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News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyDecember 17th, 2011
Paul Cadmus, photo by George Platt Lynes
TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Paul Cadmus: 1904. When he died in 1999 at the ripe old age of 94, his New York Times obituary read:
Paul Cadmus, an American artist noted for a virtuosic figurative style that he applied to subjects ranging from biting social satire to moralizing allegories to sensual, sometimes sentimental male nudes, died on Sunday at his home in Weston, Conn. He was 94.
Mr. Cadmus found his inspiration in the art of Italian Renaissance painters like Mantegna and Luca Signorelli. His career was remarkable for its unruffled stylistic consistency over 70 years, from his days as a precocious student in New York in the 1920’s through his incendiary stint in the 30’s with the federal Public Works of Art Project, later folded into the Works Progress Administration, and up to the present. Although he stopped painting a few years ago, he continued to sketch.
"The Fleet's In!" 1934 (Click to enlarge)
It took the Times’s Holland Cotter four paragraphs before he could work his readers up to Cadmus’s favorite subject matter: the frank depiction of gay men as free and happy people. Public outcry over his portrayal of sailors on shore leave in New York picking up local “trade” in his 1934 painting The Fleet’s In!, a painting that was paid for by the WPA, resulted in what became known as “the Battle of the Corcoran” when the Navy seized the painting from the gallery. Secretary of the Navy Claude Swanson condemned it as “a most disgraceful, sordid, disreputable, drunken brawl.” The painting remained out of public view until 1981, but the outcry cemented Cadmus’s career as a satirist. For the rest of his life, he maintained that he was grateful for the publicity.
What I Believe, 1947 (Click to enlarge)
His cartoonish style of painting became known as “magical realism,” and his themes nearly always touched on sexuality in some form, with homosexual themes specifically nearly always present as either a subtext (glances and signals of cruising in otherwise ordinary scenes) or as an overt subject. His 1947 painting What I Believe, inspired by an E.M. Forster essay by the same name, represents something of a visual manifesto. It depicts nude and contented gay couples in the center and left side of the painting in bright sunlight while reading, drawing, playing music, and conversing. That paradisal scene contrasted with the almost hellish right third of the painting, where heterosexual couples reclined in bare dirt and misery — not unlike traditional renderings of the final judgment. The painting, he said, celebrated “the sensitive, the considerate, and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet. They represent the true human condition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos.”
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Ray Harwick
December 17th, 2011
Looks like Cadmus **is** the near subject of the gay couple sitting in the center of “What I Believe”. There he is with his sketch pad using the heterosexual side as his models. While I was mildly amused by this style way back when, it adorns so many gay bars any more that it has become a cliche: the casual sexuality and the hypermasculine imagery not unlike Tom of Finland produced; although light years more thoughtful. And if I see one more miniature of Michangelo’s David in the middle of some queen’s homemade back yard fish pond, or one wearing leather I think I’ll go ahead and inflict my gag reflex on myself.
gar
December 17th, 2011
Wikipedia states that the photo is by Carl Van Vechten, not George Platt Lynes. The Wiki can get things wrong, but the style of the photo does look like a Van Vechten.
Victor
December 17th, 2011
Mr. Cadmus has been nominated for The Legacy Project but we are, regrettably, months behind on uploading new nominees. I am so grateful BTB has remembered this iconic artist. Thank you!
Richard Rush
December 17th, 2011
Thanks for posting this. In What I Believe I’m particularly intrigued by the distant background (view the enlarged version). What exactly are those two hands leading the eye to so strongly? And related to that, what’s that sky all about?
Soren456
December 18th, 2011
My uncle, who knows that I am gay, gave me a lovely ink and brush work on paper, by Cadmus 1933, when I graduated college this spring. It is “JF Mallorca” (JF being Jared French, Cadmus’ lover at the time). It is just a beautiful thing, unlike Cadmus’ usual style, and I treasure it.
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