Gluck: 1895-1978 : Her Biography

by Diana Souhami

Gluck was a rebel. She dressed as a man ~ in clothes designed by Victor Steibel and EIsa Schiaparelli; she had passionate love affairs with Society women, chose her own monosyllabic name, acknowledged no influence in her painting and exhibited her work only in 'one man' shows. In this authorized and fully illustrated biography Diana Souhami interweaves the pictures, people and events that made up Gluck's life. With intimate reference to unpublished letters, diaries and manuscripts she reveals her as an extraordinary individual and an undervalued artist. Exhibitions of her paintings in the 1920s and 1930s were highly praised.

Genres: Biography, Art, Nonfiction, LGBT, Queer, Art History, Biography Memoir

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Diana Souhami was brought up in London and studied philosophy at Hull University. She worked in the publications department of the BBC before turning to biography. In 1986 she was approached by Pandora Press and received a commission to write a biography of Hannah Gluckstein. Souhami became a full-time writer publishing biographies which mostly explore the most influential and intriguing of 20th century lesbian and gay lives.

She is the author of 12 critically acclaimed nonfiction and biography books, including Selkirk’s Island (winner of the Whitbread Biography Award), The Trials of Radclyffe Hall (winner of the Lambda Literary Award and shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for Biography), the bestselling Mrs. Keppel and Her Daughter (winner of the Lambda Literary Award and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year), Gertrude and Alice, and Wild Girls: Paris, Sappho, and Art. She lives in London.

Reviews

[Chloë Fowler · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was captivated by her self portrait in the recent Queer Britain exhibition at the Tate and beetled straight to the shop hoping for a biography and there was one! Yay! Another book book (not e-book) for Chloe to read...is this a new trend?

It's a big old book for a life where...not masses happened. More than anything that's happened in MY life, for sure, but still. It's great that it has pictures (of pictures) but they're in black and white...feels very diminishing.

The book certainly timelines her life and loves and her battles and her triumphs. As a life goes, they're interesting. But I don't feel the book paints HER for us...it tells and it doesn't show. I've met plenty of women with a touch of Gluck and they're fascinating, fabulous and frustrating. For me, the point of biography is that you get enveloped in personality - not just the facts.

[Sophie (RedheadReading) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to learn more about Gluck after watching a documentary that focused on her gender and sexual identity, so this book seemed like a great way to get a fuller sense of her as a person and an artist. This was certainly a very interesting read, but I did find myself hoping for more at times. I was very intrigued by the contradictions inherent within Gluck and I enjoyed learning more about her artistic process and turbulent love life, but at times it also felt like she did not lead the most eventful life. I liked seeing pictures of her work, but I will need to go away and google them as I imagine without colour the effect is lacking somewhat. On the whole, an interesting read!

[Vera · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently went to see an exhibition on Virginia Woolf and my favourite painting of the lot was a small Cornish seascape by Gluck. I had seen a major Gluck exhibition in Brighton and I had been left with a feeling of wanting to know more about her, her times and surroundings. This book was an interesting read. I will be reading other biographies written by Diana Souhami, namely those of Romaine Brooks and Radclyffe Hall.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating and left me with a huge crush on the androgynous Gluck and on author Souhami herself.

[Jack Bates · Rating 5 out of 5]

The latest in my attempt to learn about all the posh 1930s lesbians. There’s quite a lot to unpack here but ‘talented people are often their own worst enemy’ would seem a fair summary. Brilliantly researched as ever, Souhami is a good biographer.

[M.E. Logan · Rating 4 out of 5]

She was a rebel. She was difficult. She had a torrid personal life that shocked her family. But she was an extraordinary woman and an undervalued artist.

[Courts · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel a little bad marking this book so low because Gluck was so interesting but I just did not find the author's prose or style engaging at ALL. I absolutely loathed how she would put long excerpts of letters that didn't add anything substantive to the narrative. After reading the absolutely fabulous Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley earlier this year, Souhami's work just fell flat in comparison. The biography could have done with slightly more editorializing as she directly interacted with people from Gluck's life and had access to far more information and perhaps even characterization than is shown here.

Gluck was a truly fascinating person. Bold, stubborn, and engaging, she was a cutting edge lesbian artist who wore men's clothes and rather openly romanced women. Similar to a butch lesbian of a generation before, Mathilde "Missy" de Morny, Gluck's gender nonconformity was tolerated because of her family's money and status and I wish Souhami had put more emphasis on what that meant in the time period.

There's an absolutely bonkers part involving Gluck, Edmund Dulac, and W.B. Yeats' bones that comes about due to a mistake made by Yeats' wife on how many years a burial plot had been rented. Gluck was in an (unhappy) live-in relationship with pioneering journalist Edith Heald, who had been the last mistress of Yeats before his death.

One of the biggest problems with the book? Not enough photos of Gluck's paintings. There'll be paragraphs of description of a painting or of Gluck's technique and quibbles but we're given nothing to see. Imagining a scene is very different from imagining a painting. Especially annoying because there was a reference to a self-portrait of Gluck and her lover Nesta being used on the cover of an edition of Radclyffe Hall's notorious lesbian novel The Well of Loneliness. I had to put the book down to go and look up the painting so the lack of images literally pulled me out of the narrative.

[Acquafortis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was invited by Netgalley to review this book.
To say the truth I had no idea who this person was and I had my doubts I would enjoy the biography, they are not my usual cup of tea.
Yet it was a book I read with dedication. A book that not only described to me, as wikipedia does, Gluck’s lifetime, but what was more important it described the emotions that motivated Gluck’s life. Why she came to call herself so? Why did she paint that painting? Why did she move in that house? Why the choice of that colour?
This book showed me through its pages the humanness of this artist. The unaccepted child of a rich family where all had pre-established roles that had to be played and she couldn’t find one that worked out for her.
The love and hate relationship with her mother and brother that must have fuelled many tensions and acrimony. The struggling lesbian in a society that she never felt her own yet she could not completely cut herself off.
The constant hiding of love towards the loved one and always coming second in place after the husband. The wanting more but can’t have it because there was no role for her in the society she lived in.
Through this book, Gluck came alive with conflicts many of us, GLBT in the closet, are very familiar with.
I felt sorry for her because she must have gone through tremendous sufferings, dilemmas and there was no friend or organisation she could go to, to talk her heart out, to feel part of a group. To help her feel less different. I felt sorry she could not heal those inner personal conflicts that made her suffer so much in her life.
All this and more has been, with careful detail and much respect described in this book.
A worthwhile compassionate read.

[Mel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was interesting but nothing special. I am not sure if it was the author or Gluck herself but I just didn't think the life of the butch lesbian gender bending painter Gluck was very exciting. I understand she was a pioneer in the wearing of men's attire at a time when it was controversial to do so. I also get that she was somewhat of a 20s and 30s high society darling and art talent but I just kept wanting her to be more interesting and she wasn't. Neither was the lackluster writing in this book. I would love to see some of these paintings in person; the black and white pictures in this book did not do them justice. I really wanted Gluck to be less dull and more dashing and she just wasn't; maybe I should blame the author.

[Meg Parrott · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really quite an underwhelming and at times, an incredibly boring book. I adore Gluck so I was incredibly excited to read this, but I feel as though I could summarise what happened in this book content wise, in a couple of sentences.

Although there are the mundane aspects of anyone’s life, a whole chapter on paint quality - I get it was important to Gluck at a time - but a whole chapter, was, excuse the pun, like watching paint dry. Similarly, a whole chapter on Yeats made me think: why, for a biography about someone entirely different?

I learnt more about Gluck sure, but I wasn’t captivated in Souhami’s storytelling methods at all.

[Ruby Noise · Rating 2 out of 5]

An insight into the 1920's and 30's life of a lesbian painter and her loves. Androgynous and single minded her work was her passion as were her two main loves. She could be tough to deal with but then, isn't that a prerequisite of creating your art?

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating artist she might be someone I would add to the dinner party of dead famous people I would like to share a meal with.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mentioned in Constance spry biography

[Mary Karpel-Jergic · Rating 4 out of 5]

If inly the prints were in colour. A brilliant artist with n interesting and rebellious life.