Paul Cadmus is an artist who was in general out of favor with the mainstream art establishment throughout his career. In his more public art he is an artist like Norman Rockwell who can deliver a realistic picture which conveys a story. Rockwell's stories are better than Cadmus who tends toward a satirical bent; where Rockwell tends toward the sentimental. Cadmus is the better draftsman of the two; although he and Rockwell are both very good. There is always a tinge of the sexual, and usually homosexual, in the Cadmus imagery. With Rockwell it is always pure fantasy schmaltz.

Cadmus is certainly the best draftsman of the "Magic Realist" School. The others Jared French and George Tooker tend toward abstract, puppet people where Cadmus always heads for the realistic.

This realism and craft made him unpopular with art critics who found that there was little expression in his work. Expressionism was the driving force behind most of the modern art during the central part of the twentieth century. So he was mostly forgotten.

This is the first of a three part gallery spanning the seventy-five active years Paul Cadmus spent doing art. There is a summary biography interleaved with the pictures, to provide some context for the art work.

Quits job at NY Ad agency and decides to become a professional artist.

French and Cadmus leave for France on an oil tanker. Went to Paris first then bought bicycles in Chartres and toured museums and churches throughout France and Spain.

They end up in Mallorca at Puerto de Andraitx. Cadmus paints his several major pictures: YMCA Locker Room, Shore Leave, Bicyclists, and others. Many of these are shown below.

In Bicyclists Cadmus employs a visual pun with one bicyclist's thumb, a trick which he apparently never used again. This was, I suppose, to show there was more on their minds than exchanging directions.

Puerto de Andraitx—
Mallorca
1932
Oil on Canvas,
8½ x 10½ in
Hood Museum of Art
Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH, US

Puerto de Andraitx—
Mallorca
1932
Oil on Canvas,
16 x 20 in.
The Regis Collection
Minneapolis, MN, US

Mallorcan Fishermen
1932
Oil on Canvas,
22 x 20 in
Private Collection

Shore Leave
1933
Oil on Canvas, 33 x 36 in
Whitney Museum of American Art
New York, NY, US

YMCA Locker Room
1933
Oil on Canvas, 19½ X 39¼ inches
Collection of John P. Axelrod

YMCA Locker Room II
1934
Etching 16.3 x 31.9 in
Fine Art Museums
San Francisco, CA, US

Greenwich Village
Cafeteria
1934
Oil on Canvas, 25½ x 39½ in
US Public Works of Art
on loan to
Museum of Modern Art
New York, NY, US

Coney Island
1934
Oil on Canvas, 32¼ x 36¼ in
County Museum of Art
Los Angeles, CA, US

Coney Island (shown above) was shown at the Whitney Museum. The Coney Island realtors threaten a court suit.

The PWAP commissioned a series on Suburban Life for the Long Island Post Office. The murals were never produced because of Cadmus' sarcastic treatment of the subjects. Half-size easel pictures were painted and paid for by the PWAP. These pictures or sketches for the pictures are shown below.

Sometime in this period Cadmus met Lincoln Kirstine and probably through him George Platt Lynes, Monroe Wheeler, and Glenway Wescott.

Regatta while not formally a part of the series on suburban life was done at the same time and clearly takes the same point of view.

Commuter Rush
1935
Mixed Technique on paper,
5½ x 12 in
The Regis Collection
Minneapolis, MN, US

Golf
1936
Mixed Technique on wood,
30 x 60 in
National Smithsonian Museum of American Art
Washington, DC, US

The action in the Aspects of Suburban Life pictures are a sharp contrast to the generally static pictures that Cadmus usually painted. His first attempt at action in the Mallorcan Fishermen (shown in the first group of pictures) comes off stilted and artificial. Although there is an unmistakable sexual tension in the picture.

In the Suburban Life series Cadmus shows he can capture action successfully. But apparently he doesn't like it, and for the rest of his life his pictures tend toward a static, almost sculptural quality.

To show how Cadmus developed his pictures there is a trio of images below. He would start by doing one or more sketches in preparation for the painting. Then he would do the painting. Finally he would make an etching which would be printed in an edition of 75 to 100 prints. These would be independently sold.

In this period, Cadmus was using a mixed technique involving both oil paint and an egg based tempura paint. Eventually, about the start of WW II, he would leave oils behind entirely. However the egg based tempura paint while it produces beautiful images is slow and exacting to work with.

Horseplay sketch
1935
Pen and ink on paper,
10 x 4¾ in
Addison Gallery of American Art
Phillips Academy
Andover, MA, US

Horseplay
1935
Mixed technique
on pressed wood panel,
18 x 9 in
Private Collection

Horseplay II
1935
Etching,
23.3 x 12.3 inches
Fine Art Museums
San Francisco, CA, US

Cadmus has his first one-man show at the NY Midtown Galleries. 7,000 people visited the show.

Cadmus designs sets and costumes for Ballet “Filling Station” with music by Virgil Thompson, choreographed by Lew Christensen, and produced by Lincoln Kirstein for the traveling group Ballet Caravan.

Jared French marries Margaret Hoening. French move out of their apartment, but he and Cadmus continue to share a studio in Greenwich Village.

Pocahontas mural (not shown) for Parcel Post building in Richmond Va causes controversy because of a fox fur loincloth which was considered suggestive. Cadmus changed the loincloth from a fox head to a fox tail.

George Platt Lynes:
Paul Cadmus and Jared French
1938

Seeing the New Year In causes controversy at the Whitney because of its recognizable portraits.

George Platt Lynes was a young gay fashion photographer who lived with Glenway Wescott (writer/novelist) and Monroe Wheeler (book designer/publisher). Lynes made money with fashion photography and portraiture, and spent it faster than he made it. He also photographed his friends and any male model he was fascinated by. He was close friends with Cadmus, who he photographed many times. Sometimes in the nude or near nude. Lynes, one of the most creative photographers of the mid-century years, had a passion for photographing the male body. These pictures were not commercial in any way. Homophobia was strong in mid century US, and there was no market for this kind of art. George Tichenor worked for Lynes as a photographic assistant. George Platt Lynes introduces Cadmus to the Tichenor boys, George and Jonathan.

The influence of the Lynes on Cadmus should not be underestimated. Lynes was adamant in his admiration of the male body and carried that into his photographic art. The issues of how to present these images were discussed between them over and over, and Lynes was probably one of the inspirations for Cadmus experimenting with photography.

Cadmus, did the sketch of The Bathers and Reclining Youth (pictures show below) at this time, and I believe that it is not a coincidence that this was a period when the George Platt Lynes/Paul Cadmus friendship was at its strongest. The act of drawing the male as an art object was a major change for Cadmus; perhaps not a change of interest, but definitely a change in how he viewed his art.

The group of Lynes/Wheeler/Wescott were the social group around Cadmus. Cadmus did pictures of all of them, as well as Wescott's parents, and Lynes mother. These pictures are all in private hands and colored reproductions of them can't be found.

Fire Island off NY Long Island becomes a common summer vacation spot for Cadmus and many of his associates. It is famous for nude bathing and gay crusing.

Life magazine commissioned a painting to document the Labor movement in the US. The Herrin Massacre was never published for fear of offending organized labor.

Another scandal arose around Sailors and Floosies which was removed and then rehung at the Golden Gate International Exhibition in San Francisco.

Jared French introduces Cadmus to egg yolk tempera.

Cadmus begins to play with photography. Paul, Jared, and Margaret form the PaJaMa photo group to do artsy 35 mm photography.

Fire Island:
Jose Martinez and Paul Cadmus.
Photo by Margaret or Jared French      

Two Boys on a Beach II
1938
Etching,
13.1 x 18.2 in
Fine Art Museums
San Francisco, CA, US

Sailors and Floosies
1938
Mixed Technique on linen on wood,
25 x 39½ in
Whitney Museum of American Art
New York, NY, US

Hinky Dinky Parley Voo
1939
Oil and tempera on linen,
36 x 36 in
Collection: Linda Lichtenberg Kaplan

Male Torso ZZ
1939-40
Pen and ink on paper,
9¼ x 7 in
Collection: Rudd and Gerard Walter Canaday

Reclining Youth
c 1940
Pen and Ink on Paper,
18 x 20 in.
Institute of the Arts
Detroit, MI, US

PaJaMa photos from Fire Island. The in-group usually stayed in town of Saltaire, Fire Island.

US enters World War II. Cadmus is classified 4F (unsuitable for service) because of a prior hernia.

Picture of George Tichenor as The Aviator (above). George works as a "laboratory technician" for George Platt Lynes and models for Cadmus. George is refused for service in the US but goes to Britain and volunteers anyway.

Pictures of Lincoln Kirstine's ballet dancers.

Clinton NJ:
Jared French
Photo by Paul Cadmus

The show:American Realists and Magic Realists at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, curated by Lincoln Kirstein, who is Cadmus' brother-in-law

George Tichenor killed in the war at Bir Mascheim, he was an ambulance driver with the British Forces.

Correspondence begins with E M Forester. Cadmus has admired his writing for several years.

Cadmus uses egg yoke tempera to do a series of Fire Island paintings (see the three pictures after the ballet pictures below).

George Platt Lynes has an affair with Jonathan Tichenor and leaves Monroe Wheeler and Glenway Wescott.

George Tooker (age 24) meets Cadmus at the Art Students League.

Cadmus paints Jonathan Tichenor as The Survivor (the last picture in this gallery).

Arabesque
1941
Egg tempera on pressed wood panel,
7 x 6¾ in
Museum of Art and Science
Evansville, IL, US

Reflection
1944
Egg tempera on pressed wood panel,
16¾ x 19 in
Private Collection