Born On This Day- December 17th... American Artist Paul Cadmus

Paul Cadmus is a long time favorite artist of the Husband & mine. We have a “coffee table” book of his work that has had a great deal of attention & love. We have thrilled to seeing many of his works in museums. I am hard pressed to choose a favorite.

Paul Cadmus' life spanned the 20th century, beginning with his birth on the upper west side of Manhattan in 1904, & ending, after taking his daily walk down his country road, & getting into bed with his partner of 35 year- singer Jon Anderson,  where he died peacefully in his sleep, with no apparent illness, on December 12, 1999, five days before his 95th birthday & 11 days after 300 friends had gathered to celebrate. In between, his combination of meticulousness, classicism, & exuberance made him one of America's greatest artists--a "magic realist" in more ways than one. In the 1920s, he traveled through Europe with his lover- painter Jared Smith. When they returned to Manhattan, they formed an informal group of gay artists including photographer George Platt Lynnes, for whom Camus was a frequent model, & Lincoln Kirstein, who founded New York City Ballet.

He became an unlikely cause celebre in 1934, when the U.S. Navy went berserk over The Fleet's In! a truly glorious depiction of uniformed sailors that included prostitutes & a homosexual pickup, & led Secretary of the Navy-Henry Latrobe Roosevelt to remove it from the WPA showing. Because of that controversy, his first show, at Corcoran Galleries in Manhattan, attracted more than 7,000 visitors. ("I owe that admiral a very large sum," Cadmus remarked 6 decades).

With a beautiful posture, a life long lovely full head of hair & piercing blue eyes, Camus was as luminous as his paintings.  From everything I have read about Camus, he sincerely cared about other people, which may sound like a small thing but is actually quite rare among artists of his caliber. "He had a remarkable memory," says openly gay Josef Asteinza, an architect who lived down the road from Cadmus in Connecticut. "We brought scores of people there & he always enjoyed meeting them & he never forgot a name. Edith Sitwell said, `A gentleman is never unintentionally rude,' but Paul said, `I don't think a gentleman should ever be rude under any circumstances.” I can’t help but wonder how amazing it would have been to have been a member of his circle.