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Paul Cadmus“Mobile (The Inventor), 1953” Paul Cadmus Magical Realism Serigraph Signed1953
1953
$3,500
£2,670.60
€3,038
CA$4,915.13
A$5,379.02
CHF 2,842.34
MX$64,202.19
NOK 36,271.82
SEK 33,173.53
DKK 22,692.30
About the Item
“Mobile (The Inventor), 1953” by Paul Cadmus (American, 1904-1999).
A figure painter known from the 1930s on for his baldly satirical commentaries on human appetites and desires, Cadmus was throughout a master draftsman. Although he undertook still-life subjects only rarely and, as he once stated, as “practice works like scales,” he achieved parity between figure and still life in “Mobile”. Here, a beautifully proportioned young man holds a mobile composed of beach detritus (wood, feathers, shells, and bones) in a delicate state of balance - a reference to the weightlessness of spent forms, and a meditation on mortality.
This work is a serigraph (screenprint) on brown paper and is hand signed and numbered (36/75) in the lower left. It is housed in its beautiful, original mid-century frame behind glass. It retains a label from Midtown Galleries in NYC on the reverse.
Other examples from this same edition of 75 can be found in important museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Morgan Library, and Brooklyn Museum.
Size:
18.5 inches tall by 21 inches wide (sheet by sight)
25.75 inches tall by 28 inches wide by 1 inch deep (frame)
Provenance:
Midtown Galleries, NY;
Private collection, NY
About the artist:
Paul Cadmus is best known for his erotic depictions of nude male figures, charged with satire, social criticism, and a strongly idealized sexuality. Cadmus first gained recognition for his 1934 painting “The Fleet's In”, where the controversy of a group of sailors he pictured carousing among prostitutes and homosexuals inspired a public outcry. His work is informed by themes of Surrealism, compositions of the Renaissance, the Neoclassical works of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and the sharp, figurative verisimilitude of Magical Realism; however, Cadmus's greatest influence was from fellow painter Jared French, with whom he studied and traveled extensively. French instilled within Cadmus the traditions of the Old Masters (such as an egg tempera technique that became an integral part of his process) and, furthermore, a drive to transcend these methods and define his own artistic legacy.
Condition: Excellent overall condition. Not examined out of original frame, which has typical wear associated with age and handling. It is ready to be displayed and enjoyed!
- Creator:Paul Cadmus (1904-1999, American)
- Creation Year:1953
- Dimensions:Height: 25.75 in (65.41 cm)Width: 28 in (71.12 cm)Depth: 1 in (2.54 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement Style:
- Period:
- Condition:Excellent overall condition. Not examined out of original frame, which has typical wear associated with age and handling. It is ready to be displayed and enjoyed!
- Gallery Location:Yardley, PA
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU2911217360252
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