Oil on panel, circa 1934-35. 375x435 mm; 14 3/4x17 1/8 inches.
Exhibited D.C. Moore Gallery, New York, with the original label on the frame back.
Ex-collection the artist; Margaret French, gift from the artist; to Paul Cadmus, bequeathed from the above; the artist's (Cadmus) estate; Jon F. Anderson and Philis Raskind-Anderson, Connecticut.
Born in Ossining, New York, French (1905-1988) moved to New York City after completing his Bachelor of Arts degree at Amherst College in 1925. Shortly after, he met and befriended Paul Cadmus (1904-1999) while studying at the Art Students League; the two men quickly became lovers and artistic muses for one another. French was a strong, early influence on Cadmus, convincing him to abandon commercial art to pursue fine art.
In 1937, French married fellow artist Margaret Hoening, and for the next decade Cadmus and the Frenches summered on Fire Island, forming the artistic collective PaJaMa. They staged various black and white photographs of themselves with their circle of friends, including other artists, writers and dancers, most of whom were young, gay and creative.
In addition to his work with PaJaMa, French was also a painter, daughtsman, printmaker, sculptor and muralist. His oeuvre is commonly associated with a style known as magic realism. He often utilized enigmatic compositions of the male figure that evoke feelings of isolation and anxiety. The current lot is an extraordinary example of one of his extremely scarce early career paintings, which are eerie, colorful tableauxs of still figures derived from ancient Greek statues.
