Self Portrait with Arms Over Head, vignette on Paul Cadmus on left
Graphite drawing on thin wove paper, c. 1940's
Unsigned
Provenance: Paull Cadmus
Jon F. Anderson (1937-2018)
Condition:
Sheet size: 15 x 10 1/4 inches
Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, Margaret Hoening (1906–1998) was a painter and an etcher perhaps best known for her
photographs as part of the PaJaMa photography collective. After attending Smith College, she settled in New York, where
she pursued formal artistic training at the Art Students League. There, she met the artist couple Paul Cadmus and Jared
French. In 1937, she married French, fifteen years her junior, who had spent the previous decade with Cadmus. The trio
formed a tight bond, with Cadmus and French continuing their relationship.
Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, Margaret Hoening (1906–1998) was a painter and an etcher perhaps best known for her
photographs as part of the PaJaMa photography collective. After attending Smith College, she settled in New York, where
she pursued formal artistic training at the Art Students League. There, she met the artist couple Paul Cadmus and Jared
French. In 1937, she married French, fifteen years her junior, who had spent the previous decade with Cadmus. The trio
formed a tight bond, with Cadmus and French continuing their relationship. Together, the three formed PaJaMa (a mashup of their first names, Paul, Jared, and Margaret). Using Hoening’s Leica, they captured themselves, their artist friends,
and members of the gay community posing in artful tableaux on the beaches of Fire Island, Provincetown, and Nantucket
over the following eight years. Those captured by their camera include the photographer George Platt Lynes; Cadmus’s
sister and artist Fidelma; artist Bernard Perlin; and Monroe Wheeler, director of exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art,
among others. Though she produced few canvases, Hoening’s paintings demonstrate the influences of French and Cadmus,
particularly with her adoption of the time-intensive, traditional medium of egg tempera that they championed.
In the 1940s, the Frenches’ social circle continued to expand. They befriended the British author E.M. Forster, who stayed
with them on his first trip to New York in 1947, spending a few days with them in Provincetown, and visiting them again
in 1949. When Cadmus began a relationship with the young artist George Tooker in 1944, the trio became a foursome,
with Tooker regularly vacationing with the group and appearing in PaJaMa’s photographs...
Category
1940s American Modern Art by Medium: Pencil
