feminist theory. Numerous critics considered issues
of sexual difference to be solely a woman’s issue.
Solomon-Godeau continues to expand the appli-
cation of a feminist perspective to the field of art
history and criticism. She has applied her philoso-
phy of art history to courses she has taught at the
School of Visual Arts, Hunter College, New York
University, and the University of California, Ber-
keley. Solomon-Godeau has also held positions as
the Robert Sterling Clark Visiting Professor of Art
at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts;
as a visiting professor at the Universities of Stock-
holm, Uppsala, Lund, Gothenberg; at the Art
Academy of Malmo in Sweden; and as a visiting
professor at the Center for Research on the Arts
and Languages in Paris, France.
Solomon-Godeau was an influential guide to
numerous scholars of art, and she helped to radi-
cally reexamine the issue of identity in art at the
end of the century. Her article, ‘‘Katharina Sie-
verding,’’ which appeared inNParadoxain 2003,
discusses the artist’s impassive self-representation
as a monumental icon. Similar to this article, ‘‘The
Equivocal ‘I’: Claude Cahun as Lesbian Subject,’’
inInverted Odysseys: Cahun, Deren, Sherman, and
Photographic Transformationedited by Lynn Gum-
pert and Shelley Rice, explores the representation
of the self presented in the surviving photographic
work by Claude Cahun. In this essay, Solomon-
Godeau argues that Cahun’s sexual orientation,
while only one of many factors to influence her
photographs, must not be overshadowed by, or
excluded from, the discussion of her work. In this
essay, Solomon-Godeau advances the notion of an
expanded idea of the self that incorporates the
desire to ‘‘try on’’ other roles, a recurring theme
in her written work.
Solomon-Godeau was influenced by her travels
to Europe and the United States. She was awarded
a National Endowment for the Humanities Sum-
mer Fellowship for Twentieth-Century Studies in
1985, the Florence J. Gould Tocqueville Award for
French Art History from the American Council of
Interdisciplinary Humanities Center for 1990–
1991, a J. Paul Getty Postdoctoral Fellowship for
1993–1994, and a John Simon Guggenheim Mem-
orial Fellowship for 2001–2002. In addition to
being a prolific writer in the history of art, Solo-
mon-Godeau has curated numerous exhibitions.
includingSexual Difference: Both Sides of the Cam-
era,which opened at the C.E.P.A. Gallery in Buf-
falo, New York, and subsequently toured to the
State University of New York’s Art Gallery, the
New Langton Arts in San Francisco, and the Mir-
iam and Ira Wallach Gallery of Columbia Univer-
sity, New York.
SarahB. Wheeler
Seealso:Feminist Photography; Photographic The-
ory; Postmodernism; Representation and GenderBiography
Solomon Godeau was born in New York in 1947.
Attended the University of Massachusetts, Boston,
BA, magna cum laude; the Graduate Center, CUNY,
PhD. In addition to numerous articles and catalogue
essays, she is author ofPhotography at the Dock: Essays
on Photographic History, Institutions, and Practices
(1991) andMale Trouble: A Crisis in Representation
(1996). Teaches and publishes in the fields of photogra-
phy, contemporary art, nineteenth-century French art,
and feminist and critical theory. Her essays, which have
been widely anthologized, have appeared in journals
such asAfterimage, Art in America,Art Bulletin,Cam-
era Obscura, October, Screen, and others. Currently
Associate Professor of Art History at the University
of California, Santa Barbara.Further Reading
Solomon-Godeau, Abigail. ‘‘Katharina Sieverding.’’NPar-
adoxa, 11 (2003).
———. ‘‘The Equivocal ‘I’: Claude Cahun as Lesbian Sub-
ject,’’ In Lynn Gumpert and Shelley Rice, eds.Inverted
Odysseys: Cahun, Deren, Sherman, and Photographic
Transformation. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press,
1999.
Nochlin, Linda, and Abigail Solomon-Godeau, ‘‘Sins of the
fathers.’’Art in America88, no. 12 (2000).
Solomon-Godeau, Abigail. ‘‘The Truth of Appearances:
Nineteenth-Century Photography at the Getty.’’After-
image26, no. 3 (1998).
———. ‘‘The other side of Vertu: alternative masculinities
in the crucible of revolution.’’Art Journal. 56 (1997).
———.Male Trouble: A Crisis in Representation. London:
Thames and Hudson, 1997.
———. ‘‘Representing Women: The Politics of Self-Repre-
sentation.’’ In Diane Neumaier, ed.Reframings: New
American Feminist Photographies. Philadelphia, Pennsyl-
vania: Temple University Press, 1995.
———.Photography at the Dock: Essays on Photographic
History, Institutions, and Practices. Minneapolis: The
University of Minnesota Press, 1991.
———. ‘‘Mandarin Modernism: Photography Until Now.’’
Art in America, 78 (1990).
———. ‘‘The Legs of the Countess: de Castiglione, Photo-
graphed by Mayer & Pierson, and the Commodification
of the Feminine.’’October, no. 39 (1986).SOLOMON-GODEAU, ABIGAIL