: Genderqueer Narrative and Photography in Gertrude Stein’s Interwar Texts

Abstract

This article argues that Gertrude Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933) is a genderqueer narrative of alternating identities related to artist Marcel Duchamp’s appearance as his female alter ego Rrose Sélavy (Man Ray 1920–1921; Man Ray 1921b). Art historians assume that Stein’s textual word play and outsized personality influenced Duchamp. Few scholars, however, have addressed the possible influence of Duchamp on Stein’s work. The similar ways in which Duchamp and Stein play with gender privileges gender ambiguity above gender identity. Seeing Stein’s work in relation to Duchamp’s genderqueer performance enables Stein to be recognized as an innovator of genderqueer aesthetics, which also leads to a recognition of Stein’s alternative approach to fine art: as this article will discuss, Stein’s interwar essay ‘Pictures’ (1935) reveals an undoing of such distinctions as copy and original that anticipates the achievements of the avant-garde and the Pop art movement of the late twentieth century. Stein’s gender play was integral to her development as a writer, popular author, and artists’ muse.