PaJaMa and Environs - IV

Jared French
Ted Starkowski
ca. 1954
drawing
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Jared French
Study of Model
ca. 1930-40
drawing
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

PaJaMa
(Paul Cadmus, Jared French, Margaret French)
Chuck Howard and Ted Starkowski
1953
gelatin silver print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

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

PaJaMa
(Paul Cadmus, Jared French, Margaret French)
George Platt Lynes and Jared French - Fire Island
ca. 1940
gelatin silver print
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

PaJaMa
(Paul Cadmus, Jared French, Margaret French)
George Platt Lynes
1941
gelatin silver print
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

PaJaMa
(Paul Cadmus, Jared French, Margaret French)
Glenway Wescott - Fire Island
ca. 1940
gelatin silver print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

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

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

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

George Platt Lynes
Tex Smutney and Buddy Stanley
1941
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

George Platt Lynes
Blanchard Kennedy
1936
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

PaJaMa
(Paul Cadmus, Jared French, Margaret French)
Aaron Copland rehearsing Billy the Kid
1938
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

George Platt Lynes
The Firebird
(Maria Tallchief and Francisco Moncion)
ca. 1949
gelatin silver print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

George Platt Lynes
Balanchine's Bourée Fantastique
(Tanaquil Le Clercq and Jerome Robbins)
1949
gelatin silver print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

George Platt Lynes
Tanaquil Le Clercq
ca. 1950
gelatin silver print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

George Platt Lynes
Tanaquil Le Clercq in Balanchine's Metamorphoses
ca. 1950-51
gelatin silver print
Princeton University Art Museum

Arboretum

We had the problem of age, the problem of wishing to linger. 

Not needing, anymore, even to make a contribution.

Merely wishing to linger: to be, to be here.

And to stare at things, but with no real avidity. 

To browse, to purchase nothing.

But there were many of us; we took up time. We crowded out

our own children, and the children of friends. We did great damage,

meaning no harm.

We continued to plan; to fix things as they broke.

To repair, to improve. We traveled, we put in gardens.

And we continued brazenly to plant trees and perennials. 

We asked so little of the world. We understood

the offense of advice, of holding forth. We checked ourselves:

we were correct, we were silent.

But we could not cure ourselves of desire, not completely.

Our hands, folded, reeked of it.

How did we do so much damage, merely sitting and watching,

strolling, on fine days, the grounds of the park, the arboretum,

or sitting on benches in front of the public library,

feeding pigeons out of a paper bag?

We were correct, and yet desire pursued us.

Like a great force, a god. And the young

were offended, their hearts 

turned cold in reaction. We asked

so little of the world; small things seemed to us

immense wealth. Merely to smell once more the early roses

in the arboretum: we asked

so little, and we claimed nothing. And the young

withered nevertheless.

Or they became like the stones in the arboretum: as though

our continued existence, our asking so little for so many years, meant

we asked everything.

– Louise Glück (2001)