Smithsonian

Highlights from Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture

Janet Flanner was an American living in Paris with her lover Solita Solano and together they traveled in the most fashionable gay social circles. Flanner wrote a regular column for the New Yorker that gave readers a coded glimpse of the Parisian “in crowd.” This 1923 portrait, Flanner’s masks are a symbol of the multiple disguises that she wears, one for private life, and one for public life.

Janet Flanner by Berenice Abbott. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

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Photos from: Portrait Gallery's Hide/Seek Uncovers an Intricate Visual History of Gay Relationships »