- Hardcover: 160 pages
- Publisher: Universe (Nov 9 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0789305895
- ISBN-13: 978-0789305893
- Product Dimensions: 27.4 x 2.5 x 28.7 cm
- Shipping Weight: 1.6 Kg
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #481,064 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Coming off the success of Fairfield Porter: A Life in Art, a wonderfully judicious biography of the iconoclastic mid-20th century figurative painter, Spring, a critic and journalist, returns to introduce six decades of determined realist Cadmus’s Apollonian drawings, comprising a recent exhibition at New York’s DC Moore gallery. Cadmus, who died in 1999 at 94, studied academic drawing beginning at age 15, and Spring convincingly links him to artists ranging from Carracci and Ingres to Alta-Tadema, Eakins and Cadmus’s contemporary and lover Jared French. In a biographical narrative drawing on Cadmus’s letters, artist’s statements and unpublished interviews, Spring does an excellent job in delineating the context Cadmus created for himself, as an artist not so much opposed to the abstraction dominant for most of his career as indifferent to it. The 70 drawings here—done in chalk, crayon, pencil and watercolor, pencil and charcoal, and egg tempera, and often on hand-toned paper—speak for themselves: their lines are classically confident and fluid in a way that acknowledges but does not seek to stress the figures’ homoerotic allure, and their depiction of well-sculpted men in a variety of poses reveals a variety of affects, from contemplative to fearful to exultant. Many of the post-1962 drawings feature Cadmus’s life partner Jon Anderson, whose gaze at the viewer in a 1967 drawing is even and open. Spring’s care and feeling in presenting the drawings for the first time as a coherent body of work (apart from Cadmus’s paintings) will make this book attractive to anyone with an interest in 20th century art and culture. 120 illustrations, 70 in full color.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Abstraction gets the most ink whenever modern art is the subject, but surely another vital modernist development was the revival of the male nude. Paul Cadmus (1904-99), saw men's bodies erotically, for he was an uncloseted, though very private, homosexual. Still, his male nudes, mostly in his drawings, aren't pornographic. In them eroticism appears as affection and delight--attitudes informed by Cadmus' lifelong admiration for the sculptural nudes of Renaissance art, whose sinuous postures and musculature he emulated. Spring's marvelously fluent, biographically organized discussion of Cadmus' nude drawings argues that they are his best work. Given the satire and didacticism of Cadmus' better-known, painstakingly executed, brilliantly colorful egg-tempera paintings, which one associate characterized as "statements," and also the technical brio yet loving delicacy of texture of the drawings, Spring carries the day on this point. Surely Cadmus' highly traditional nudes are also modern because of their eroticism and, perhaps, timelessness, because of their tenderness and wonder. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lambda Literary Award Finalist!,
By Pam Sommers (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Paul Cadmus: The Male Nude (Hardcover)
Paul Cadmus: The Male Nude was just named a Lambda Literary Award Finalist in the Visual Arts Category. Congratulations to author Justin Spring! The winners will be announced on May 29th, 2003 in Los Angeles.
5.0 out of 5 stars
An artist in step with a better time,
By
This review is from: Paul Cadmus: The Male Nude (Hardcover)
This book is a treasure for any Cadmus fan. While Lincoln Kirstein's 1992 monograph includes reproductions of all of Cadmus's major paintings, it only has a dozen or so of his figurative drawings. Justin Spring's book more than makes up for this lack (it has 67 color plates). The fact that he does so by taking on the seemingly narrow focus of male nudes is truly appropriate. While the paintings are often highly active, heavily detailed social satires with not-so-subtle homoerotic elements, the drawings are calmer, context-free, more admiring meditations on the male form. They are clearly the work of an attentive observer and a disciplined draughtsman. When the art world was going ga-ga over abstract expressionism and slap-dash gestural drawing, Cadmus was painstakingly working in virtual isolation. And though a number of sketches are included in this volume, it is the finished drawing that most interested Cadmus. Reginald Marsh, Jared French, Pierro dela Francesca, Michaelangelo, Signorelli, and Ingres were his dominent influences. Along with ballet photographer George Platt Lynes. And from writer E.M. Forster he acquired a philosophic outlook that would guide him both as an artist and as a man: "tolerance, good temper and sympathy--they are what matter...if the human race is not to collapse."Spring's five essays (Introduction, Beginnings, Development, Maturity, Conclusion) provide everything you need to know to fully appreciate the plates. He addresses Cadmus's homosexuality directly and without sensation and discusses Cadmus's well-reasoned reluctance to be associated with more blatantly sexual gay art (including his refusal to have one of his works reproduced in a biography of Tom of Finland, an admirer of Cadmus). Spring also identifies the models for many of the drawings; this is significant because Cadmus considered his drawings to be a collaboration between himself and his models. Cadmus's life partner Jon Anderson was his frequent subject from the late 60s until the artist's death, and it is fascinating to see how Anderson's body changed over time; the model clearly never lost his sense of comfort and ease modeling nude. Not revisionist history, just a long overdue update on a neglected but significant American artist of the 20th century. Universe Publishing (a division of Rizzoli International Publications) is to be commended on the design and quality of this book.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (7 customer reviews) 18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An artist in step with a better time,
By Charles S. Houser - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Paul Cadmus: The Male Nude (Hardcover)
This book is a treasure for any Cadmus fan. While Lincoln Kirstein's 1992 monograph includes reproductions of all of Cadmus's major paintings, it only has a dozen or so of his figurative drawings. Justin Spring's book more than makes up for this lack (it has 67 color plates). The fact that he does so by taking on the seemingly narrow focus of male nudes is truly appropriate. While the paintings are often highly active, heavily detailed social satires with not-so-subtle homoerotic elements, the drawings are calmer, context-free, more admiring meditations on the male form. They are clearly the work of an attentive observer and a disciplined draughtsman. When the art world was going ga-ga over abstract expressionism and slap-dash gestural drawing, Cadmus was painstakingly working in virtual isolation. And though a number of sketches are included in this volume, it is the finished drawing that most interested Cadmus. Reginald Marsh, Jared French, Pierro dela Francesca, Michaelangelo, Signorelli, and Ingres were his dominent influences. Along with ballet photographer George Platt Lynes. And from writer E.M. Forster he acquired a philosophic outlook that would guide him both as an artist and as a man: "tolerance, good temper and sympathy--they are what matter...if the human race is not to collapse."Spring's five essays (Introduction, Beginnings, Development, Maturity, Conclusion) provide everything you need to know to fully appreciate the plates. He addresses Cadmus's homosexuality directly and without sensation and discusses Cadmus's well-reasoned reluctance to be associated with more blatantly sexual gay art (including his refusal to have one of his works reproduced in a biography of Tom of Finland, an admirer of Cadmus). Spring also identifies the models for many of the drawings; this is significant because Cadmus considered his drawings to be a collaboration between himself and his models. Cadmus's life partner Jon Anderson was his frequent subject from the late 60s until the artist's death, and it is fascinating to see how Anderson's body changed over time; the model clearly never lost his sense of comfort and ease modeling nude. Not revisionist history, just a long overdue update on a neglected but significant American artist of the 20th century. Universe Publishing (a division of Rizzoli International Publications) is to be commended on the design and quality of this book. 8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful and sensual,
By Rebecca Huston "telynor" - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Paul Cadmus: The Male Nude (Hardcover)
I only discovered about Paul Cadmus a little bit ago, but was simply blown away by his style and art. This book is a wonderful introduction to the life and art of one of the twentieth century's quietest artists who remained active to the very end of his long life, and managed to cross both gender and sexual barriers to breathe new life into what most of us would regard as a dry subject -- namely, art. Here Cadmus' love for, and vigor, show through in more than seventy drawings, many of them of his life partner and lover, Jon Anderson. Techinically brilliant, they are also sensitive without being overtly erotic -- enough so that I wouldn't mind hanging any of the artist's prints in my own home. Both lovers of art and artists will like this one, the reproductions are crisp enough that Cadmus' style of crosshatching and use of charcoal and chalk will both inspire and bring enjoyment. Recommended.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Incredible collection of work,
By T. Fox "tfox" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Paul Cadmus: The Male Nude (Hardcover)
Excellent resource for figure drawing, beautiful images, full page in most cases, wonderful information on the artist Cadmus, would recommend to anyone interested in drawing, figure drawing, or art in general!
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