Paul Cadmus

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Paul Cadmus
Paul Cadmus 1937, by Carl Van Vechten
Born(1904-12-17)December 17, 1904
New York City, US
DiedDecember 12, 1999(1999-12-12) (aged 94)
Weston, Connecticut, U.S.
EducationArt Students League of New York
Known forPainting, drawing PaJaMa
MovementMagic realism
ElectedNational Academy of Design

Paul Cadmus (December 17, 1904 – December 12, 1999) was an American artist widely known for his egg tempera paintings of gritty[1] social interactions in urban settings. He also produced many highly finished drawings of single nude male figures. His paintings combine elements of eroticism and social critique in a style often called magic realism.[2]

Early life and education

Cadmus was born on December 17, 1904, in a tenement on 103rd Street near Amsterdam Avenue, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the son of artists, Maria Latasa, of Basque and Cuban ancestry, and Egbert Cadmus (1868–1939), of Dutch ancestry.[3][4] His father, who studied with Robert Henri, worked as a commercial artist, and his mother illustrated children's books.[5] His sister, Fidelma Cadmus, married Lincoln Kirstein, a philanthropist, arts patron, and co-founder of the New York City Ballet,[6] in 1941.[7]

At age 15, Cadmus left school to attend the National Academy of Design for 6 years.[8] In 1925, at age 20, Cadmus became a member of The Brooklyn Society of Etchers (now known as the Society of American Graphic Artists or SAGA). In their 10th Annual Exhibition held at the Brooklyn Museum he showed three etchings, "Fidelma", "Calogero Scibetta" and "Kramer". He enrolled at the Art Students League of New York in 1928 taking life-drawing lessons while working as a commercial illustrator at a New York advertising agency.[9] He furthered his education while traveling through Europe from 1931 to 1933 with fellow artist Jared French,[8] who became his lover for a time.[10]

Career

After traveling through France and Spain, Cadmus and French settled in a fishing village on the island

Majorca. In 1933, they headed back to the United States after running out of money, where Cadmus was one of the first artists to be employed by The New Deal art programs, painting murals at post offices.[9] He maintained a studio at 54 Morton Street.[11]

Cadmus worked in commercial illustration as well, but French, also a tempera artist, convinced him to devote himself completely to fine art.[10][12] In 1979, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an associate member and became a full member in 1980.

Cadmus is ranked by Artists Trade Union of Russia amongst the world's best artists of the last four centuries.[13]

Controversies

The Fleet's In! (1934), cropped view

In 1934, at the age of 29,

Naval Historical Center.[6]

In 1938, his painting Pocahantas Saving the Life of John Smith, a mural painted for the Parcel Post Building in Richmond, Virginia, had to be retouched when some observers noticed a fox pelt suggestively hanging between the legs of an Indian depicted in the painting.[6] Cadmus used his then lover, Jared French, as the model for John Smith in the mural.[3][19]

In 1940, two paintings, Sailors and Floozies (1938) and Seeing the New Year In, were removed from public view because the Navy "didn't like it" and there was "too much smell about it."[20] The paintings were being exhibited at the Golden Gate International Exposition and were removed, while a third, Venus and Adonis, remained. The office of Commissioner George Creel was told by the Navy that the painting, Sailors and Floozies, was "unnecessarily dirty."[20]

Artistic style

Cadmus, considered to be a master draftsman, was interested in the Italian Renaissance artists, particularly Signorelli and Mantegna, the so-called "masters of muscle." He was also influenced by Reginald Marsh, an American scene painter. Cadmus combined the elements of Signorelli and Mantegna along with Marsh to depict the street life of New York City.[6]

He was transfixed by the human body, both the ideal and the repulsive. His ideal was a stylized erotic version of the male body. He found the grotesque everywhere from

Saturday Evening Post." In 1990, Michael Kimmelman wrote that Cadmus' art served "as a reminder that, contrary to the standard view, realism was still a vital tradition in American art during the middle of this century, one that drew from many of the same sources that inspired the Abstract Expressionists who were widely thought to have rendered realism obsolete."[21]

Personal life

From 1937 until the early 1950s, Cadmus, his lover,

Leica camera, becoming subjects and makers in turn.[23][24]

Many of their friends were featured in the photographs — they were among New York's young artists, dancers, and writers, and most were handsome and gay.[22] Among those photographed were Tennessee Williams, Glenway Wescott, Monroe Wheeler, Donald Windham, Todd Bolender, Bernard Perlin, Chuck Howard, Ted Starkowski,[25] Christopher Isherwood, and Paul Cadmus's sister Fidelma and her husband Lincoln Kirstein.[26] Cadmus and French also posed for photographs with the noted photographer George Platt Lynes (1907–1955). These photographs were not published or exhibited while Lynes was living and show the intimacy and relationship of the two.[27]

From 1944-1949, Cadmus was involved with artist George Tooker, forming a complicated relationship with French and his wife.[28] When the Frenches bought a home in Hartland, Vermont, they gave Cadmus a house of his own on the property, which French later took back and gave to his Italian lover.[4]

In 1965, Cadmus met and began a relationship with Jon (Farquhar) Anderson (July 30, 1937, New Haven, Connecticut - October 21, 2018, Weston, Connecticut).[29][30] The relationship with Anderson, a former Nantucket cabaret singer 32 years younger than Cadmus, lasted until Cadmus' death in 1999.[31] During their 35-year relationship,[31] Anderson was Cadmus' model and muse in many of his works.[14] Cadmus was also close friends with many illustrious artists, authors, and dancers including Christopher Isherwood, W. H. Auden, George Balanchine, George Platt Lynes, Lincoln Kirstein (his brother-in-law), and E. M. Forster,[2] who was said to have read his novel Maurice aloud while Cadmus painted his portrait,[18] which was printed in 1200 copies of a pamphlet The New Disorder[32] in 1949.[33]

In 1999, he died at his home in Weston, Connecticut,[34] due to advanced age, five days before his 95th birthday.[18]

List of works

From 1931 until 1992, Cadmus produced 120 paintings, two a year on average.[6] Some highlights include:

Exhibitions

References

Notes
  1. ^ "Greenwich Village Cafeteria 1934". Retrieved June 21, 2022.
  2. ^ a b c O'connor, John J. (May 16, 1986). "'PAUL CADMUS,' ON 13, A STUDY OF THE ARTIST AT 80". The New York Times. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
  3. ^ a b Staff. "Paul Cadmus". www.dcmooregallery.com. DC Moore Gallery. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
  4. ^ . Retrieved August 23, 2016.
  5. ^ "EGBERT CADMUS, 71, WATER-COLOR ARTIST | Also Known as a Lithographer —Was Father of Paul Cadmus". The New York Times. August 15, 1939. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Grimes, William (March 8, 1992). "ART; The Charge? Depraved. The Verdict? Out of the Show". The New York Times. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
  7. ^ "Miss Fidelma Cadmus Wed". The New York Times. April 9, 1941. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
  8. ^ a b c d "Paul Cadmus Biography". Encyclopedia of World Biography. Retrieved July 19, 2013.
  9. ^ a b "Paul Cadmus". Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved February 11, 2013.
  10. ^ .
  11. ^ a b c "'FLEET'S IN' ARTIST TO ESCHEW NAVY | Paul Cadmus, Whose Canvas Was Banned in Washington, Looking for New Subjects". The New York Times. May 31, 1934. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
  12. .
  13. ^ "List of 10.000 world best artists of the Russian Federation Artists Trade Union". Archived from the original on October 31, 2010.
  14. ^ a b c Glueck, Grace (June 7, 1996). "ART REVIEW;Paul Cadmus, a Mapplethorpe for His Times". The New York Times. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
  15. ^ "Cadmus tells (1984) briefly about his work The Fleet's In!". May 23, 2012. Retrieved June 21, 2022.
  16. ^ "ART ROW IN NAVY SURPRISES PAINTER | Cadmus Advises Admirals to Make Study of Sailors' Life on Riverside Drive". The New York Times. April 20, 1934. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
  17. ^ "Paul Cadmus (1904-1999)". NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER. Retrieved July 19, 2013.
  18. ^ a b c d Cotter, Holland (December 15, 1999). "Paul Cadmus Dies at 94; Virtuosic American Painter". The New York Times. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
  19. . Retrieved August 23, 2016.
  20. ^ a b "OUSTS SAILORS' PAINTING | Golden Gate Fair Also Removes Another Cadmus Picture". The New York Times. August 8, 1940. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
  21. ^ Kimmelman, Michael (May 4, 1990). "Review/Art; The Power of Whimsy: Jean Arp's Later Work". The New York Times. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
  22. ^ a b Smith, Roberta (November 5, 2015). "PaJaMa, Whose Photographs Breathed Eroticism". The New York Times. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
  23. ^ Smith, Roberta (November 5, 2015). "PaJaMa, Whose Photographs Breathed Eroticism". The New York Times.
  24. ^ "PaJaMa on MoMA". Retrieved June 21, 2022.
  25. ^ "Ted Starkowski: Artist's Muse". January 11, 2021.
  26. ^ "Fire Island PaJaMa Party". August 11, 2022.
  27. . Retrieved August 23, 2016.
  28. ^ Johnson, Ken (October 9, 2008). "Conform, Conform, Wherever You Are: Modern Angst in 'George Tooker: A Retrospective' at the National Academy Museum". The New York Times. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
  29. ^ "Paid Notice: Deaths CADMUS, PAUL". The New York Times. December 14, 1999. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
  30. ^ "Mr. Jon Farquhar Anderson". Legacy.com. October 21, 2018. Retrieved July 22, 2019.
  31. ^ a b Gargan, Scott (November 8, 2012). "Paul Cadmus and Jon Anderson the focus of "Muse" at Westport Arts Center". CT Post. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
  32. ^ Mark Mitchell (April 3, 2013). "Paul Cadmus, "E. M. Forster" (1949)". Retrieved January 25, 2020.
  33. OCLC 2996436.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  34. ^ Mcgill, Douglas C. (December 14, 1984). "ART PEOPLE". The New York Times. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
  35. ^ a b c d e f g Jewell, Edward Alden (March 27, 1937). "CADMUS CANVASES HUNG AT MIDTOWN One-Man Show of American Artist Is Commended for Subtle Draftsmanship". The New York Times. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
  36. ^ Raynor, Vivien (April 4, 1982). "ART; PAUL CADMUS RETROSPECTIVE Indiana STORRS". The New York Times. Retrieved October 30, 2017.
  37. ^ Charles, Eleanor (March 21, 1982). "CONTROVERSIAL PAINTING ON VIEW AFTER 47 YEARS". The New York Times. Retrieved October 30, 2017.
Biographical works

External links