Gerda Wegener was a Danish illustrator and painter who was the partner of transgender woman Lili Elbe, one of the first recipients of sex reassignment surgery. Her paintings, often featuring Elbe, pushed the boundaries of gender and love of her time and were classified as lesbian erotica for often depicting women engaged in sexual activities. She also did advertisements and fashion illustrations for magazines like Fantasio, Vogue, and La Vie Parisienne throughout her career and made political anti-German images in the Le Matin and the La Baïonnette during World War II. Her paintings, usually in Art Nouveau or Art Deco style, challenged the male gaze with stylized, long-limbed, made-up figures in which women looked active rather than passive. Her erotic works, including graphic illustrations for the memoirs of Casanova, were celebrated throughout liberal society, but were out of style in the 1930s as the simpler Functionalism became more popular. While she hosted her last exhibition in 1939, a special exhibition of her artwork was held in 2015 following the success of the film The Danish Girl.
