The Inventor

Artist Paul Cadmus (American, 1904 - 1999)

Date1946

MediumEgg tempera on panel

DimensionsOverall: 8 3/4 x 10 15/16 in. (22.2 x 27.8 cm)
Frame: 16 1/8 x 17 3/8 x 3 in. (41 x 44.1 x 7.6 cm)

Credit LineBequest of James R. and Barbara R. Palmer

Object number2019.43

Collections

ClassificationsPainting

Object NamePainting

DepartmentPermanent Collection

CultureNorth American

NationalityAmerican

On View

On view

Century

Twentieth

More Information

Signedtop left: CADMUS

Inscribedverso right frame rail: L982 CADMUS

Exhibition HistoryInaugural installation: 20th Century American Galleries (112), Palmer Museum of Art, June 1, 2024–present Connecticut Modern: Art, Design, and the Avant-Garde, 1930–1960, Bruce Museum, Greenwich, CT, September 23, 2023–January 7, 2024 An American Place: Selections from the James and Barbara Palmer Collection, Palmer Museum of Art, January 29–May 1, 2022 George Tooker: A Retrospective, National Academy Museum, New York, October 2, 2008–January 4, 2009; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, January 30–April 5, 2009; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH, May 1–September 6, 2009 [shown in Philadelphia only, addendum to exhibition] An Intimate Eye: Selections from the Collection of James and Barbara Palmer, Palmer Museum of Art, January 18–May 15, 2005 Paul Cadmus: Still Lifes, Portraits, Tableaux, Midtown Payson Galleries, New York, November 11–December 30, 1994 Cadmus, French, and Tooker: The Early Years, Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris, New York, March 1–May 5, 1990 Paul Cadmus: Yesterday and Today, Miami University Art Museum, Oxford, OH, September 12–October 25, 1981 Edwin A. Ulrgh Museum of Art, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS, November 11–December 20, 1981; Gibbes Art Gallery, Charleston, SC, January 16–February 28, 1982; William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, March 20–May 2, 1982; Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY, May 20–July 11, 1982 [shown in Yonkers only] National Institute of Arts and Letters, New York, 1951 Paul Cadmus: Paintings, 1938–1949, Midtown Galleries, New York, November 22–December 17, 1949 Painting in the United States, 1947, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA, October 9–December 7, 1947ProvenanceMidtown Galleries, New York Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln Kirstein, New York, by 1947 Paul Cadmus, gifted by Kirstein, after 1992 Collection of James and Barbara Palmer, acquired in 1995 from Midtown Payson Galleries, New York Palmer Museum of Art, bequest of James R. and Barbara R. Palmer, 2019Published ReferencesRichard Meyer, "A Little Queer: PaJaMa in the 1930s and '40s," in Fire Island Art: 100 Years, ed. John Dempsey (New York: Monacelli Press, 2026), 39 (ill., color). Kenneth E. Silver, Jed Perl, and Barry Bergdoll, Connecticut Modern: Art, Design, and the Avant-Garde, 1930–1960 (Greenwich, CT: The Bruce Museum, 2023), 70 (ill., color). Joyce Henri Robinson, "University Park, Pennsylvania—An American Place: Selections from the James & Barbara Palmer Collection," American Art Review 33, no. 4 (2021): 117, 119 (ill., color). Joyce Henri Robinson, ed., A Gift from the Heart: American Art from the Collection of James and Barbara Palmer (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013), title page (ill., color), 88 (fig. 7), 89, 98n21, 138, 176 (ill., color), 177. Jonathan Weinberg, “Tooker and Company: Identity and Community in the Early Work,” in Robert Cozzolino, Marshall N. Price, and M. Melissa Wolfe et al., George Tooker (New York: Merrell, 2008), 52, 53 (ill., color, fig. 16). Justin Spring, “An Interview with George Tooker,” American Art 16 (Spring 2002), cover (ill., color, detail), 68 (ill., color, fig. 4), 69. An Intimate Eye (brochure) (University Park, PA: Palmer Museum of Art, 2005), 12 (no. 16). Paul Cadmus, letter to James and Barbara Palmer, June 21, 1995. Lincoln Kirstein, Paul Cadmus (San Francisco: Pomegranate Artbooks, 1992), 68, 69 (ill., color), 70, 136. Cadmus, French, and Tooker: The Early Years (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1990), n.p. Lincoln Kirstein, Quarry, A Collection in Lieu of Memoirs (Pasadena: Twelvetrees Press, 1986), 52 (ill., color). Lincoln Kirstein, Paul Cadmus (New York: Imago Imprint, 1984; Rizzoli, 1986), 66, 67 (ill.), 68, 135. John Caldwell, “A Look at the Career of Paul Cadmus,” New York Times, June 13, 1982. H. McB. [Henry McBride], “Attractions in the Galleries,” New York Sun, November 25, 1949 (ill.). Paul Cadmus: Paintings, 1938–1949 (brochure) (New York: Midtown Galleries, 1949), n.p. (no. 23). Painting in the United States, 1947 (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Institute, 1947), n.p. (no. 19, pl. 116).