Gluck - Who Did She Think He Was?
- Director: Clare Beavan
- Producer: Janet Lee
CGiii Comment
An interesting portrait of a little-known, collectible artist...who defied convention, by dressing in male attire and cherry-picking her females 'companions'...because, she could afford to!!!
Rich eccentrics are ten-a-penny in British lesbian history...Woolf, Sackville-West, Radclyffe Hall...and, this film reveals a few more...the presenter of Muffin the Mule no less!
These debonair social circles were rife with sapphic desire...most were in 'marriages of convenience' and all were financially flippant. They could do what they want...their currency was discretion!
Gluck went from [rich] woman to [rich] woman...these women influenced her art, from floral imaginings to the boxing ring! In other words...her art suffered, because she had no originality - a talented painter but a vicarious artist.
Unfortunately, the film is littered with unqualified opinion and transference...the only credible testimony is by Gluck's biographer Diana Souhami - who has equals amounts of affection, admiration and disdain for her subject.
There is an overwhelming feeling that if Gluck had no [family] money...she would have been a renowned and revered artist...then, now and forever. Love and sex got in the way!
An intersting film nonetheless...especially when the myth that Queen Victoria flatly refused to accept that ladies did such things [with each other]...is, conclusively, debunked.
No trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
The untold story of Britain's cross-dressing high society painter. Gluck was one of the British Establishment's go-to portrait painters of the 1930s.
Her shows were attended by royalty, aristocrats and celebrities. She also dressed as a man and called her exhibitions 'one-man shows'. Her lovers were all women, including flower arranger to the stars Constance Spry, and Edith Heald, the ex-mistress of WB Yeats.