BENT.

BENT.

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 48. PAJAMA (PAUL CADMUS, JARED FRENCH AND MARGARET FRENCH) | SELECTED IMAGES.

PAJAMA (PAUL CADMUS, JARED FRENCH AND MARGARET FRENCH) | SELECTED IMAGES

Auction Closed

June 27, 03:32 PM GMT

Estimate

15,000 - 25,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

PAJAMA (PAUL CADMUS, JARED FRENCH AND MARGARET FRENCH)

SELECTED IMAGES


a group of 10 photographs including portraits of Paul Cadmus, Jared French, Margaret French, Fidelma Cadmus, George Tooker, José Martinez and others, many of them titled by Paul Cadmus in pencil and four with 'Collection of Paul Cadmus' and 'Collection of Jon Anderson' stamps on the reverse

10 gelatin silver prints

various sizes to 6⅝ x 4½ in.; 16.8 x 11.4 cm

1939-47.


Gift of Paul Cadmus to Jon Anderson

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Collaboration: The Photographs of Paul Cadmus, Margaret French and Jared French, Santa Fe 1992, unpaginated (two images from this lot are illustrated in this volume)

The painter Paul Cadmus (1904 - 1999) and married artists Jared (1902 - 1989) and Margaret French (1906 - 1998) comprise the photographic collaborative known by their acronym, PaJaMa. Beginning in 1937, and over the course of nearly two decades, the trio collectively staged photographs set against the backdrops of Fire Island, Provincetown, and Nantucket, among other locations. Their psychologically and sexually charged images were inspired in part by Carl Jung's concept of the collective unconscious and often served as studies for the artists' subsequent paintings and works on paper, four of which are also on offer in this sale (see lots 18, 45, 46, and 49). The statuesque quality of the figures and the stillness of each scenario are key characteristics of PaJaMa’s photographs as well as their individual works, clear evidence of the symbiotic relationship between these various mediums.


As Cadmus years later recounted, 'After we'd been working most of the day, we'd go out late afternoons and take photographs when the light was best. They were just playthings. We would hand out these little photographs when we went to dinner parties, like playing cards' (Jerry Rosco, Glenway Wescott Personally: A Biography, p. 78). The group of 10 prints offered here comes originally from the collection of Jon Anderson, Paul Cadmus' lover for his last 30 years. Extant photographs by PaJaMa are rare as they were printed and gifted sparingly.