Paul Cadmus’s Jerry is a not-so-subtle dedication to the artist’s lover.

Chilling across white bed sheets lies the artist Jared French, a dark-eyed, blonde-haired, bonafide babe. Our handsome fella with the excellent mustache was born in Ossining, New York before he and the family moved to Asbury Park, New Jersey. Paul and Jared met early in the Roaring Twenties, at the Art Students League. It wasn’t long before they decided to embark on a Euro-trip between 1931-1933.

These young, strapping American blokes enjoyed the sights of their grand European tour on bicycles. The men then set up shop in Mallorca, taking a short rest from their years of travel. They chose the fishing village Puerto de Andratx as the spot for their studio. Paul and Jared would live here together for two years, enjoying the local culture, the great weather, and one another’s company.

Jerry is the first of two portraits Cadmus painted of his lover, who also acted as a model for other images Cadmus painted of the male physique. He hold in this painting the novel "Ulysses" by James Joyce, which was a meaningful and cheeky inclusion by Cadmus. When it was first published in the United States, the magazine serially publishing the text was brought to trial for obscenity, specifically for a passage that alludes to masturbation. The book was effectively banned, making it all the more popular with Americans with an eye towards European modernism and progressive thinking, like Cadmus and French. Interestingly, historians have argued that the obscene passage in question was so metaphoric and vague that most readers probably wouldn't have even understood it was about masturbation, and that it was the magazine's publication of erotic poetry by Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven alongside "Ulysses" passages that influenced the accusations of obscenity. 

Though their monogamous coupling didn’t last, Paul and Jared maintained an intimate romantic relationship even when Jared married Margaret Hoening. The trio formed a somewhat unconventional (especially for the time) polyamorous relationship, living together on Fire Island. Jared, Paul and Margaret went on to make great art, and were reluctantly associated with the movement Magical Realism. They dubbed their small photographic collective PaJaMa, an acronym formed from the first two letters of each of their names, and took black and white photos of their fabulous friends - young artists, writers and dancers from New York City, many of whom were gay.