TitleThe Fleet's In!
Artist
Paul Cadmus
(American, 1904 - 1999)
Date1934
MediumEtching on cream German etching paper
DimensionsSheet size: 18 1/16 × 14 1/2 in.
Plate size: 7 3/8 × 14 in.
Mat size: 16 × 20 in.
Edition27/35 (II)
SignedSigned in graphite at lower right: "Paul Cadmus".
MarkingsBlindstamps for The Print Cabinet and Richard Waller at BL recto.
SubmissionNA diploma presentation, October 6, 1980
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number1980.70.1
Label TextPaul Cadmus was one of the best known figurative artists of the twentieth century and part of a larger group of artists that became known as "magic realists" that also included Jared French, George Tooker, and others. Cadmus was born the son of artists and studied a traditional curriculum of drawing from the figure at the National Academy of Design in the early 1920s. He exhibited widely throughout the decade and worked right up to his death at the ripe old age of ninety-five. As illustrated in this etching, one of a group he created in the mid-1930s, Cadmus was a draughtsman extraordinaire and was able to render the human figure with unequalled sensitivity and detail.The etching of The Fleet's In! is taken after Cadmus' most controversial painting. Created for the Navy while the artist was working under the aegis of the Works Progress Administration, the painting was shown at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1934. The assistant secretary of the Navy ordered it to be removed for the exhibition, objecting to its depiction of sailors in such a lascivious manner. It became a "succes du scandale" and prompted the artist to write "I owe the start of my career really to the Admiral who tried to suppress it. I didn't feel any moral indignation about those sailors, even though it wouldn't be my idea of a good time. The girls are not particularly attractive, neither are the sailors as a matter of fact, in this picture. But I always enjoyed watching them when I was young. I somewhat envied the freedom of their lives and their lack of inhibitions."
