PaJaMa and Environs - I

PaJaMa
(Paul Cadmus, Jared French, Margaret French)
Margaret French, Jared French - Beach
ca. 1937
gelatin silver prints mounted together
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

 

PaJaMa
(Paul Cadmus, Jared French, Margaret French)
Margaret French
1938
gelatin silver prints mounted together
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

PaJaMa
(Paul Cadmus, Jared French, Margaret French)
 Margaret French, Hoboken NJ
ca. 1940
gelatin silver print
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

PaJaMa
(Paul Cadmus, Jared French, Margaret French)
Margaret French, Paul Cadmus - Fire Island
ca. 1941
gelatin silver print
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

PaJaMa
(Paul Cadmus, Jared French, Margaret French)
Jared French, Margaret French - Nantucket
1946
gelatin silver print
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

PaJaMa
(Paul Cadmus, Jared French, Margaret French)
Margaret French, George Tooker, Jared French - Nantucket
1946
gelatin silver print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Jared French
Summer's Ending
1939
oil and tempera on canvas
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Jared French
State Park
1946
tempera on panel
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Jared French
Learning
1946
tempera on panel
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Jared French
Study for Music
1943
drawing
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

PaJaMa
(Paul Cadmus, Jared French, Margaret French)
Jared French painting Mural
1938
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

PaJaMa
(Paul Cadmus, Jared French, Margaret French)
Jared French
1938
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

PaJaMa
(Paul Cadmus, Jared French, Margaret French)
Jared French
ca. 1938
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Jared French
Study for Division no. 1
ca. 1950
drawing (graphite and gouache on paper)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Jared French
Nude and Dress Suit
1950
tempera and ink on board
Smithsonian American Art Museum,
Washington DC

Jared French
The Rope
1954
tempera on paper mounted on linen, mounted on panel
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Jared French
Seats by the Sea
1959
tempera on board
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Civilization

It came to us very late:

perception of beauty, desire for knowledge.

And in the great minds, the two often configured as one.

To perceive, to speak, even on subjects inherently cruel –

to speak boldly even when the facts were, in themselves, painful or dire –

seemed to introduce among us some new action,

having to do with human obsession, human passion.

And yet something, in this action, was being conceded.

And this offended what remained in us of the animal:

it was enslavement speaking, assigning

power to forces outside ourselves.

Therefore the ones who spoke were exiled and silenced,

scorned in the streets.

But the facts persisted. They were among us,

isolated and without pattern; they were among us, 

shaping us –

Darkness. Here and there a few fires in doorways,

wind whipping around the corners of buildings –

Where were the silenced, who conceived these images?

In the dim light, finally summoned, resurrected.

As the scorned were praised, who had brought

these truths to our attention, who had felt their presence,

who had perceived them clearly in their blackness and horror

and had arranged them to communicate

some vision of their substance, their magnitude –

In which the facts themselves were suddenly

serene, glorious. They were among us,

not singly, as in chaos, but woven

into relationships or set in order, as though life on earth

could, in this one form, be apprehended deeply

though it could never be mastered.

– Louise Glück (2001)