The Fun Archaeology

Martonn

Two early photography  10 x 12 cm glass plates of the french transformist artist Martonn dressed as a woman and old man with a fake white beard.Martonn was a parisian cabaret artist during the 20’s to the 50’s. His show consisted of a serie of 22 live consecutive changes of outfits while he was singing for the audience, swapping from man to woman, from a young to an old character. This type of show were later called « transformism » and are considered to be the ancestor of the gender illusionists such as the « Drag Queens » movement.