Queer Ancestor Spotlight: Paul Cadmus

Paul Cadmus was born in Manhattan, NY on December 17, 1904. He would would go on to become a widely known American artist known for his gritty egg tempera paintings. He was inspired by social interactions he observed in his urban life. He included elements of eroticism and social commentary in a style often referred to as “magical realism,” and his career was launched when the Navy attempted to censor one of his paintings due to its “gay gaze.”

Photo of Paul Cadmus taken by Carl Van Vechten, 1937

Paul Cadmus was born into a family of artists. His father was a commercial artist and his mother illustrated children’s books. His sister, Fidelma Cadmus, would go on to marry a wealthy arts patron Lincoln Kerstein, the co-founder of the New York City Ballet. At 15 he began attending the National Academy of Design. Five years later he became a member of The Brooklyn Society of Etchers and showed three etchings at their 10th Annual Exhibition. In 1928 he enrolled at the Art Students League of New York while following in his father’s footsteps as a commercial painter.

After working only a few years as a commercial painter, Cadmus quit his job to travel Europe with fellow artist Jared French from 1931 to 1933. French, although married, became Cadmus’ lover. From 1937 to 1945 Cadmus, French, and French’s wife Margaret would summer together on Fire Island. They formed a photographic collective they named PaJaMa (“Paul, Jared, and Margaret.”) This relationship grew strained as Cadmus took a new lover in the late 1940’s. In 1965, Cadmus met Jon Farquhar Anderson, a former cabaret star. They would remain together for 35 years until Cadmus’ death on December 12, 1999 in Weston, CT.

Paul Cadmus is probably best known for what is considered one of the United States’ most notorious cases of queer art censorship. As part of the New Deal the government created the first federally funded government relief program for artists. The mandate to artists who took part in this Public Works of Art Program (PWAP) was to create work inspired by the “American Scene.” This ambiguous directive allowed artists to provide very diverse and personal reflections on American society as they saw it. In Cadmus’ case, his work reflected his perspective as a gay man and, intentionally or not, infused his art with homoerotic motifs.

As part of the arts program, Cadmus painted two pieces: The Fleet’s In! (above) and Greenwich Village Cafeteria. Shortly before the 1934 debut of The Fleet’s In! at the Corcoran Art Museum in Washington, DC a retired Navy Admiral, Hugh Rodman, blasted the piece in many newspapers. He referred to it as “a most disgraceful, sordid, disreputable, drunken brawl” and took offense with the sailors “consorting with a party of streetwalkers and denizens of the red-light district.” While not explicitly named, it’s likely the Admiral also took offense at a number of subtle references to queer culture and sexual fluidity in the painting. The blonde gentleman on the left is portrayed in much the way “fairies” of the day were stereotyped, and his offering a cigarette to a sailor could be construed as a proposition. The person in the red dress to the right of the painting has a distinctly long sternum and Adam’s apple, likely meant to portray the cross-dressers Cadmus knew frequented New York City docks.

Rodman instructed Assistant Secretary of the Navy Henry L. Roosevelt to remove the painting from the exhibition before the public could see it. Roosevelt removed the painting and kept it in his home until his death in 1936. The painting then moved to the Alibi Club, an elite men-only club in DC, where it remained for over forty years. A graduate student managed to track the painting down in 1980 and alerted the General Services Administration. After sorting through questions of legal ownership the painting was returned to the Navy Art Collection.

Later in his life Cadmus stated, “I owe the beginning of my career really to the Admiral that tried to suppress it.” He is very likely correct. Absent the public scandal created by censoring his painting it likely would have only been commented on by art critics and ignored by the public at large. In response to his painting being removed from the exhibition Cadmus turned to his skills in etching remarking “They can tear up the canvas, but they will have a sweet time eating copper.” He used a publicity photo of the painting to create a limited run of 50 prints which he sold for nine dollars. This move not only allowed him to make use of the surrounding controversy, it also appealed to the growing American art collectors’ market that was the result of the New Deal art programs laying the foundation for relatively inexpensive limited-edition prints that became accessible to a Depression-era audience.

Learn more about Paul Cadmus here:

Paul Cadmus and the Censorship of Queer Art - The Metropolitan Museum

Paul Cadmus, Painting Gay Male Identity Into American Art - Muddy Colors

Paul Cadmus’ Queer Vision of America - Philadelphia Museum of Art

Censorship, Scandal, and Queer Sexuality Make American Art History in Paul Cadmus’ The Fleet’s In - Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

Collection of PaJaMa Photographs - Smithsonian American Art Museum