After the Second World War |
| To get a larger version, click on the thumbnail version of a picture. |
| Year | Age | Events |
| 1946 | 41 | Cadmus takes up with the young artist George Tooker. He paints George Platt Lynes(39) as the Inventor. The picture Fantasy on a Theme by Dr. S is an artistic commentary on Dr, Sheldon's theory of somatyping: that body type determines the personality. With Dr. S's system the trio of belly (sedentary), muscle (active), brain (intellectual) got measured on a scale of 1 to 7. Where 7:7:7 was the perfect person. From 1945 to 1949 Cadmus works on the Seven Deadly Sins series. Shown in the second set of pictures below. These are really Venal not Deadly Sins. These sins send you to purgatory, according to Catholic doctrine, not directly to hell. |
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Fantasy on a Theme by Dr. S. |
Inventor |
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To E. M Forester |
What I Believe |
The Seven Deadly Sins1945 — 1949 Egg tempera on pressed wood panel |
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Lust |
Pride |
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Envy |
Sloth |
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Gluttony |
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| 1947 | 42 | E.M. Forester visits the US and stays with Cadmus. Cadmus does several pictures based on Forester's ideas. (See What I Believe, To E.M. Forester, Foresters' portrait and The Tower. All shown below) They remain friends until Forester's death. |
| 1949 | 44 | Cadmus does a European tour with George Tooker. Stays with E.M. Forester in Cambridge Does Forester portrait. |
| 1950 | 45 | George Tooker and Cadmus drift apart. Tooker soon finds a permanent partner: painter Bill Christopher (1924-'74). George Platt Lynes moves to Hollywood, California to try his hand at movie studio star photography. This leaves Cadmus pretty much alone.
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E. M. Forester |
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Architect |
The Bath |
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The Nap |
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| 1951 | 46 | Jared and Margaret French are living in Rome. Cadmus moves to Europe, staying primarily in France and Italy. Cadmus art begins to get a more overt homosexual theme. The Bath (above) only hints at it. but Manikins is explicitly political. The Nap's subject matter, the male body, and Cadmus growing interest in drawing the male figure begins to predominate his ar t. |
| 1952 | 47 | Paints Finistère. Returning to the theme of bicyclists and sex. Finistère is a prominence in Northwestern France. Translated from Latin the name means land's end. It has long been famous as a place that is very remote. Chaucer even uses it that sense in the Canterbury Tales. |
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Finistère |
| 1954 | 49 | Cadmus returns to US to live in NY. George Platt Lynes dies of lung cancer. Bringing this one time close friendship to a disastrous close. Cadmus finds there is a market for male drawings and that painting pictures and doing etchings can be dispensed with and one can live off the drawings. This change occurs slowing throughout the remainder of the fifties. |
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Male Model (Michael Kan) MK
3 |
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Male Nude MF5 |
Ted Leaning on a Ladder TS12 |
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Bar Italia |
| 1955 | 50 | Drawing on his post-war European travel experiences Cadmus paints the first of the very large masterpieces Bar Italia: 4 ft wide and 3 ft tall. At the same time he begins painting still life drawings. This holds his interest for several years but then settles on concentrating on the male nude. |
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Night in Bologna (Night Scene) |
| 1958 | 53 | Paints Night in Bologna. His second large sized masterpiece. This picture shows a desire triangle with no one getting what they want. This probably reflects some of the loneliness Cadmus was having at the time. |
| 1960 | 55 | Cadmus does another large painting: The Tower. He is clearly thinking of his friend E.M. Forester. |
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Curlicues |
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Apple Peeler
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Sunday Sun |
More Paul Cadmus pictures and bio in the pre-war period. |
| 2004-09-27 |