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; Paul Cadmus: Still Life Portrait Tableau, Midtown Payson Galleries, New York, November 11 - December 10, 1994; Cadmus, French, and Tooker: The Early Years, Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris, February 28 - May 5, 1990; Paul Cadmus: Yesterday & 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, May 20 - July 11, 1982; Paintings: 1938–1949, Midtown Galleries, New York, NY, November 22 - December 17, 1949; Painting in the United States, 1947, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA, October 9 - December 7, 1947.ProvenanceMidtown Galleries, New York Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln Kirstein, New York, by 1947 Gift from Kirstein to Paul Cadmus, after 1992 Acquired in 1995 from Midtown Payson Galleries, New YorkPublished ReferencesCadmus, French, and Tooker: The Early Years (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris, 1990), n.p. Cadmus, Paul, letter to James and Barbara Palmer, June 21, 1995. Caldwell, John, “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.). Kirstein, Lincoln, Paul Cadmus (New York: Imago Imprint, 1984; Rizzoli, 1986), 66, 67 (ill.), 68, 135. Kirstein, Lincoln, Quarry, A Collection in Lieu of Memoirs (Pasadena: Twelvetrees Press, 1986), 52 (ill., color) Kirstein, Lincoln, Paul Cadmus (San Francisco: Pomegranate Artbooks, 1992), 68, 69 (ill., color), 70, 136 Painting in the United States, 1947 (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Institute, 1947), n.p. (no. 19), (ill., pl. 116). Paul Cadmus: Paintings, 1938–1949 (brochure) (New York: Midtown Galleries, 1949), n.p. (no. 23). Robinson, Joyce Henri et al. A Gift from the Heart: American Art from the Collection of James and Barbara Palmer (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013) ii, 89, 98n21, 138, 167-177, (ill. ii, 88, 176). Robinson, Joyce Henri, "University Park, Pennsylvania | An American Place: Selections from the James & Barbara Palmer Collection," American Art Review, Vol. XXXIII no. 4 (2021): 117-118, 119 (ill.). Silver, Kenneth E., Jed Perl and Barry Bergdoll. Connecticut Modern: Art, Design, and the Avant-Garde, 1930-1960 (Greenwich, Connecticut: The Bruce Museum, 2023) 70 (ill.color). Spring, Justin, “An Interview with George Tooker,” American Art 16 (Spring 2002), cover (ill., color, detail), 68 (ill., color, fig. 4), 69 Weinberg, Jonathan, “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).