Judith Teixeira (1880–1959): A Bisexual Woman Poet of the Roaring Twenties, by Samantha Pious

A biographical exhibit on Judith Teixeira, the earliest known bisexual woman poet of modern Portugal. Teixeira was the lover of Olga de Moraes Sarmento, the feminist writer and editor who eventually became the life-partner of the pioneering motorist…

Portrait of Judith Teixeira

Figure 14: Frontispiece to Núa, perhaps a stylized representation of the poet herself.  

Figure 13: Judith Teixeira dedicated Núa “to the delicate, white, and naked arms of my Chimera, in whose curves of Arousal and musical Dream I found the wild and echoing rhythm of life!” Was the dedicatee Olga de Moraes Sarmento? Júlia de Moraes Sarmento? Or another woman?

Figure 12: Transcription of a letter from Judith’s second husband, Alvaro Teixeira, in the record of his failed suit for divorce (f. 26r, re-numbered as 2), at the Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo.

Figure 11: The front cover of a 1928 poetry collection by Maria Isabel Gamito, issued by J. Rodrigues, who also published Judith Teixeira. One of Gamito’s sonnets had previously appeared in Europa, the literary review edited by Teixeira herself. Were the two women friends or lovers?

Figure 10: The epigraph of Judith Teixeira’s 1926 poetry collection, Núa, is a quotation from Renée Vivien.

Figure 9: Olga de Moraes Sarmento dedicated her memoir to her partner, Hélène van Zuylen van Nijevelt, née de Rothschild, formerly the lover of Pauline Tarn, who published as Renée Vivien and (perhaps in collaboration with Hélène) as Paule Riversdale.

Figure 8. Judith’s lover, Olga de Moraes Sarmento, in the frontispiece to her 1948 memoir.

Figure 7: The divorce between Judith and Jayme Levy Azancot had to be announced in the papers, as Judith had abandoned the marital domicile for parts unknown. This notice ran in O Seculo, 24 April 1913. Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Azancot divorce, f. 108v.

Figure 6: The names of Olga and Júlia de Moraes Sarmento in the testimony of “Paliteiro,” a chauffeur employed by Alvaro Teixeira. The handwriting is a law clerk’s. Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Azancot divorce, f. 44v.

Figure 5: Judith’s father, Francisco dos Reis Ramos, wrote to his mother as he lay dying to ask for her help in providing for his wife and children, including Judith. Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, paternity lawsuit, f. 7r.

Figure 4: Judith Teixeira’s signature, on the title page of her first poetry collection, Decadencia, 2nd edition (Lisbon: Libanio da Silva, 1923).

Figure 3: List of Judith Teixeira’s published and forthcoming works, on the jacket of Núa (1926). Labareda and Taça de Brasas have been lost.

Figure 2: Judith Teixeira’s second poetry collection, Castelo de Sombras (Lisbon, 1923).

Fig 1 Judith Teixeira Nua book cover

Ruth Fuller Field signature

Illustration of Emma Elizabeth Altman, aka Juno, "Elizabeth Altman," Evening Journal [Wilmington, DE], 22 Apr. 1904, 2.

Emma Elizabeth Altman, photograph and signature from 1916 passport application. Courtesy of FamilySearch.org.

The Incarnation Fresh Air and Convalescent Home where Ruth Fuller Field worked in the early 1910s, from J. Newton Perkins, History of the Parish of the Incarnation, New York City, 1852–1912 (Poughkeepsie: Frank B. Howard Press, 1912), 201.